Recently in Utah Landscape Category

With a few high clouds lingering a little before sunset on Monday, I made a snap decision to drive out to Red Canyon. About 15 miles west of the park on Utah Highway 12, Red Canyon is the same Claron Formation sediments as Bryce Canyon. It is actually better at sunset since it is on the western side of the plateau, while Bryce, facing east, provides better photo ops at sunrise. Hoodoo formation is quite as dramatic, but there are a few, and this one, right next to the highway, happened to be perfectly aligned with some of the clouds to frame up a photo.


Tough Tuesday Birding: The weather has been mild lately, with no significant snow now since the storm over the holidays. Unfortunately the wind was howling both of my days off this week and it certainly kept the birds lying low. I still ended up finding 14 species, two of which - Cassin's Finch and Mountain Bluebird - were "year birds". This Bald Eagle was one of several I saw (I didn't count individuals, but probably 7 or 8 total). It was pretty far away and I had to crop this image rather dramatically just to get this. The head and tail are both kind of dirty looking with brown feathers mixed in with the white so, if we were aging this bird, my guess is we're looking at an eagle just entering its fifth year. In another year those feathers will be white as new fallen snow.

Clouds preceding the front that started coming in Friday evening made for a pretty spectacular sunset. Having a cool rock formation in the foreground would probably have been better, but I had just come home from work and didn't have time to do much but grab the camera, set up a tripod at the back of my trailer, and shoot through the Ponderosa Pines. 

This portion of the Colorado Plateau is known as the "High Plateaus" region, with Bryce Canyon forming from headward erosion of one of those plateaus, the Paunsaugunt. The Sevier Plateau lies to the north and its highest point, Mount Dutton, is over 11,000 feet (3,365 m) high. There's a forest service road that climbs up to Dutton and we took a ride up there yesterday. While most of the rock you'll find in southern Utah is sedimentary, this area is volcanic, and several million years younger in age than, for example, Bryce. One of the interesting aspects of the drive is some of the interesting forms that are created as the basaltic rocks erode.

The sad part is that, unfortunately, a few years ago an Rx fire got out of control and burned thousands of acres. We drove past several miles of burned out Aspens like these (with some conifers in the mix, too). While there are signs of the forest beginning to regenerate, it looks like it will be many years before it returns to what was probably an incredible drive in the Fall. We never did make all the way to the top, it was too depressing seeing all that dead forest.

Around this time last year a right nasty Fall storm came in just as the aspens were peaking and I got only a couple of photos before all the leaves were blown of the trees. I almost blew it this time but, on Tuesday as I was doing some chores early in the day, I decided that maybe I just ought to load up the dog and my camera gear then head up into the high country. That turned out to be a fortuitous decision because, as I type, this year's Fall storm is just arriving and I'm 2 days away from my days off and another chance at the aspens. Given that most of these were taken above 9,500 feet (2,895 m) and there's supposed to be several inches of snow up that high, even if the leaves weren't all blown off by the wind that is sure to follow the front, the road would probably be impassible on Monday or Tuesday when I would be able to go back up. Lucky me!

Once again I've used Flash to put together a slide show; there are 10 images in the sequence - click on the thumbnail to open the show, then click the green arrows (right forward, left back) to navigate through the images. Enjoy!

I've been really bad about posting much but it just seems like there hasn't been much to write about or, when I do have an idea, it just never comes together for some reason. This past week has been something of an adventure at times or I have a day like last Monday when it was all shot to hell because it was time for the periodic shopping trip to the "big" city (Cedar City is 85 miles away and the nearest "major" shopping). I did take a trip out on Tuesday (my other day off) to Willis Creek Canyon and got a few new shots of it - and Roxy enjoyed romping in the creek while we hiked in to the canyon's narrows.

The last week has been an adventure in other ways, too. A friend ordered a print from me and it took several days of purging ink cartridges before I got my printer working correctly - guess I need to use it more (somebody else want to buy something!!!! ). Actually, I'll be printing things soon for the Space Coast Festival in January and it will be getting a workout for that project.

Then it has been miserably cold the past few days (it is 17 and falling as I write) and the first one caught me by surprise. You see, living in a trailer where your water supply hose is exposed to the elements means that one has to be extra careful when temps hit the teens. I thought things would be fine if I left the water running at a trickle but I was wrong: it froze. Thankfully nothing was damaged by the freeze and now the procedure is to disconnect the hose every night - at least until things warm up a little - and hook it all back up in the morning.

When I haven't been playing with the water or beating on my printer I've been prepping and uploading images to the gallery on my website. I am really far behind on that, too; most of the recent additions have been landscapes and a bunch of long overdue Prairie Dog pictures for you rodent lovers out there (the local Utah Prairie Dogs are, by the way, down for the season and hibernating - haven't seen one for about 3 weeks). I'm working on plant stuff now and then will probably attack the birds next because I'm way, way behind on them, too.

Speaking of birds, it was 2 weeks ago when I saw my first Bald Eagle in the area and now I'm up to four. It seems like I see more raptors than anything (sparrows a close second); on the way back from Willis I spotted a Kestrel sitting atop a fence post devouring some small morsel (think it was a grasshopper). And every time I leave the park I see harriers soaring around in different locations; saw two yesterday on my way to turkey dinner (as well as the fourth eagle: a 3 year old standing in a large, open field - okay, cow pasture - and hanging out with the ravens).

Oh well, enough rambling for now. It is getting late and I need to go disconnect the water. Try to stay warm!

Yesterday was a day for more exploring and I headed out first to The Cockscomb because I wanted to take this picture since the light was less favorable the last time out. The view is looking north on Cottonwood Road and the rocks on the left are Carmel Formation sandstone (deposited on the margins of a shallow sea); those on the right are Entrada Sandstone. Both formations date from middle to late Jurassic, the Endtrada Sandstones deposited in dunes atop the Carmel Sandstone as the Carmel Sea retreated. Hence, in most places where both are exposed the Carmel would be below the Entrada, but here they are adjacent to one another as a result of the folding of the Earth's crust along the East Kaibab Monocline. Cool, huh?

This is a huge wedge of sandstone barely visible in the previous photo where it is just popping up over the distant ridge near the center of the image. Not sure but I think it may be Henrieville Sandstone which lies atop the Entrada. Note the trees at the base - they are probably at least 12 - 15 feet tall and dwarfed by this huge slab of rock that was forced up by the fold. Also note the high tension power lines near the bottom of the photo. I know people need power and all but why was it necessary to run two sets of giant poles through such amazing amazing scenery? I sure it has to do with shortest distance and easiest route (and they probably pre-date the monument) but they are an eyesore.

The day wrapped up with a visit to Kodachrome Basin State Park - just 25 miles from Bryce, but a place I had yet to visit though I'd driven past several times. The big attraction here are the over 50 "sedimentary pipes" that dot the landscape. The process that forms them isn't completely understood and it is believed that liquefied sand is forced up into portions of these sediments, resulting in harder rock. When the softer rock that surrounds it erodes away, only the pipe remains. They are formed in Entrada Sandstone, a pretty common rock 'round these parts. In fact, most of that cliff in the background is Entrada; the redder portion at the bottom known as the Gunsight Butte Member and the white with red stripes portion called the Cannonville Member. You may remember that the dinosaur tracks from a couple of weeks ago were also in the Entrada (Escalante Member, though we climbed up the Cannonville to reach the print site).

I had heard there are lots of Chukars (a bird introduced to North America for hunting purposes) at Kodachrome but I didn't see any. I had also heard there were lots of jackrabbits there, too, and, while I didn't see them either, you know they were around with all the pellets on the ground . . .

Today we ventured out Cottonwood Road into the Grand Staircase to an area that we've visited before and, no doubt, will visit again: The Cockscomb. This is an area where the sedimentary layers have been thrust upward along another monoclinal fold. This fold is known as the East Kaibab Monocline and stretches from near Flagstaff, Arizona to the Table Cliffs a short distance from Bryce, a total length of some 240 km (150 miles). I need to verify but believe the rock to be Carmel Formation and Entrada Sandstone, both from the mid-Jurassic. There's a whole series of these formations jutting skyward along the road along with some other interesting things that will require a visit earlier in the day sometime soon.