Thursday, November 30, 2017

A season of Lost Lake....

2017 was the year of "Old Dog Adventures"... Meaning that Kona, the 'old dog' wasn't really up for much hiking, so we did a lot exploration by car with short hike/walks as dictated by what the dog was willing to do. We decided it would be a good year to explore the Uintas, where there are some less steep hikes than what the Wasatch offers. We headed up the first week the Mirror Lake highway was open, and then the second, and then decided our quest for the summer would be make it up to Lost Lake for a weekly photo as well as explore other areas of the Uintas.

As it turned out it proved quite interesting to go the same place every week and see what changes mother nature had in store for us, I especially had fun watching the transition of the wild flowers over an entire season.

Week 1 June 9 - the first week the Mirror Lake Highway was open

Week 2 June 18
Week 3 June 25
Week 4 July 2
Week 5 July 9
Week 6 July 16
Week 7 July 23
Week 8 July 29
Week 9 August 5
Week 10 - August 13
Week 11 August 19
Week 12 August 28
Week 13 Sept 2
Week 14 Sept 10
Week 15 Sept 17
Week 16 Sept 24 Kaboom... on the way to Uintas in a snow storm the BF's car made a loud thunking sound, lost power, coasted to stop and ended it's life with a few engine flames... thus ending our weekly Lost Lake streak.

Week 17 Oct 1

Week 19 Oct 15
Week 23 November 12

Sunday, October 22, 2017

Spiraling the Jetty again.

An amazing place revisited... every trip to the spiral jetty is unique. The seasons, the light, the weather, the time of day all coalesce to paint a new and different picture of the same place. Perhaps this was part of Smithson's vision, art changing with nature. This trip was my first time there at sunset, and it was a spectacular sunset! Try as might, pictures do not even begin to capture the view from this night. I did play around a bit with my in camera HDR to attempt to capture the scene, but none of my photos truly gives justice to the evenings beauty. Sometiems you just have to be there!

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Shooting the Shit

Literally.

I never realized that saying was one that was so steeped in literal origins, but, apparently it is. Back in the spring while adventuring across the west desert we found what we thought was an odd case of bullet holes inside the Simpson Springs outhouse. Odd enough to me that I turned it into a creative writing contest, asking my friends to post their imagined scenarios of explanations for our odd find. And then last weekend... We were out exploring again. This time we headed east and stumbled upon the ghost town of Piedmont, Wyoming, an old railroad town based around charcoal kilns that supplied Salt Lake City and the Union Pacific Railroad trains. As ghost towns go, Piedmont was pretty cool. The kilns are preserved as historic landmark, and there are several old decaying buildings still in existance. Enought that you could wonder what the place was like back in the day. There was one small building made of rusted corregated steel, which I assumed was a shed unil walking around to the open side and discovering it was actually a four hole outhouse. Now there's a first... I've seen many two holers in my life, and often pondered "Why?" as in "Why would you want to go to the potty in pairs?", but a four holer really makes you wonder what three people in the world you like enough to want to defecate with. If that was not thought provoking enough, the building ws riddled with holes... bullet holes, which on close inspection we realized were not from it being a distant target, but from shots fired from inside the outhouse. Putting on our forensic science thinking caps and examining the curvature of the metal 'Exit Wound" we realized that the bullets were shot from inside the outhouse, most likely from the proximity of the four holers.

Now once again I have to ask the question, who shoots bullets from inside an outhouse???? What is the scenario this time? Four fellows, after a few beers and a can of beans,taking a dump, one of the guys lets her rip... flatulence that is. Another of the three fellows can't stand the smell and decides to ventilate the room using his handy side arm? Gives new meaning the the expression "Shooting the shit!" doesn't it? And here are some photos of the rest of the ghost town and historic charcoal kilns of Piedmont, WY...

Monday, August 21, 2017

'Tis the season...

... wildflower season that is. Albion Basin in Alta, Utah is world renowned for it's mountain wild flowers. One of my favorite places in the winter is also a favorite place in the summer. My love for the wild flowers might be rivaled by that of the hummingbirds, who were busily gathering nectar among the horse mint.