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!

Off to see the Cranes

Last Sunday morning at 11 Shin said to me... "I think we have a window. If we leave now we can get to Kearney and have a day of good weather. Are you game?" We'd been watching the weather for a break in storms so we could cross Wyoming and Nebraska and have decent Sandhill Crane viewing weather. Game I was, so by noonish we were in the car heading east. Made it to North Platte on Sunday, then over to Kearney very early on Monday. Spent the day and evening finding all the birdy places, got up for the dawn bird viewing on Tuesday, then headed back home, with a small detour so I could see a little of my old Sandhills stomping grounds.

For those that aren't familiar, the Sandhill Crane migration is one of earth's major animal migrations. During March, 80% of the world's Sandhill Cranes (over 500,000 birds) enroute from the south (Mexico, New Mexico, Texas etc.) to their breeding grounds in the north (Alaska, Canada, Siberia), spend a month on a section of North Platte River fattening themselves up for the journey. At night they all converge to roost in the shallows of the river, at daybreak they fly off to forage in surrounding corn fields, then return again at night.

I'm a bit under equipped lens wise for good bird pics, but even if I had that long lens to better capture close up birds, close ups don't show the sheer number of birds in the water and in the sky. During the nightly fly-in you'd really need some sort of 360' virtual reality gear to capture the experience; birds flocking in from left, from the right, from behind, squawking in every direction. You also need audio, as the cacophony of calling cranes is an experience in itself. Even daytime corn field foraging birds were amazing, Sandhill Cranes are big 'displayers' and do a lot of 'happy dancing' so they are really fun to watch.

I know most folks don't think of Nebraska as a spring break destination, but if you're at all a nature lover, biology geek, or nerdy birdy type you should put spring in Nebraska on your bucket list!

Overcast weather had the birds flocking on the river during the day. We were told this is not typical

Flocks of birds flying in at sunset to roost for the night. Watching them fly in was amazing, there were flock in the sky in all directions, squawking up a storm as they flew in.

Cranes assembling in the shallows

Early morning take off. We were amazed by how many more birds were on the river when we returned in the morning compared to when we left the night before

Audubon Society's Rowe Sanctuary, a lovely nature center and viewing location right along the Platte River. The Crane Trust also had a wonderful and educational riverside nature center

The Gibbon observation deck

A few pictures are in my facebook album Off to see the cranes

Spiral Jetty Revisited

A fun northern Utah adventure... a trip to the Spiral Jetty, a rather famous 1970's land art installation. I'd been there a few years ago, back when the Great Salt Lake was much higher and the Jetty nearly under water, but now after years of drought the entire jetty is exposed, making it totally different experience.

We found lots of baby jettys on the shore.

While we were there we hiked the hill for the aerial view... and while we were there did a cheeseburger summit!

Having taken this adventure with my nerdy birdy friend April, we had to enjoy all the bird sitings along the way. I wish I had gotten a good shot of all the Long Billed Curlew we saw, but birds are so hard photograph with my meager 200mm lens. I was however pretty happy with shot of this great clutch of burrowing owls! Pretty cool eh?

After a hot springs soak we decide to a sunset spin through the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge would be fun. It was getting a little dark for bird pictures, but sunset is always spectacular there.

My photo question of the day... Which of these do you like better? I sure can't decide!

What a wonderful world...

I'm so lucky to live in a place with so many great outdoor activities right in my own back yard, so I can do cool things like go for great hikes after work and cooler that I have several groups of friends who like to hike so there is always something going on. This week I hiked on Wednesday and Thursday...

Wednesday's hike was up Neffs Canyon with my pottery studio hiking group; AKA "Hiking Buddies". We try to hike or mountain bike most every Wed and every weekend when the weather is good... It was a great (steep!) hike up to the wilderness area, we stopped at a lovely waterfall where we could get a nice view back towards the valley.

This weeks excitement was when one of the guys stepped on snake... he screamed and jumped, but the other guy with us reached right down and picked it up... it was an adorable little Rubber Boa.

Last nights hike was with a different group of friends... members of the UFA- the "Up For Anything"... last night "Anything" was a sunset dinner hike to the "Living Room", a spot high above the university were people have built a "room" full of chairs and tables made of stones. A perfect place to enjoy some wine and cheese and watch the sunset!

Bushwacking Wednesday...

OK, it is supposed to be "hiking Wednesday", but sometimes a good trail is hard to find. Today was one such day. It was mystery hike night. We had no plan, except to meet at Susan's and make a plan. Someone suggested Grizzly Gulch, up near Alta in Little Cottonwood Canyon. We weren't exactly sure where to find the trail though. Jess thought she knew, so we parked and headed up a narrow trail, straight up the mountain... into the willows, where it sort of disappeared. We bushwacked our way up to the cabin road, but once there, couldn't find the trail. We headed back down through the aspens, an easier route, and then found a trail alongside the gulch's creek. Alongside the creek, through the creek, scrambling over rocks and up steep creek beds. I wasn't entirely sure it was really a trail either, except for the deer, but after finding a tiny car wreck in the creek we knew someone besides deer has traveled that route. Finally, after scrambling up the steep hillside along the creek, we came over a ridge and found, ta-da, the old mining road that led to grizzly gulch.

From there finding the way was easy, a steep rocky road that wound through old mining areas, then narrowed into a trail, that took us to Twin Lakes Pass. The trail ascended about 1200 ft in a couple of miles, but seemed harder than it was, as we were hiking quickly since we knew that our slow bushwacking start meant we were racing the sun. We made it up to the pass, took a quick photo op, and headed down in the setting sun. A beautiful setting sun, which more than made up for the slow bushwacking and scrambling start of our hike.

Scrambling through the creek.


Up the gulch


A small car wreck!


Remnants from the mining days.

Twin Lakes Reservior, from Twin Lakes Pass