Rock Art at Capital Reef

September 22, 2018

Petroglyphs made by the ancient Native Americans of the Fremont culture are visible in several parts of Capitol Reef National Park. The easiest ones to see are are right along the road, just east of the historic Fruita School. Their meaning is still unknown. Hopefully they will not be destroyed until we learn their secrets.

They are just off the road, accessible to all,  and protected by keeping the visitors on a walkway. A huge piece of rock containing other petroglyphs split off the main rock and broke up in the 1950's , destroying other petroglyphs here.

I had the hardest time locating ANY of the petroglyphs until someone helped me discover a few of them. I finally got my petroglyph eyes and started seeing them. The camera could see them better. I came back twice, because the sun was too bright to see all the details the first time I visited.

There are many quite tiny figures, some fading away more than others

The cliffs there are stunningly beautiful - but falling down

Apparently they had most of the animals we have today

Elk?

There were also people

More people, surrounded by animals - these are less than a foot high

This was my favorite group of people

This may be a big horn sheep - just not sure

Big horn and wolf?

More modern graffitti

When this comes up, I'll be playing in Corpus Christi. Then I'll be going to Galveston/Houston to vote.  play and also get my car inspected.

Preview of My Next Summer Home

September 28 - Oct 17

I already knew I was going to have a very hard working and enthusiastic boss for next year, just by  our emails and phone conversations. I had  to make reservations at Capitol Reef and Grand Canyon National Parks in the early spring, in order to visit them on the way home. I guessed on the dates that the weather would be nice.  I could have left a little later. So I asked my next summer's  boss if she would like me to volunteer for a few weeks. She was enthusiastic  about it so I drove on down there from the Grand Canyon.
I got settled in my house by a summer tech and the tractor guy.  I had to wait until the following Monday to meet my boss.  I spent Saturday driving up to find fall aspens in the San Juan Mountains. Great Sandhills National Park is very near so I visited there on Sunday. My boss picked me up Monday morning just as I was leaving to go meet her, and we went to a three refuge staff meeting where I got to meet most of the staff.  All of them seem to be fantastic team players and fun people.

Sunrise out my front door

I had a different but still glorious sunrise almost every day 

Morning light on the San Juan Mountains to the west of my house

I went up into the San Juan mountains looking for fall aspens and was not disappointe

My little house

The big push for the first few days was to get ready for the Kids Crane Festival. I helped print stuff out, did cleaning, and learned two refuges as I put out hunting brochures and cleaned the toilets.  I was invited to a going away party for one of the staff who had gotten a job at another refuge. On my second Saturday, I helped set up and tear down the festival and then served as the festival photographer. I assured my boss that I knew how to take kids having fun from the back.

The blue goose showed up to the delight of the kids

The volunteers and staff eating just before the festival started 

My boss assigned me to take some sandhill crane pictures to put on Facebook to remind followers of the festival, but the cranes were AOL until the following Sunday.  Then I got about 28 good pictures of about 200 cranes.

Sandhill cranes near the visitor viewing area

Groups of sandhills were flying in and out while I watched them 

A view on the Alamosa Refuge

Got to have a rainbow without the rain

There are very few birds around - blackbirds, starlings, sparrows, magpies, and ravens plus some ducks and grebes

Another job on my list was to gather up all the retired metal refuge signs and paint over the words so we could recycle them.  I worked on that project parts of two days.  I loaded them into the car to haul to the recyclers when I was in the Alamosa refuge.  On one of the days I couldn't spray, I hauled all three hundred thirty-eight of them to recycling and earned the refuge sixty-three dollars.

My favorite job was going to be getting to spray weeds from a UTV. My boss took me shopping for a helmet- they didn't have any for pinheads -  and the summer tech hauled my UTV over to Alamosa where he showed me where to spray.  But when we went to mix up the spray, we didn't have the Milestone at Alamosa and had to go back to Monte Vista, forty-five minutes away. By the time I got back, the winds were howling and no spraying could happen.

So I changed to vacuuming the Visitor Center at Alamosa and printing two hundred wildlife brochures. Then I again started getting ready to spray the following day but the winds were still a gale so I only added water to my tank.  I was late leaving to go home so I ate supper in Alamosa before I saw that the gas light was on in my vehicle. I bought a little gas in Alamosa but the light came back on just before I got home.

We had a lot of gorgeous clouds while I was there - this was on the way home from recycling

It snowed several times on the mountains  - this is the San Juans

The next morning was going to be a beautiful day to spray so I left to go the the Monte Vista maintenance shop for gas before dawn.  But alas, I couldn't make the gas tank work. I figured that they had the electricity turned off but couldn't find the switch.  I finally decided to walk home and get my personal car. I came back and got everything I needed for the day - my helmet, gloves, and  jacket. I drove over to Alamosa - by this time it was mid morning, only to realize the Milestone was STILL in the van and the wind was starting to pick up. At that point, I just gave up spraying until next summer. I went into town to the resale shop and found a huge crock pot.  While I was testing it, I ran into Zach, the summer tech who had just morphed into a volunteer so he could continue to live on the refuge until he started back to school. I asked him if he liked using a crock pot.  When he said yes, I offered it to him for the winter. He was delighted to supervise my pot until I return next April.

I caught this coyote while driving between refuges - put had another one hunting on my walking route to my house

This mule deer was very interested in me

My boss texted me the location of the gas pump switch, so I was able to spend Saturday cleaning out the van, and gassing it up before using it to haul trash, recyclables, and a broken dresser from my house. Then I spent the rest of the day packing me back up and cleaning the house and shutting it down.

I left early Sunday morning in an attempt to beat the incoming winter weather but caught freesing fog as I moved through the Sangre de Cristo mountains. I saw a little rain and snow the rest of the day but Amarillo, my planned evening camping spot was also under a winter weather watch. I decided to drive straight down to  daughter Kris's house, finally reaching it at ll:00 PM, just ahead of that front. In Texas it became a flooding rain with eighteen counties declared disasters. I spent my time with Kris waiting for the next storm, or trying to take the the dogs for a walk between rains.

We visited Pedernales Falls State Park to check out the flooded river

Me and two of the granddogs

My boss manages two refuges, Monte Vista and Alamosa.  There is a third refuge, Baca, that has a different manager but all are part of the San Luis Valley Refuge Complex and I hope to also get to work at Baca some of the time.

A Visit to Great Sand Dunes National Park

September 30, 2018

I was excited to see that Great Sand Dunes National Park  is only about an hour away from Monte Vista National Wildlife Area. I remembered going there with some friends who had moved from Louisiana to Colorado when my children were small.  At that time,  we camped in old beat up  pop up trailer with holy canvas, as well as in the back of a covered pickup and rode in the back of that covered pickup looking like migrants as we toured several places in Colorado.  This was one of them. 

I don’t think we climbed the dues as our children were probably between two and eight years old. I decided to rectify that this trip.  I started early and got almost to the Park by the time the sun rose. You don’t see the dunes on the way in, until you are almost there, but you are driving towards the the Sangre de Cristo Mountains which overlook the dunes. Just before you  get to them, you take a left turn to reach the accessible area of the park.  

It was too early for the Visitor Center to be open, so I parked in the parking lot for hikes into the dunes, and prepared to hike.  It was barely warm enough that I thought I could get along without my jacket, but I had worn a long sleeved shirt. The dunes were beautiful in the early light and had long shadows helping to better define them.  

There is a big field of sand between the parking lot and the dunes. It was a hard slog just to get  to the base of the dunes.  I hoped to climb to the highest dune.  I ended up picking the wrong path and, when I got to the top, I saw I would have to climb down a long ways before I could climb up again.  It had taken to crawling to beat the steep slope because my legs were sinking almost the length of my stride and I couldn’t move fast enough to make much progress walking. AND I was already exhausted. By this time the sun was too high for pictures anyway, so I sort of skied back down part of the way and walked the rest. 

Sunrise coloring a cloud over the Sangre de Christo Mountains

Sun lighting up the Sangre de Cristo Mountains

Before the sun hit the sand dunes

Dunes in sunlight and shadow

Hikers on dunes

Wind carved dunes 

My shadow

A field of little pitted dunes

Ripples

A closer up look of my shadow and the textures on the dunes. Several have gone before me.

A bigt of dune grass

A closeup of the sand.  I was surprised at the colors and roundness.

As I climbed higher, I could get more of this field

Footprints mostly don't have definition

Textures

Shadowed sculptures

Shadows are getting harsher

Another, higher view - and the right path to the highest dune

Dune landscape

Still heading up

Another landscape

Sand sculptures on a very large scale

I was amazed at the knife edge some of the dunes had - and the two very different sides

Huge sculpture

Textures

These are my footprints along the edge of a dune

This is a footprint from the ridged side of the dune just above- the sand flows out of the footprint and
 forms fingers in the ridges

A very peaceful place

These willows were glowing in the sun which backlit them

The last mullein bloom

A distant view of a pronghorn buck who was guarding his harem - in the hollow behind him

I spent a little time in the very lovely and informative visitor center and listened to a talk by a ranger about how the sand dunes formed. Most of the sand comes from the San Juan Mountains.  Wind patterns and water keep it locked against the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.  The dunes are super stable and look almost identical to pictures taken over one hundred years ago.  Most of the park is Wilderness and can only be accessed by horse or four wheel drive, so I don’t know how much of it I’ll get to see. But I’m sure I’ll go visit it again next spring as this is where I’ll be living and working mid April to mid October. 

I will be traveling to Texas when this blog comes out.  I finish working at Monte Vista/Alamosa, Friday. I'll give you a little taste of the refuges soon.