Cañada Bonita

The Las Conchas Fire in 2011 reached the ski hill above Los Alamos and came close to one of my favorite trails, the Cañada Bonita Trail, which goes from the ski area to the Cañada Bonita meadow and thence to the Valle Grande to the west or to Guaje Ridge and Guaje Canyon to the north. I take the gentle hike through the forest to the meadow and then return to the ski area. (See also a previous post about the wildflowers along the trail.) But after the fire, I didn't go up there for fear of what I'd see.

Thursday I took Frankey up for a walk to see what the fire had done and to play with my new camera, which I'm still getting used to. The trailhead still looks pretty normal.



The middle third of the trail to the meadow, however, shows the effects of the fire. Although the aspens and mixed conifers were burned, the aspens, grasses, and wildflowers are returning in abundance.

In some places the grasses and weeds almost covered the trail. The wildflowers were growning in profusion on the slopes.



The forest used to be so thick that I don't recall ever noticing these rocks.

 

The final third of the trail to the meadow looks much as it used to.

 

And Cañada Bonita was gorgeous, as usual.








Here are some flowers and berries we saw along the trail.

Baneberry. Do not eat them unless you enjoy the feel of battery acid or hellfire.

 Horsemint is common.

Paintbrushes tell me that summer is almost over.

The wild raspberries are getting ripe. Frankey ate one.

Busman's Holiday, Part 4: Mesa Verde

When I was a kid, it seemed that all the kids in my class got to a) eat enchiladas every Wednesday at the S-Site cafeteria and b) go to Mesa Verde National Park. The Hansons seemed to go regularly, and the kids at school would say, "Oh, we went to Mesa Verde for the weekend." "We camped at Mesa Verde." "We always go to Mesa Verde."

I never ate at the S-Site Cafeteria until I a team leader at the lab, and I had never been to Mesa Verde. But on our way back home from Salt Lake City, we stopped and visited Mesa Verde National Park. Woo-HOO!

The Spruce Tree House is visible from the visitors' center, and you can tour the ruins without a guide.

The Cliff Palace, on the other hand, is off limits unless you have a ticket for a guided tour with a ranger.

People tossed coins onto a ledge by the Cliff Palace. Maybe they were making wishes.

"I wish I will stay on solid ground and not fall into the canyon."

It was hard to bring in the groceries at the Cliff Palace.

You can see the results of two lightning-caused fires from 2000.

I just liked this.

Nature bats last.

Busman's Holiday, Part 3: Southern Utah

John Steinbeck, in Travels with Charley, said that Yellowstone National Park is "a wonderland of nature gone nuts." So is southern Utah. Click on an image to enlarge it.

Church Rock, north of Monticello, Utah, features three divisions of Entrada sandstone: the uppermost Moab tongue caps a thick Slickrock member, with the Dewey Bridge member as the base.

We spent a day at Arches National Park. According to an "artist in the park," whom Michele characterized as "a bumptious lass," a photograph of the Three Gossips is a requirement of all who enter. We did not want to be arrested or sent home, so we took a picture.

Michele and Frankey enjoyed the scenery.

Here's an arch in the making.

A balanced rock.

Sandstone formations with the La Sal Mountains in the background.

A Shoe and Kev Special.

One of more than 2000 arches in the park.

More arches. Click to enlarge and see the people.

Delicate Arch is the most famous formation in the park. We couldn't go on the trail to it with Frankey, so we just enjoyed the view from below.

A cliff wall and desert varnish at Park Avenue.

Sunset, moonrise, and alpenglow

Back in the summer of 1980, P and I went to Oregon to visit his brother and sister-in-law. We took several day trips with them, including a drive to one of the state's rocky beaches in the south. We stayed for the sunset there, and scores of other folks sat on the rocks or stood on the shore watching as the sun set. The only sound was that of the waters of the Pacific. And as "the last lights off the black West went," the people dispersed in utter silence.

Another time P and I were driving back on US 64 from Cimarron after an evening of high-school basketball. The moon was rising over the plains, and the conditions that night made the moon appear red. We pulled over to watch. As we stood on the side of the road, other cars pulled over, and the occupants got out to watch. No one spoke or exclaimed.

The afternoon of New Year's Day, Michele and I took our cameras to the Anderson Overlook. It had snowed on the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and alpenglow was the draw for us. As we stood taking photographs, about six other carloads of folks stopped, and they took pictures too, or just stood looking at the spectacular view.

Here are some of my images. Click to enlarge.

I really like this one.

I cherish these times when I and people I love and perfect strangers stand together in silence to appreciate the beauty around us.

Sedona

We spent the last two days of our vacation in Sedona at the Canyon Wren Cabins bed and breakfast. The Canyon Wren is six miles up Oak Creek Canyon from Sedona. It's very cool, and you should go. We stayed in the Morning Glory, one of the four cabins on the property.

Here's the living room, with its wood-burning fireplace. In the 90°+ heat, we didn't need a fire.

The stairs go up to the sleeping loft. You can see the air conditioner opposite the skis. We love air conditioning, baton twirling, liking people, and living in America.

Here's the little kitchen, with the patio visible through the doors. Every day the proprietors left chocolate brownies with peanut butter and caramel in them on the counter.

Here's the sleeping loft.

A balcony is right off the loft.

The area around Sedona is famous for the red rock monoliths and formations and for the red dirt.

After our hike to one of the energy vortexes, the soles of my sneakers were stained by the red dirt. Even after washing, the soles are still reddish brown. Vortical coincidence? I think not.

The most colorful place in the world in black and white

Here are some images of the Grand Canyon that I saved as black and white. I really like the last one.

Did you see Uranus?

After the Grand Canyon, Michele and I spent a couple days in Flagstaff; ever since she was little, Michele had always wanted to see the Lowell Observatory. We took the Pluto Tour. First stop for us was the Clark Telescope Dome, where Percival Lowell seached for Planet X. Here is the 24-inch Alvan Clark telescope that Lowell used.

The dome is constructed with wooden beams. It originally turned on a system of iron wheels and rails developed by two bicycle repairmen. In the mid 1950s pickup tires, complete with shiny hubcaps, replaced the worn-out wheels. Occasionally a tire will blow out or have a flat, and the observatory must order special reproductions.

Percival Lowell's chair sits on a special platform so he could comfortably use the telescope.

Lowell's mausoleum is right next to the Clark dome.

Here is the blink comparator that Clyde Tombaugh used to find Planet X, which was afterwards named Pluto. The blink comparator is a microscope that optically superimposes two photographic plates, "blinking" between them so rapidly that the two plates look like one. This device allowed Tombaugh to compare the plates and look for any discrepancies between them. It is way cool.

Here's what Tombaugh saw.

This is an early computing machine.

Tombaugh used photographic plates exposed for three hours. He'd make two photographs taken a couple days apart, then compare the images on the blink comparator. You can also see the clock drive that keeps the star or planet from drifting out of the field of view.

The roof of this little observatory slides onto the framework in the foreground. To the left is another small observatory used mostly for observing Titan, one of the moons of Saturn.

You should go. The Lowell Observatory is awesome!