Early this morning I went back to the national wildlife refuge at the former Rocky Mountain Arsenal for the third time in the past couple of years. This time I was able to see a lot more of its almost 17,000 acres of open prairie. One of the largest of our 584 national wildlife refuge, it dwarfs the island of Manhattan, which by comparison is 14,478 acres.

The refuge offered free photo safaris by van that in three hours took eight of us much farther than the limited trail section that is otherwise the only area accessible to the public. Consequently, I was also able to see much more of the refuge’s wildlife than ever before.

Besides thousands of prairie dogs and many rabbits, we also saw lots of both white-tailed and mule deer.

Two Young Bucks in the Bush

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This More Mature Buck Also Still has Velvet on its Antlers

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A Coyote

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A Bison Calf Nurses

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A Bison Takes a Dust Bath

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We also saw many birds, including these pelicans. Just then, a great blue heron flew by:

Four White Pelicans and One Great Blue Heron

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A Young Red-Tailed Hawk

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A Juvenile Burrowing Owl

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Even though I had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to take this photo safari, it was worth it. I will certainly do it again.

My good luck held. After my exploration of Great Basin National Park in Nevada with my friend Mark, I had a few free days before I had to be back home. But I thought that I had already seen all of Nevada’s great natural beauty.

I was wrong, as I discovered when I happened to see some Leanin’ Tree postcards in a gas station mini-mart. I took note of them because the Leanin’ Tree Museum of Western Art in Boulder is one of my favorites. One of its postcards of Ruby Lake opened my eyes to the beauty that I might see there. Immediately I decided to go well out of my way to visit the Ruby Lake Natural Wildlife Refuge 150 miles northwest of Great Basin.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages 584 of these refuges. Every state has at least one of them. In fact, Nevada has seven.

While these refuges protect more than 200 species of fish, I would rather eat than photograph them. The refuges also protect 220 species of mammals and 250 species of reptiles and amphibians. But their great strength is their more than 700 species of birds. And now that my friend Sharon has turned me on to birding and I have a long telephoto lens, I really wanted to photograph birds after seeing so few of them on my trip to Nevada.

Ruby Lake is the outstanding bird refuge in Nevada. More than 220 species of birds regularly visit it. They have it easy, since they can fly there. People like me have to drive miles down dirt roads to reach this isolated outpost of birding. I went there on Tuesday, July 6, when Mark had to return to his job in Los Angeles. The nearest towns to Ruby Lake are Ely, Nevada, about 95 miles southeast, and Elko, Nevada, about 60 miles northwest. Few if any gas stations, restaurants, or motels are any closer.

But I am so glad that I went out of my way to see and photograph the birds of Ruby Lake. I finally got a chance to see many of Nevada’s birds.

A White-Faced Ibis

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An American Avocet

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My friend Mark and I bid farewell to Great Basin National Park in Nevada with our hike on the evening of Monday, July 5, to Lexington Arch. We set off to the arch at 4 p.m. and reached the overlook three hours later after driving about three-quarters of an hour to the trailhead and then making a rather easy but continuous climb of 1.7 miles. We reached the trailhead at 7,440 feet up a dirt road south of the guest ranch where we stayed. Then we hiked 830 feet to the overlook.

We had carefully planned the timing of our visit to the arch, but we hadn’t been able to learn what direction the overlook of the arch faced. Our first view of it disappointed us. The trail took us from the east, and our first view of the arch looked into the sun. We were not able to see through the arch to the sky beyond. Still, we did see bright sunlight streaming through the arch.

Lexington Arch from the Overlook

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The arch is the equivalent of six-stories of limestone on a hillside above Lexington Creek. Although I have seen and photographed many natural arches and bridges in the West, sandstone, not limestone, form almost all of them.

At the overlook, we noticed a much less obvious trail leading down toward the arch. Hoping that the trail would take us to the west side of the arch before the sun went down, we immediately set forth and went perhaps another half mile. We were in luck. There was the arch — mostly in shadows — but partly in the sun with the valley below in view through the arch.

Valley View

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Next, Mark and I took turns shooting each other standing under the arch itself.

Mark under Lexington Arch

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Me Under Lexington Arch

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Returning to the overlook, which has a bench as well as  view, we ate our picnic dinner of cold cuts. Finally, we hiked back down the trail to my SUV in the dark, reaching the guest ranch most before 10. Both of us have headlamps and needed them.

We had the arch to ourselves, not seeing another sole the entire evening. The hike was a fitting conclusion for our visit to Great Basin National Park, one of the most isolated national parks in the lower 48.

My friend Mark and I hiked the three-mile loop trail to two alpine lakes on the north flank of Wheeler and Jeff Davis peaks on July 5. This was the hike in Great Basin National Park that we postponed from the previous day because of drizzly weather on the mountain. But we had clear weather for our hike.

Jeff Davis Peak, Elevation 12,771, and Wheeler Peak, Elevation 13,065

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Teresa Lake, Elevation 10,230

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Stella Lake

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Parry's Primrose Grows by a Stream

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This was a hike worth the wait.

My friend Mark and I left Great Basin National Park for a while to celebrate the Fourth of July in the nearest city. We drove about 60 miles north to Ely, Nevada, population 4,000.

But on the way there, we drove up in the hills above Cave Lake State Park where we saw the biggest fields of flowers I have ever seen. Most of the flowers are Soft Arnica.

The View Down Canyon

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The View Up Canyon

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We drove on to Ely for a barbecue at the train depot followed by a ride in a historic train and culminating in a fireworks display. This was the first time in more than half a century that I had ridden on a train.

Engine 93, a steam engine built more than a century ago, led us out a few miles from the town.

Engine 93 is Ready to Go

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Waiting for the Train

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“N.C.C.Co.” on Engine 93 stands for the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company. In January 1909 the American Locomotive Company built the engine at its Pittsburgh works for that mining company. Today the White Pine Historical Railroad Foundation, a non-profit organization,  operates Engine 93 as a part of the former Nevada Northern Railway, which earlier had been a subsidiary of the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company.

Mark and I sat in the open car at the end of the train except for the caboose. Our hair got covered with cinders, but the open car offered by far the best photography.

The first hike that my friend Mark and I made in Great Basin National Park last week was to see a grove of bristlecone pines growing on the slopes of Wheeler Peak. We got an early start, but didn’t get to those ancient trees that grow at tree-line (around 11,000 feet)  before about 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 3. So we weren’t there at first light.

I wondering if the 3 1/2 mile hike would be worth it for the photography. Any hike is worth it for the exercise and to be out in nature!

I knew that we couldn’t capture the quality of light shining on the bristlecone pines that I had photographed a week earlier near the road leading to the top of Mount Evans, Colorado. That hike was at last light, which can be equally good for photography.

Seeing these weathered survivors in Nevada was nevertheless awe inspiring. Here researchers found the oldest non-clonal organism on this planet. That bristlecone pine tree nicknamed Prometheus was probably more than 5,000 years old when it died about 50 years ago. The Methuselah tree in California’s White Forest is 200 to 300 years younger.

The oldest identified tree that Mark and I saw is “only” 3,210 years old. According to the plaque at its base this tree was born in 1230 B.C.  This was the time of the Exodus, when the Jews escaped from Egypt and its pharaoh, Ramesses. At the same time the Achaeans conquer Troy. This was more than a century before King David ruled Israel.

This Bristlecone Pine was Born in 1230 B.C. and Still Lives

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I think of the next bristlecone pine as a “wild tree” because its branches go every which way. Technically a “wild tree” is one that has never been climbed, as Richard Preston wrote in one of the best books I ever read, The Wild Trees. Still, I doubt if anyone ever climbed this tree either before or after it died.

A Truly Wild Tree

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Finally, this relict seems to mimic one of Wheeler Peak’s peaks. Or vice versa.

Pine and Peak

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This hike was definitely worth the effort. I had long wanted to see these old bristlecone pines and feel particularly blessed to see two groves of these trees in a week.

Most people go to Great Basin National Park to experience what the call “Lehman Caves.” While Mark and I saw a lot more of the park above ground, we made sure to go down into the cave. It is, in fact, one cave in spite of its name. We toured the cave on the afternoon of Saturday, July 3.

Absalom Lehman, a local prospector and rancher, discover the cave in 1885. It is made of light gray and white limestone that is honeycombed by tunnels and galleries containing a spectacular array of stalactites (which hang down like an icicle) and stalagmites (which stick up).

Like every cave I’ve ever explored, this one was cold. Year round the temperature is 50 degrees. We made sure to dress warmly for our 1 1/2 hour visit.

Mark, a Serious Photographer, Carries His Canon 5D Mark II Camera

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We Saw Lots of "Popcorn"

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Many Stalactites and Stalagmites

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"The Parachute," the Cave's Iconic Scene

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Caves have an other-worldly aspect, although they are a part of our world. How strange is our world!

My friend Mark and I had nearly ideal weather for our visit to Great Basin National Park in Nevada last week. But early in the morning of Independence Day we set off for a hike in the park only to find heavy clouds and drizzle.

So we literally made a course correction. A weather map had shown me that clouds covered only a small area. And the previous day Mark had learned from a ranger of a great hike in the Mount Moriah Wilderness just a few miles north of the park.

After turning around and leaving the park, we reached the Hendrys Creek Trailhead by 8 a.m. in perfect hiking weather. Furthermore, we had the trail to ourselves. In fact, no one else had signed the trail register in the previous eight days.

We followed the creek up the valley for the next three hours, stopping regularly to admire the view and photographing it. The trail was easy except for three creek crossings each way.

Mark Enters the Wilderness

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Looking Up From the Canyon

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The Great Basin covers all of Nevada except the state’s southern corner around Las Vegas. It also covers the western third of Utah, a sliver of California east of the Sierras, the southeast corner of Oregon, and a bit of Idaho.

The Great Basin takes its name from its lack of drainage. Finding no outlet to the ocean, the water in its streams and rivers collects in shallow salt lakes, marshes, and mud flats before it evaporates in the dry desert air.

My friend Mark Bobb and I met here for an extended Fourth of July weekend. Specifically, we met at Great Basin National Park just over the Nevada state line from Utah.

Actually, Great Basin in the park’s name is something of a misnomer and caused me to expect a big hole in the ground. Instead, it is a highland oasis within the Great Basin. One of its mountains, Wheeler Peak, reaches 13,065 feet and is Nevada’s highest.

But like the entire Great Basin, this national park is a dry and isolated land. The park is 635 miles from Boulder and 570 miles from Los Angeles, where Mark now lives and works, after his company transferred him there from Boulder last year. Mark, a faster driver than I am and with limited vacation time, made the trip in one day. I took two days to get there.

En route I captured this shot of a raven at a rest stop before reaching the town of Delta, Utah, population about 3,000, the main settlement and only gas station in the 280 miles between the town of Green River and the area around the park.

A Raven Framed

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Then, 32 miles west of Delta I spotted a small sign for “U-Dig Fossils.” The quarry was 20 miles north on a dirt road, but the detour was worth the effort of my first experience as an amateur archaeologist. For about two hours in the blazing sun I used a geologist’s hammer to chip away at the limestone shale and eventually found some of the quarry’s many trilobites. [Read more →]

Yesterday afternoon when we left Boulder to visit the Mount Goliath Natural Area, rain was coming down hard and we could see lightening and hear thunder. I wondered if this might not be the wisest time to go hiking at tree line and above.

But my good luck held. When we reached our destination, the weather was completely dry and the lightening and thunder was out on the prairie.

The Mount Goliath Research Natural Area is in the Arapahoe National Forest about 60 miles southwest of Boulder near the road leading to the top of Mount Evans. We went there to see Rocky Mountain Bristlecone Pines in a 160-acre area set aside for their protection, study, interpretation, and enjoyment. Bristlecone pines may be the oldest single living organisms on earth, capable of living up to 5,000 years. The ones here are up to 1,600 years old.

They live in isolated groves at and just below the tree line, which in Colorado is 11,500 feet. Because the temperature is almost always so cold at this altitude and because of the dry soil, high winds, and short growing seasons, bristlecone pines grow slowly.

We hiked the trail through the trees until we were above tree line. I was short of breath from the altitude but had more energy than on the hike that Sharon and I had taken in Rocky Mountain National Park the previous day.

Sharon and I met up with a four other hikers and photographers on a Sierra Club photo hike. When the group reached the natural area around 5:30, the temperature was about 50 degrees cooler than in Boulder and windy enough that I appreciated my gloves. But the sun was out, and soon the wind died, blessing us with a much better day on the mountain than I had even hoped for.

Not only had I never been to the Mount Goliath Research Natural Area before, I hadn’t even heard of it before reading the Sierra Club trip announcement. And while I have known about these hardy trees for most of my life, these were the first that I have ever seen.

The setting is wild and beautiful.

The View from the Trail

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In the Distance is Denver, Although it Feels a Million Miles Away

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An Ancient Bristlecone Pine

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