A day at Pawnee Buttes ~

June 29, 2019 / Marilyn Davis / Leave a comment

Pawnee National Grassland

Pawnee Buttes

Number 658

Prairie flower

Prickly pear

Pawnee Buttes trail

Custom road sign

Bottlecaps, Pawnee Station Café

Last week a friend and I drove out to Pawnee Buttes, in the Pawnee National Grassland. This is on the prairie in northeast Colorado, not far south of Wyoming and Nebraska. It was a warm but lovely day. The grassland is beautiful: lots of miles on dirt roads; beautiful undulating hills; and the isolated buttes themselves. The only downside is the sheer number of oil and gas facilities out here, along with the accompanying truck traffic. In a time when it’s imperative that we phase out fossil fuels, I was discouraged to see the amount of fracking and other fossil-fuel extraction on this, one of our national treasures.

Guanella Pass ~

September 16, 2018September 17, 2018 / Marilyn Davis / 2 Comments

Unidentified plant

South-facing slope

South end of Guanella Pass Scenic Byway

Foreground aspen

Asters

Aspen in sunlight

For this year’s aspen photos I drove the 24-mile Guanella Pass Scenic Byway from Highway 285 north to Georgetown. The road starts out gently on the south side of the pass and gradually ascends. The aspens were at their peak, and flowers were still blooming here and there.

Square Top Mountain, Guanella Pass

Looking northwest from Guanella Pass

Gray Wolf Mountain, Guanella Pass

Slope north of Guanella Pass

It was a beautiful Friday. These photographs show no hint of the sizable crowds at the Summit Overlook (elev. 11,669 feet); this is definitely “curated” reality. Something I’m learning about Colorado in 2018: There are now so many people driving the drives and hiking the trails that you must be a very fit person to find solitude in the mountains. Every trailhead I passed in eight hours of driving, from Highway 285 up through Clear Creek Canyon, had a pretty full complement of cars. A number of people were hiking the Square Top Mountain trail (below), which originates at Summit Overlook on Guanella Pass. It was an unusually warm day, probably at least 70 degrees at the pass and breezy.

Square Top Mountain and trail

Solitude on the high plains ~

August 20, 2018July 7, 2019 / Marilyn Davis / 2 Comments

Hairy golden aster and other flowers

Western milkweed longhorn beetle

Moon and hills south of Soapstone Prairie

Near Lindenmeier Overview

Rabbitbrush

Rocks atop fenceposts south of Soapstone Prairie

Mountain mahogany (mid-ground)

Unidentified flowers

Unidentified plant

Windmill and clouds south of Soapstone Prairie

Blanketflower

This afternoon I drove up to Soapstone Prairie Natural Area, located about 15 miles north of Fort Collins and about 10 miles south of the Wyoming border. The last several miles are on a very well graded dirt-and-pea-gravel road. I went to the north parking lot, where there was only one other car, and walked a short trail to a site that overlooks a former archaeological dig, now restored to prairie. This is some of what I saw. I’m still working on an identification for a couple of the plants. I’m also a bit puzzled by the rocks atop the fenceposts—are they decorative, or do they have some sort of significance I can’t read?

The sense of remoteness and the solitude were gratifying, very different from the isolation of being at home. It was a beautiful, unusually cool day for August and it was windy; my ears actually got cold. I was fine in a T-shirt but began thinking longingly of earmuffs; what a strange sight that combination would make! A hat or scarf would have done the trick. I want to return to this area soon with my Olympus and my binoculars.

Note: I have since learned that the purpose of the rocks is to divert water, thus preventing deterioration of the tops of the posts. Thanks to Michael Bliss for telling me this.

Capitol Reef ~

June 2, 2017 / Marilyn Davis / Leave a comment

Cactus flower and ant

Along Capitol Gorge road

Claret cup cactus

Cliffs and slopes

Desert varnish on cliff wall

Leaving Capitol Reef via Utah 24

Orchards planted by Mormon settlers contrast with the red cliffs at Fruita

Petroglyphs

Along the scenic drive

In tiling these photos, WordPress has made the big small and the small big. It’s fitting. This landscape is so vast that gigantic land formations, even mountains, are small on the horizon when seen from distances of 20, 50, 100 miles. And only when you take the time to pay attention close at hand do you realize how many plant species are blooming all around you, dwarfed by the rock.

Zion National Park ~

May 28, 2017 / Marilyn Davis / Leave a comment

Canyon Overlook Trail

Canyon Overlook Trail. Note the railing at left, part of an old bridge that carries hikers over a steep drop off.

Canyon Overlook Trail

Columbine, Riverside Walk

End of Canyon Overlook Trail

Hanging gardens, Riverside Walk

Cliffs along the Virgin River, Riverside Walk

Zion shooting star

I first saw Zion Canyon as a child, and it remains the most beautiful place I’ve ever been. When my companion and I arrived in early May, though, the weather was rainy and foggy, with clouds obscuring all but the very bottom of the canyon. It was still beautiful, with many flowers blooming, the just-leafed-out trees along the Virgin River a tender, bright green, and the red rock of the canyon walls backdropping everything.

The next morning we took the shuttle up the canyon (due to its popularity, this park has been forced to limit vehicles on the canyon drive for all but the winter months). As the day went by the clouds gradually lifted, but the sky remained mostly gray. We walked the Riverside Walk, a paved trail along the Virgin River, down to the The Narrows, where the river becomes the “trail” because the canyon walls are only about 20 feet apart. The Narrows was off-limits this day due to the high water; hikers sometimes die in this wilderness area because of flash flooding and swift currents. Toward sunset we hiked the Canyon Overlook Trail at Zion’s southeast corner. Without my companion’s help up and down the steep, rocky path, which was sandy, damp, and slick, I could never have made this hike. The view rewards the effort.

Spring flowers part 2 ~

April 3, 2017 / Marilyn Davis / 2 Comments

Continuing with some Sunday photos from the Denver Botanic Gardens. Clockwise from top right: Some type of fruit tree, unidentified, tulip interior, unidentified, hellebore, unidentified, unidentified, tulip interior, poppy (I think) against a background of purple pansies, orchid (probably some type of phalaenopsis), fritillaria (checkered lily). If anyone can help with identification, please comment. My knowledge of flowers is pretty limited, and the signage was spotty. I didn’t saturate any of these photos; in fact, I frequently knocked the saturation down a bit.

Some spring wildflowers ~

April 16, 2014April 16, 2014 / Marilyn Davis / 3 Comments

All of these were photographed at Giant City State Park, southern Illinois. Two were taken with a Pentax K-50 DSLR and three were taken with a compact Olympus SZ-12. Is the difference apparent? The images are definitely on the soft side, some more than others. It was much too windy a day to be photographing flowers, but you take what you can get. The important thing is…spring!