Utah Wildlife and Geology

We really enjoyed our 5 days at the Buckboard campground. It was very peaceful and scenic, and we saw quite a few birds and other wildlife while we were there. One morning just after waking Carol looked out the small window at the foot of the bed and saw a mule deer grazing right by the van. When she went outside to do some morning birdwatching, a small herd of mule deer, including a young buck, raised their heads to look at her. They seemed about as tame as the whitetail deer back home!

Taken from the small screen window where we sleep, the large-eared mule deer is on the left.

Turned out there were four deer. 

On the right is a buck with two does on either side with another doe on the left grazing.

We added a couple of birds to our lifelist from this campground, including a poorwill that a neighboring camper spotted roosting in a nearby tree. Poorwills are kin to our whippoorwills back home, only their call is missing the first syllable--it's just "Poor Will, Poor Will"! We also saw lots of beautiful mountain bluebirds and sage thrashers.

A poorwill hunkered down high in a tree near our RoadTrek.

Jack gathered dead sagebrush for a campfire every night (getting a few cuts and scratches in the process that Nurse Carol had to attend to). We sat by the fire and watched the stars come out. The dry, tangled branches made a lovely flame, with no crackling. One night by the campfire we saw the silhouettes of a small herd of pronghorn antelope walk by in single file. Going down to the lake for a drink, we surmised.

Both of us got a lot of work done while staying at Buckboard, and were sad to leave. But new wonders awaited us, so we packed up on Wed. morning. We wanted an early start in hopes of seeing more wildlife. In particular we wanted to see some moose and bighorn sheep. We didn't get far down the road when Carol yelled for Jack to stop the van (this often happens when Carol spots something--fortunately there was no other traffic on the road at the time!) Up on a hill to the right was a giant bird-like shape. We viewed it through both sets of binoculars and it was a golden eagle--another bird for our lifelist. These birds are huge! (About 3.5 feet tall with 7 ft wingspan, according to our bird book.) He had a great view of the countryside from up there on his hill.

This photo hardly does justice to the Golden Eagle sitting just to the right at the top of this hill, until you realize the top of that hill is probably a quarter mile away.

We then proceeded to the Sheep Creek Canyon driving loop, seeing a LOT of mule deer and pronghorns along the way. The Sheep Creek area is known for its amazing geology, covering several geological ages in one spot, with all kinds of rock formations. It's also known as being a good spot to see bighorn sheep. Alas, no sheep for us this time, but the scenery was jawdropping, as you can see in the series of photos. Every bend had an even more photogenic view than the last. The creek itself was hidden most of the time in jungle-like greenery, but Jack was able to get creekside a couple of times and look for--you know what. He can't resist a creek. He's always looking for little flies or grasshoppers to throw in and see if he can get a trout to rise to it. Enjoy these photos--we certainly enjoyed the drive despite the lack of sheep!

The dirt road leading into Sheep Creek Canyon. 

It's early morning and the sun is just reaching the tops of the mountains.

This formation towering over our Road Trek looks (to Jack) like the statue of a Mayan king with headdress. Note the moon in the cloudless blue sky above and to the left of the Mayan king.

Sheer cliffs ahead highlighted by the sun. Sheep Creek, out of sight, is on the left.

Icing on cakes??

The rising sun cast deep shadows in the canyon.

Mountain castles??

Dancing figures, on top left, and watching audience on top right?? [Carol: Jack has a very good imagination, doesn't he?]

Sheep Creek.
No fishing allowed, but there's got to be a trout lying in that pool.

Bowling pins on top of mountain??

Slip-sliding away...

Mountain lying down on the job.

Still hoping for a moose sighting, we decided to drive another "scenic backway" as they call it, to a remote lake. Also Carol had read about an old fire tower on top of Ute Mountain that was still being maintained and wanted to see it and photograph it, in honor of her aunt and uncle Dennis and "Toots" Surber, who spent months living in fire towers on top of mountains back in our area of western Virginia. Getting to the Ute Mountain Fire Tower entailed many miles of driving on a washboarded gravel road, but since we live on a washboarded gravel road, no real problem there. The top of Ute Mountain was a spectacular setting, with a 360-degree view of the surrounding mountains--just what is needed for an effective fire tower. The fire tower was built by CCC camp guys in the 1930s and is well-maintained and freshly painted. No ranger was there, and it was locked up (tours happen sometimes but it's irregular). But we didn't let that stop us--we limbo-ed under the locked rail and climbed the stairs--they obviously weren't serious about keeping people off the first part of the stairs at least. It was a beautiful view from there--our first glimpse of the taller, snow-dotted peaks in the distance!

The Ute Mountain Fire Tower.

As an added attraction, the ranger district had received a grant for a homing pigeon interactive project. They have a brand-new homing pigeon "house" next to the fire tower. Nobody but us and the pigeons was up there on the mountain this morning, and the pigeons were free to fly. A few of them were in their house still sleeping and a few were up on the roof of the fire tower. This project is to teach some of the history of firefighting in this area and get folks to pay more attention to it, I guess. The early rangers who lived in the fire tower during firefighting season used to communicate using homing pigeons. According to the informative write-up about the grant, they take some of these pigeons down to town, and let people (such as schoolchildren) write and attach messages to them and let them go. The pigeons fly back up to the fire tower and give the message to the rangers.

Homing pigeon shelter.

Inside the shelter are four homing pigeons. (Can you find them?)

Carol on fire tower.

Pigeons on fire tower roof, after their performance.

We ate lunch at the picnic table and enjoyed the peaceful setting. While we were eating, most of the homing pigeons gathered in a flock and started flying around and around over us in a circle. They then all landed on the roof of the fire tower to accept our applause--not sure if they were looking to be fed as well, but in this they were disappointed. (Some of them were white, and this reminded us that at Carol's mom's funeral we arranged for a flock of white "doves"--which were really homing pigeons, but since pigeons are also called "rock doves" that's OK--to be released and they did the same thing--flew around and around for a bit and then headed off for home, wherever that was.)

We finally headed down and continued our drive on the washboarded road to Browne's Lake, still in hopes of moose. We finally got there and didn't see any moose. The lake looked fairly low, but a meandering creek, which fed the lake, beckoned to Jack. We wandered along the bank for awhile but Jack was not able to catch any local grasshoppers to feed the trout which were probably in there (we didn't see any, but it sure was a pretty creek).

Jack, always on the lookout for trout, pauses near a likely trout spot on the creek 

flowing out of Browne Lake.

Back on the road, which seemed a lot shorter going out than in, we headed for our campground in Dutch John. Tomorrow (Thursday) is our scheduled fishing/boating trip down the Green River.

On the way out, Jack is stopped by local range cows for speeding.