A Potpourri of the Weird

We've had some unusual sightings on Uinta trails this summer.  Here is a naked broom-rape Orobanche uniflora.  It's a parasitic plant containing no leaves or chlorophyl.

It gets its nutrients from other plants such as lanceleaf stonecrop Sedum lanceolatum, which were plentiful in the area.

The stonecrop doesn't look that tasty to me, but Wikipedia says the leaves of all stonecrops store water and are edible.  Hmm, I learn something new every day.

 On the same hike, we ran across this carving on an aspen tree:

1844?  Is that possible?  A mountain man might have been here then.  That's about it.  The other question is whether an aspen tree could live that long.  I read that they can live about 150 years, so the date is a little bit of a stretch, tree-wise.

Assuming the carver wasn't being purposefully deceptive, maybe it's 1944, distorted by time.  Yes, that's more likely. But who the heck is K.B.? 

Now, consider this trough:

It seems to have been carved out of a tree trunk, a long, long time ago.  Someone put tar on the inside to make it waterproof.  Could this be the work of the mysterious K.B.?

We saw these fossils on a hike in Albion Basin near Alta Ski Resort, at 11,000 feet: 

They look like sea shells.  So, how did organisms from the sea get to the top of a mountain?  Seas dry up, mountains rise, and voila, we have fossils that seem incredibly out of place.

Sometimes the natural world is stranger than fiction, if we take the trouble to look closely and examine what we find.

The Climb

Our friend Mike wanted to go with us on a mountain hike.  After some discussion, we decided to ascend Marsh Peak (12,240 ft/3100 m), north of Vernal.  The trailhead is at 10,000 ft, so the climb is relatively easy. 
Here are the guys:

Here are the guys conferring on the route:

Did I say easy?  I must have forgotten about the rocks...

We made it, though, with Daisy's help:

Here's Mike exhalting in his success:

From the top, we looked down at Twin Lakes in the Dry Fork drainage,

and off toward the Uintas, hazy in the distance.  (We had smoky air from surrounding fires that late August day, so the views weren't as clear as they might have been. 

Here's a striped gentian, which I thought was unusual: 

And some harebells, growing among the rocks:

And, of course, there was the requisite mystery flower:

In all, we hiked almost 10 miles and 2200 feet elevation gain and loss.  Mike might have gotten more than he bargained for, but I think we all enjoyed the day.

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Fishing with Friends

F is for Fishing.
On a fine August morning, Steve caught many fish, including this freckled cutthroat fingerling:
Daisy, for her part, fixed her fervent gaze on the stream, fantasizing about fetching:
For a challenge, Steve tried fishing from Boss's back, very carefully. Boss was fearful of the fly rod at first, thinking it was a fiery fiend, but he soon finished fidgeting around the field and faced the stream, figuring there was no point in fighting his fickle fellow.
Steve went back to finding fulfillment through fish, but with Daisy and Boss's assistance. With two sharp-eyed friends on the lookout, how could Steve fail to find trout aplenty?
A final word: I, Janie, was there, firsthand, fotographing the fishing. Never fear, this is all factual, or at least not as fictitious as the usual fish fable.
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View from Leidy's North Slope

On a second day's ride from the Lakeshore Basin trailhead, we rode up as high as we could toward Leidy Peak (the last 500 feet to the top is way too steep and rocky for horses), then traversed around Leidy's sloping shoulder.
By the time we'd gone 5 miles and a thousand feet to reach the north side, Mischief was feeling kinda tuckered. Mount Untermann is behind him.
To the northeast, we looked down on Flaming Gorge.
While we rested before turning back, Boss, Daisy and Steve enjoyed some camaraderie under a friendly blue sky.
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Lakeshore Basin

The trailhead to Lakeshore Basin begins at 11,000 feet with Leidy Peak (12,000 ft., 3700 m) rising above and to the southwest. Leidy Peak is located about 30 miles north of Vernal, Utah. (Note: The Uinta mountains are generally rounded on top because they are over 700 million years old and have experienced a lot of erosion.)
The path over the east shoulder of Leidy and into the basin is easily discernable most of the way, but here it's marked only by a large cairn.
The south fork of Ashley Creek runs through Lakeshore Basin,


and there are numerous small lakes. Marshy areas around the lakes and stream support good grass all summer. Many elk, deer, and moose live in the area.
We rode across the basin, and up the other side to an 11,800 ft. (3600 m) pass. It's a bit rocky. We put boots on the horses to protect their unshod hooves. Here I am, walking up the unstable rock. Mischief went ahead, following Boss and Steve. (Why is Steve always so much ahead of me? I'm slow, but I do get there.)
Okay, now I'm back in the saddle where I belong. Behind me is a view toward Red Belly Lake and Twin Lakes.
There was a sign in the pass, once planted in some piled rocks, but now fallen from its perch.
The Highline Trail, which traverses the High Uiintas, east to west, follows the ridge shown above. (I wouldn't want to be up there in a lightning storm!) Someday maybe we'll take that path. It doesn't look overly traveled, does it?

The Flowering of a Mountain Marsh

In late July, the marshy areas along mountain creeks (10, 000 feet or 3100 m) are rich in flora. Here are some of the prevalent plants (Please correct me if I have the names wrong):
Shrubby cinquefoil Pentaphylloides floribunda. This plant is sold as a garden ornamental under the name Potentilla fruticosa.
Elephantheads, Pedicularis groenlandica. Note the curls at the end of each flower that look like an elephant's trunk. These are all over the high marshy meadows in July. Elk eat the plants when they are in bloom.

Queen's Crown, Clementsia rodantha.

Bog gentian, Gentiana calycosa.
Feltwort, Swertia perennis.

Unknown. Maybe a variety of gentian?

I recognize a harebell Campanula rotundifolia, but I can't identify the yellow-orange flower. Oh, well. A hike wouldn't be complete without at least one mystery plant...

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Reader Creek Waterfall

Only 1.6 miles from where Reader Creek crosses the Chepeta Lake road, the creek drops over a sheer quartzite cliff for a fall of about 30 feet.
Steve checks out the creek above the falls. Daisy really wants to join him.
Columbines cluster on a rock ledge, fed by spray from the falls and the soil they can gather from cracks in the quartzite.

We followed an easy and half-hazardly cairned trail to the falls. On the way back, we make our way upstream along Reader Creek. Steve catches and releases a few cutthroat. The number of brook trout who jumped on the hook outnumbered cutts 10 to 1.

Daisy observes.
Steve throws her a tiny Brook trout, which she shakes and spits out.

She thanks Steve anyway, with a little kiss on the ear.

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