Tworoose Pass Trail

This scenic Utah trailhead is close to home

Starting at 8500 feet, we ride along a rocky trail lined with serviceberry,

with plenty of balsamroot and Indian paintbrush in bloom,

These unknown yellow flowers set off the view.

Cliff-rose are also in bloom. 

Much of the trail is shaded by aspen, dressed in spring green.

A forest service sign points out the Tworoose Pass trail.

When we reach 10,500, we can gaze across a mile-long meadow toward the base of Duck Peak (11,500 ft) .  

A deep snowdrift still remains where spruce shades the ground. 

Miniature bluebells bloom in the high meadow. 

This bittercress is also tiny, but perfect, and blooming profusely in the sub-alpine terrain.

TwoRoose Pass

In this sign, Tworoose is mispelled, or else the map spelling is wrong.  Hard to know.

On the way up, Steve stops to take photos while Boss grabs a snack.

We see a blue butterfly and a fly both attracted to moist dirt,

and a white butterfly on a flower.

A woodpecker looks down from an aspen branch.

Sometimes Mischief is slow on the hills.  Steve and Boss wait impatiently...

As we approach the snowline, a herd of elk come into view.  We see them in this meadow every spring at about this time.

The elk don't hang around to get acquainted.

After the herd scatters, Boss and Steve continue across the meadow.  Snow stops us from reaching TwoRoose Pass.  We'll come back in a month when the snow is melted.

Flicker Update

We went back to see the northern flicker nest today.  You can see the nest cavity front and center.  On June 25,  they looked like this:

To hear the buzzing sound they made then, click here.
Since it has been 19 days, we thought the babies might be grown and gone, but at least two are still in the nest:

They look fully feathered and ready to fly any time. 
Mr. and Mrs. Northern Flicker were nearby, squawking at us. They are good parents, still watching over their youngsters.

Want To Adopt a Baby Elk?

For Steve’s birthday ride, we returned to the end of the Pigeon Water Spring Road, followed the trail to Dry Canyon Ridge and then up toward Tworoose Pass.
The cows have been brought down to the water troughs between nine and ten thousand feet. Daisy tried to play with the calves, as usual, but the mama cows weren’t cooperative.
As we continued up through the aspen groves, we noted that some aspen leaves were changing beginning about 9800 feet. Won’t be long before fall arrives at that altitude.
Between aspen groves, Daisy routed a baby elk out of the sage. (photo from internet. I didn't have the presence of mind to pull out my camera) As it ran off bleating, we thought Mom would surely appear and chase Daisy away, possibly to our dog’s peril. But Mom didn’t show up and Daisy gave up the chase within a couple of minutes. The poor little elk calf couldn’t have been more than 3 months old. It still had spots and seemed terrified. Since it was all alone, we assumed it was somehow orphaned, maybe by antlerless hunting season, which started last week. Or perhaps it had become separated from the herd somehow.
Its pitiful cries made us wish we could gather it up and take it home. Of course, even if we could have done that, we couldn’t keep a grown elk in the pasture, and once it was used to people, it wouldn’t last through the hunting season in the wild. Still, we felt for the scared, lost baby.
Up higher, we reached tundra-like expanses with low grasses and wildflowers such as lupine and Whipple's penstemon:
We climbed to the top of Duck Mountain, where a communication tower is located at 11, 500 feet.
During the climb, we looked down into the lakes of Duck Basin: From up top, we could see the ridgeline of the High Uintas. Just below the communication tower was a grouping of dwarf firs that Steve says is called the Krumholtz. Note the resin-covered, upright cones on the firs. The weather was perfect. Temp was about 65 degrees when we started out at 9:30AM at around 8000 feet, and 77 degrees when we returned to the truck at 5:30 PM. Up high, of course, the temp probably never rose above the sixties. A stiff breeze (maybe 20mph) kept us and the horses cool. Some of the high meadows are gently sloping and ideal for trotting and cantering. The aspen forests will be even more beautiful in a couple of weeks when the leaves change. With the trailhead located only 45 minutes from our home base in Roosevelt, this is one to remember and repeat often. The views are spectacular.
Overall, the ride was 21 miles, 5200 feet elevation gain. Although we were out for about 8 hours, much of that was gawking and taking photos. Actual riding time was just over 6 hours.