The Desert Trip - Like Visiting Mars

Back to our desert trip - After a few days at K's Rock, we moved onto another beloved campsite. We found this site more than a decade ago but it's become popular since then. We always try to choose very "unpopular" dates and days of the week to visit it now. We did that perfectly this time!

This was the view from our campsite. As you can see, we ran into some storms during our first couple of days there.

Any running in this area requires boots for dogs due to slickrock and cacti. It was a little sad to see only one set drying on the boulder because R wasn't running.

As you can see, Shyla was running pretty happily in this set of Ultrapaw boots (a gift from Lily and Edward - Thank you!).

However, somehow, she shed her hind boots when I wasn't looking. I searched and searched and searched - and I found one of the two lost ones.

Despite the never-ending boot struggle, Shyla and I had fun on our mountain bike rides. It's like riding a bike on Mars because the terrain is so alien. (This photo was pre-boot-loss).

Of course, R was recuperating from surgery so he stayed around camp all the time. He seemed to soak up the sun like a lizard as he relaxed.

We enjoyed looking at the petroglyphs near our campsite. It is upsetting, however, to see the vandalism grow by the year. The "Joh..." in the right is obviously not ancient.

The sunsets at this site are sublime. I discovered the amazing sunset light here first with Angel K. The tradition of sunset photos of my chocolate lab has continued with sweet Shyla. There's something about chocolate fur, red-orange rocks, and sweet eyes that melts my heart.

The sunlight turned a deeper red as sunset approached.

No doubt, we'll be visiting this site again in the fall. We have some "sneaky" plans to try to visit when it should be deserted, like it was on this last trip.

When we moved to Colorado many years ago, I had no idea that we'd fall in love with the desert. But we have. Desert time is a highlight of every year!

The End of our Desert Escape

Our last stop on our desert trip was at a campsite that we've been visiting for about a dozen years. It's next to huge rock outcroppings that remind me of Mother Nature's cathedrals.

It's clear that people have appreciated the beauty of this area for thousands of years based on the rock art at the base of the huge rock walls.

Some slabs have fallen off the rock faces but fortunately the art landed facing up!

A distinctive thing about this place is that it's 70% slickrock and the rest is sand. For slickrock, boots are critical for dogs.

We have always used Ruffwear Grip Trex boots for our dogs in the desert. However, Shyla has always hated them. I finally figured out why after our last desert trip. They didn't fit her elongate paw shape correctly, and she had a spot rubbed almost raw on top of one of her toes. So, I decided to try her winter boots on this desert trip - Ruffwear Summit Trex. They have a nice vibram sole, and she was SO much happier than in her old boots.

The greatest part of finding boots that she liked was that we could mountain bike together on the slickrock, something that is impossible without comfortable dog boots.

Both of us were happy about that. On past visits to this site, her running was very limited by having to avoid slickrock.

When we visit this area, our campsite is always marked by a "dog boot drying boulder". Shyla's are the orange boots and R's are the red boots. If you ever happen to see a sight like this, you know it's us!

In the afternoons, one of our favorite activities was to watch a family of nesting Red-Tailed Hawks. We have a spotting scope that lets us see almost every detail of their life in their rock cavity nest.

We've watched them every spring for 4 years so far. By May, the funniest part is watching the nestlings maneuver into position to go to the bathroom. They carefully back up to the edge and launch their poop completely out of the nest to the ground below. Their maneuvering makes us laugh every time. You can see from the photo below that they weren't so skilled when they were younger.

Unfortunately, I don't own a big enough lens to get good photos of the nestlings "in action". There were three this year, and we both wished we could stay long enough to see them fledge. I hope that they had successful first flights! From that height (200-300 ft high), the first flight must be very scary.

I hope that we keep visiting this campsite for many years to come. The first dogs who visited there with us are now departed (K and S). But our current pack seems to love it too.

The desert is now too hot for us. Our next visit will be in the fall. Between now and then, we'll be exploring the mountains!

A Saturday in the Desert

On our last full day in the desert (a Saturday), I enjoyed playing with the pups and taking their photos at sunset on K's Rock.

As you can see, R's paws were all better so he could be barefoot around camp. He was also working on his Chocolate Lab impersonation, with all the red sand he had in his fur!

I've mentioned that we decided to delay R's elbow reconstruction until the fall. This trip to the desert made us feel that we'd made the best choice. Aside from his briefly sore paw pads, R seemed to feel great, and we all felt happy that he could run around! Our spring and summer trips are the highlights of our year so we're glad that R will be able to enjoy them.

In the minutes just before sunset in the desert, Shyla is my favorite photographic subject because her chocolate fur turns deep red in the sunset light.

She seems to love our little photo shoots and gives me some very cute looks during them. Oh how I love this girl!

On our last night in the desert, I captured K's rock glowing in the moonlight with the stars spinning around the North Star. This might be my favorite star photo yet, at least in part because I took in a spot that we love so much.

Our Getaway

We made a get-away last week to the Utah desert, wanting to feel warm sun on our faces and dirt under our feet for a brief time before a long winter.

I adore the sight of red rock and a deep blue sky.

I love the sight of my sweet chocolate Shyla's fur in the desert sunset light with a backdrop of red rock.

And I love the twinkle in R's eyes when he's so very happy!

We departed early on our trip due to a big winter storm system that might have made traveling over the Divide to get to Utah very treacherous. We didn't arrive at our campsite until around midnight. The trip left me exhausted and left my spine in agony.

But, when we stepped out of the LabMobile, and I saw the gazillion stars twinkling in the dark sky, I was suddenly possessed with energy that even overrode my spine pain. The sight of so many twinkling stars in the dark desert sky was inspiring!

I made a short time lapse video of the stars spinning around the North Star over the course of about 5 hours (while we slept). Over that time, my camera took 77 exposures of 4 minutes each, and then I used software to stack them together into a video and a final photo. You can watch it here or at Youtube.

Here was the final photo after five hours. There were so many stars spinning in the sky over our heads that the dark sky was barely visible!

I'm afraid that I won't be able to refrain from telling you about our trip in upcoming posts!

Starry Sunday

I love taking star photos when we're in the desert. The sky is so dark and the stars shine brilliantly. Often, there are unique rock formations to use as the backdrop for the stars.

At one of our campsites, I desperately wished that the view toward these cliff walls would yield good star photos. Alas, the cliff walls are to the west, and I've never managed to get good night photos that include the distinctively sculpted cliff walls.

To the north of the campsite, there is an active earthquake fault. Over eons, the fault has thrust "stuff" up above the ground to make a wall of unique-looking rock. It's reddish, and its shape is pleasing for photos.

So, I set up my camera there on several nights, with the rocks over the fault in the foreground and the North Star in the background. I tried different camera settings each night. One tough part of our camping trips, as a photographer, is that I cannot look closely at my photos or process them until I get home (because we have no access to electricity sources and no laptop with us).

That means that I try different settings for my star photos each night, hoping to learn later which one was best. For this site, I believe that nailed the settings best on our second night there. This photo is a composite of 4 hours and 15 minutes of 4 minute exposures with 5 seconds between exposures to let the camera store the files. I have an "intervalometer" to control my camera, opening and closing the shutter at pre-programmed times, so I can sleep while it does its work.

The camera kept taking photos through moonrise, and the reddish hue of the rocks is from the moon that has just risen off to the right of the frame. I used a computer program to superimpose all the exposures so we can see the star trails.

After a couple of years of experimenting with star trail photos, I have to say that this one is my favorite so far. If you look very very carefully, you can see a faint shooting star that streaked from the top of the photo, just to the left of the North Star.

R agrees! He gave this photo two dew claws up!

Happy Starry Sunday!

Desert Fun

Since it's Friday, I'll keep this post simple. I want to show you a few more photos from our desert trip.

This was K's rock on our second night camping there. The moon was still almost full - so not many stars were visible over the 2 hours and 15 minutes that my camera took star trail photos. But, I love how the moon made K's rock glow and also made the sky a deep blue rather than black. The streaks of clouds add to the surreal feeling.

I'll also share a photo taken at sunset near K's Rock. This one truly shows what an alien landscape the red rock desert is. The light at sunset in the desert is incredible!

 And Shyla waved bye-bye to the sun as it set on the distant horizon. What a happy dog she is!

Happy Friday!

Desert Beauty

We had glorious weather at our second campsite during our desert trip. Perfect blue skies to complement the moon and red rock.

The flowers were blooming like crazy, making the scene even more gorgeous. I felt so grateful to be there to see it all.

Over past years at this campsite, we've spotted Red-tailed Hawks that nest in cavities in the red cliff wall. At first, we thought that there was no nest this year because their usual cavity was empty.

It wasn't until the last evening in the campsite that a Red-tailed Hawk swooped low just over our heads and then soared up to a different hole in the wall - as if she was showing us where to look!

Indeed, there were baby hawks in that hole, three of them! Two nestlings looked like they were getting close to fledging while the third appeared substantially younger than the other two. We wished that we could stay to see what would happen as the babies each took their first flights. We worried for the younger nestling, not knowing whether his parents would take care of him after the older two flew the coop. Alas, we'll never know.

I'm sorry to say that don't have a long enough lens to take photos of the hawk nestlings to share with you. We were observing them through a spotting scope. It was a gift to be able to watch the family dynamics in action!

While we were at this campsite, I began to feel like my spine was truly improving. I started each day with a short ride with Shyla. To avoid hurting my back while putting on her boots, I had her stand on a boulder in our campsite. Boulders are useful for many things!

Then we'd do a short loop together. I had to take it easy on Shyla due to the hard rock surface and the heat.

Then, I'd leave Shyla to relax with the boys in camp and go for a longer exploration.

I'd visit spots like this butte. And, that's my new bike in the photo, to give you a sense of the huge size of the butte.

On the first day that I rode to this butte, I was incredibly disappointed to find a "jamboree" of 4wd vehicles all lined up by the butte - with loud people milling all around the vehicles. I took one look at the scene and fled. I headed back to visit the butte again the next day (earlier in the morning), and I didn't see anyone else. That meant that I felt free to quietly explore the nooks and crannies around the base of the butte, looking at the incredibly hardy and gorgeous flowers that somehow flourish there.

After my ride each day, I'd chill out with the Pack in our gorgeous campsite, puttering around looking at flowers, reading, snoozing, and taking photos.

I know we'll be back to this campsite again, hopefully in the fall. We love it.

It's even a great spot for looking at the stars. This is one the first "star trails" photos that I've tried to put together since we arrived home. It involves superimposing many exposures taken over hours of one night - and I know that I can do a better job of processing the exposures than in this one. But, I thought that it was pretty enough to share with you!

I never tire of seeing the stars whirling around Polaris!

Sky Sunday

The sky's beauty truly shines in the desert. Here was the moon setting over a sculpted rocky cliff.

And Shyla standing in the desert with the red cliffs and blue sky behind her.

Millions and millions of stars shined each night. The Milky Way...

A Shooting Star over a cliff...

One night, the clouds rolled in while my camera was busy taking star photos as I slept. A rumble of thunder and flashes of lightning awakened me. I rushed out to save my camera from the rain that was about to fall, and I discovered that my camera had captured the cliff at the instant of a flash of lightning. It turned the cloudy sky purple.

What an incredibly beautiful world we live in!

An Otherworldly Campsite

Our next campsite was next to incredible rock mesas with deep lush canyons between them.

Next to the cliffs, the world is a jumble of humungous boulders. Some were so big that we used them for shade during the day.

And we played on them around sunset when the sun's warmth was a welcome feeling. It was wonderful to see how comfortable Shyla has become with our camping routine and settling into each new campsite. None of this was easy for her at the start of her time with us. It's still not easy for her to meet new people but she's generally very confident when she's with our pack.

This campsite was in an incredible area where I love riding my bike. I'll show you more of the rock sculptures that Shyla and I visited during our mountain bike rides in the coming days.

Happy Saturday!