Tuesday Evening

Never Ending

Two more days exploring just northeast of the lodge and Tom finds more and more places to explore. Each ledge or plateau he hikes, has another one above or below it and until you've hiked them all, you don't know what's there.

Saturday

Still another day exploring just northeast of the lodge and there's at least two days of uncovered ground left, if not three.

Another Day

Still just northeast of the lodge over the last couple weeks Tom has found a wire spindle, a filter of some sort, a two piece telephone, and a portable heater it appears.

Petrified Wood

For the last week Tom has been exploring an area a mile or two northeast of the lodge. Other than occasional fossil hunting and a few hiking excursions with Kobae the area has been primarily ignored because it looks boring. It's not. There are multiple canyons, rock collapses, caves and overhangs, and as with this hike, lots of large pieces of petrified wood.

A Gray Fox

After last weeks surprise, knowing now that there are two, exact identical, same size, same markings, gray foxes, Tom can't say The Gray Fox anymore, it's A Gray Fox.

More Edge of the Cedars

Edge of the Cedars is a quality museum and clearly the most comprehensive site anywhere of artifacts of the Anasazi culture. They are completely dedicated to their work and even with all the stuff you see on display there are still thousands of more artifacts in back rooms being identified. Some of the items came from a Fed raid in the area twenty years ago. Some from a more recent raid about three years ago, and many from the Kiva site out back of the museum. There are mixed feelings about Edge of the Cedars in the area with the artifacts that came from the raids of Edge of the Cedars neighbors. Wasn't Edge of the Cedars fault. Morally, to Tom, the whole artifacts protection act, at least the way it's enforced, or can be enforced, is a disaster. http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/53132367-90/redd-government-lawsuit-blanding.html.csp

More Edge of the Cedars

Some of the exhibits are a little difficult to see as the Museum prohibits flash on the camera.

Edge of the Cedars

Tom spends Monday at Edge of the Cedars.

He's So Cute

They're So Cute

He Wasn't Expecting This

As darkness falls, Tom is expecting the gray fox. He steps outside to leave some meat and notices the cat food he left for the ring tail earlier today is still there. When creatures change their daily routine, it's because something is different. So while Tom was expecting something, he wasn't expecting this. (Hard to see what happens in the darkness, but if you enlarge it, it helps.)

Danger is Approaching

Tom has put out the morning's bread. The antelope squirrels and dark eyed juncos arrive with his call. Tom watches for several minutes and then goes to work at his desk. Suddenly Tom hears an antelope squirrel sound a high pitched alarm. Antelope squirrels race across the driveway and into ground holes while dark eyed juncos flee to the highest branches of the desert willow. Danger is approaching.

White Tailed Antelope Squirrel

Sunday Evening From The Canyonlands

Ringtail Cat by Morning, Gray Fox by Evening

The Day

Tom begins the day eager to find how the telephone line was strung to the abandoned oil well site. After a few minutes of hiking the markers disappear. They must be coming from above but climbing that rock face is not possible. Tom moves along the ledges and finds this cave which appears natural with water runoff from above. Then Tom comes across an area 100 feet by 200 feet with no plant growth. Apparently in addition to the abandoned oil well on the opposite side of the river and the one just a mile or two from here, there was a third, or an attempt at a third as he finds all the same left behind equipment here as the other locations to include an old coke bottle and other 50 year old items.

Jackson Hole

Tom spends the day exploring the south side of the Jackson Hole area about five miles north of Base Camp.

Hot Dogs, Get Your Hot Dogs

Birds in the Desert Willow

Means, either the gray fox, who's way more prevalent just before dark, or the ringtail cat is back.

Not a Mining Claim

On Monday Tom found ten stakes he thought to be a mining claim. At one location where the stake was partially destroyed he found this green object. After research, it's a Hemingray - 9 insulator. Digging deeper it has a single groove for wrapping telephone wire. After washing it out in the sink tonight, it's grooved on the inside, and guess what the groove fits onto? Made in the 50's and 60's they were used to insulate rural telephone lines. Most likely what Tom mistook for mining claim stakes were actually the stakes for a telephone line to the abandoned oil well not far from where Tom was exploring. http://www.hemingray.info/database/detail.php?cd=107&source=id

Monday Evening

Mining Claim

Usually mining claims are marked on the corners with a pile of rocks or a wooden or metal stake. Today Tom finds one that appears to have been carved uniquely on the top. After an hour or so of searching he finds nine more that are marked with the same design at the top of the stake. Just as he's thinking it must have taken some time to carve all those he finds where the craftsman apparently stayed with an old fire pit and numerous wood shavings.

On the Scorpa

Today Tom is riding the Scorpa toward Jackson Hole in search of places he hasn't explored.