Thursday: We're Going to Jackson (not all the way)

Jax and I left around noon after feeding the little people at the Tiffany locations and headed out toward Jackson Hole. We found a place with a nice view after a couple miles and took a break.

We continued on to the long abandoned and capped Prommell Oil Well #1 with it's lightning and food shelter.

We continued the road until it turned right and started down the hill towards the Pot Ash Plant and Jackson Hole. We went straight at the turn and headed toward the river hoping to find a way down to come out at Last Hurrah.

Getting within distance of the river we were high up on a ridge we had a lot of difficulty finding a way down.

We found a place where I thought I could get down but it turned out to be too slippery. Then Jax thought he had a place but the last jump was too far. While we were searching for a way down for both of us we saw a small female big horn in the canyon below us right as it saw us and took off running down the canyon. Jax, despite my plea, took off straight down a rock formation after it. Something he would not normally have been able to do. I was already walking on a narrow trail on the ridge and I wasn't getting off it. As I rounded a corner the big horn blew around the rock and almost ran into me. Then veered off going straight down the side and into the flat land. A few second later Jax ran around the corner and also almost ran into me. Somehow he had made it back up the ridge. By then the big horn was a mile away.

I figured I'd just follow the big horn tracks and see where it came back up the ridge and go down there. When I found it I couldn't believe it was possible. Jax walked over and looked down and he wasn't interested either though he had to have just come up it.

Finally we worked our way around the canyon and hooked up with the trail that goes out past the Last Hurrah hogans and returning to the lodge.

Tragedy

It's 1:15am Thursday morning. There are the most horrible cries coming from what I think is a fox up on the hill by the hogans. I've heard fox bark before trying to find each other and I heard a fox complain all night in the canyons when I by accident interfered with a rabbit kill but this is just heart breaking. I turned the Go Pro on to record the sound but it went dead immediately and the regular camera I use isn't good at capturing sound. I don't know what might have happened but this is as eerie a sound as I've ever heard out here and even Jax who always wants to investigate everything didn't want to go up there either. In fact he turned around and went back in the lodge first.

We'll hike up in the morning and see what we can find.

Thursday evening: Jax and I went up the hill to see what all the crying was about early this morning. We spent 30 minutes up there and I found fox footprint, squirrel and chipmunk, even a deer had come through but I didn't find any bobcat or mountain lion that might have led to the death of a fox. I don't know what happen this morning.

I Know That Turd

Tuesday was cold. High of 27, low of 10, wind of 30 or so. Jax and I got a little hiking in to Last Hurrah to turn the water off since I don't have any guests there for awhile. When we got back and not long before dark I went out to fill up the Kit&Kaboodle bowl in Kobae's pen that the foxes use, and lately the ravens, if there's anything left in the morning. I could see from the side while approaching the bowl that it was still full of food which is pretty unusual. When I got to it there was a gooey turd laying on top of the Kit&Kaboodle and no foxes or ravens had eaten out of the bowl. Kobae probably would have but he's not here. I've had an issue with a fox peeing in it before, I assumed to show it's disappointment that the bowl was empty but nothing has ever pooped in it before. I picked up the bowl to empty the turd into a nearby bush and as it fell out of the bowl I realized I knew that turd and had seen it's relatives hundreds of times. It was Jax's turd. Jax pooped in the bowl. He's probably the one been peeing in it too cause it hadn't happened in a couple months and started again when he got back. He was such a nice dog when he got here. Now he has issues and attitude like everything else out here.

Wednesday was better. Got into the 30s  with little wind so we hiked over to the Wind Caves and back.

Snow Flurries

You know, those small white pieces of ice that when they hit you sometimes it hurts.

The movie people checked out around 1:30pm and Jax and I drove over to Last Hurrah to escort them to Moab as they were somewhat inexperienced in snow and ice, sometimes called "flurries". I was going to have to go sometime this week to get groceries so might as well get it over with. Escorting them up Hurrah and down anyway so by then I'm only 20 to 30 minutes from town.

Turning in their vehicle rental the guy in charge comes over to give me my walkie talkie back and says "I called every number on the film list and you're the only one in all of Utah that would allow us to come out and film." I had an hour to think about that on the way back from Moab but I never came to a conclusion. When I got to the top of Hurrah Pass I realized I didn't know the question or even if there was one.

After bank, post office, and groceries Jax and I set about our return to the lodge. I brought a pack, heavy coat, and headlamps unlimited. Someday I'm going to break down and have to hike back and I might as well be prepared. After spending time with dark dark a month or so ago it turns out I don't enjoy our relationship as much as I had remembered I thought I did.

The hail from earlier had melted as we headed back and the flurries began to follow us. At our return they began closing in and dancing all around us. I went out around 10pm to feed my ringtail friend on the first pole out the door and the flurries were settling in. By morning they had accumulated in to a small piles of flurries. Sometimes called "snow".

Some Stuff

I had briefly put up a post a week or so ago about movie being filmed out here and then wasn't sure as the explanation of the movie changed a couple times or at least my understanding did and so I took the post down but now that they've finished filming, I think they have, it wasn't so bad after all. Jax and I went into town and picked some of them up on Friday and some of their gear so I could spend the drive back better understanding what I had gotten myself into.

It's a documentary of sorts about people with a unique lifestyle. They hike out in nature, get inspired by something they see or feel, have an intimate relationship, not always, but sometimes. I cut the deal, then kind of got the feeling they were just going to go around bumping uglies with Base Camp and Last Hurrah stuff in the background. However they'd call me on the walkie, tell me where they were roughly and I'd ok it or not as long as there weren't any of my structures in the background, and they would agree. I'd tell them I'd keep people away, turn off their walkie, then call me when they were no longer inspired. I waived the two requirements for filming on the property.

1. Linny has to be in the movie.
2. Kobae has to be in the movie.
I won't be posting any pictures or video. They were in and out in three days. No pun intended.

Jax and I have hiked every day since he got back and today, Sunday, we found a nice spot at the entrance to The Fingers and just sat in the quiet for half an hour or so and enjoyed the heat, probably 50 today, and the view.

There were no living tracks in The Fingers at all except Jax, and in time, me. There was one rock track, in the 4th picture coming up, a large rock had fallen sometime in the last few days just in front of where Jax is standing. You can see where it shattered and recognize it different because of it's color. The canyon is a lighter color further up above where we were hiking.

I haven't seen the pigeon in a month. Maybe they go south or it found another pigeon but it's not hanging out with the Eurasian doves anymore. I have a little bit of video of the raven teacher working with me in the mornings but not enough worth posting. The raven has had a short temper with me of late. I've gotten four or five sounds of raven down pretty well but now it's teaching me this sort of bubble that comes up through it's throat voice and I have no idea how to make that happen. Every time I try to mimic the bubble sound the raven turns it's back on me and faces the river. So I switch to whistling the call of the male house finches who are singing away on the sunny days. Then the raven flies off disgusted and complaining as it leaves. I noticed today there has been some new construction work on the raven nest in the third finger canyon so maybe they're coming back to that spot this spring.

I'm not sure how long it's been since this happened but somewhere not long after I moved out here I was at Behind the Books in town browsing and whoever was working suggested I buy the book "Artifacts of Death" that a guy wrote that was about stuff around here. I bought it, read it, was neat to read about stuff I knew, like the picture on the front is False Kiva in Canyonlands which I've been to several times. Then I put it on my bookshelf for others to read. The other day I was on Amazon and ran across it again. I read a few of the reviews and then saw the section that says about other books bought by people that read this book and found he had written several books about the Moab area.

Ed Abby is the most famous local author but I didn't enjoy the books of his I read because they were wrong in a lot of instances. The first flowers that bloom, the mannerisms of certain lizards, and just a lot of little stuff that you wouldn't even think about if you didn't live it every day. Maybe things are just different in Arches where he lived but still it didn't mesh with what I knew to be fact so I didn't read him again.

After reading a little preview of each of Rich Curtin's books I started thinking he's probably searching for fresh ideas about a story and maybe I can help. I sent him an email saying so and sent him ten or twenty blog posts over the last year about things that had happened to me and maybe he could use them and I could give him the finite details that only somebody that lived the life would know. He responded and ended with "Maybe I’ll visit sometime and work on a new story. Maybe you can help with the story line!" So everybody that keeps telling me to write a book, well maybe, sort of, in a different way. I ordered all of his books so I can read them and not waste his time on any ideas that would duplicate anything he has done already.

http://www.bridgemachine.net/rc/index.php?sent=y#aod