The Battle Winds Down

For a couple years the ravens have been getting together in fours and killing the hawks. On Thursday Kobae and I are out hiking in the canyons and I found the remains of another hawk. I think I'm down to two. At the feeding areas (Breakfast at Tiffany's #1, #2, and #3 I haven't seen a hawk checking them out in six months probably. They're more concerned apparently with their own survival as the ravens hang out here more and more.

What Kobae Likes Most

I've noticed Kobae is getting better at his turns.

Oh Crap, I'm Dead

Disc golfer comes in and says there are cat tracks in the sandy creek 20 feet to the right of Basket 11 on the original course. He's probably right. Last night the foxes came early and after half an hour or so they never came again and the raccoons stuck to the porch as did the ringtail and skunks. Everybody wants a hot dog. Nobody wants to be the hot dog. What doesn't make sense though is the female mountain lion always comes over Thanksgiving within a week or so and that ain't now.

He described perfectly where the cat walks each time she comes to visit so I head over to check it out. I'm looking around and there's a lot of tracks of all kinds on top of each other. I'm going to have to smash through the brush to get to where the cat tracks usually are. I get into the brush and I hear a noise on the other side and heavy movement, then a crashing sound and something is charging at me in the brush but it's so thick I can't see it. I push to the right into thicker brush and a large mule deer buck blows right past me on a very close call and runs up the hill. It took a minute or so to register I was still alive.

There was a second reason for being back in the bowl. Disc golfers middle of last week said the balanced rock had fallen and over the weekend a couple more mentioned it so I went back to see for myself. There were two balanced rocks very close to each other and the big one is gone.

The 240 mile footrace is coming through Saturday. Every year I volunteer to be the aid station and use all the facilities but they always set up out by the sign. It's a little irritating I could save them so much work and stuff to carry out.

I get up early to get check in rooms clean, pump water, do laundry for the check in rooms, because I know Kobae wants to go hiking. I'm done around noon and get back to the lodge. I can see Kobae has been pacing up and down the fence trying to get out. I collect all my hiking gear and a book and open his gate. He heads across the driveway and sets in the shade until almost dark.

Some Things

I'm hiking around the 2nd course with a GPS measuring the heights for the tees and baskets. I get the elevations and put it on the scorecards for the relatively new course. Doug Smith got the distances but you need the height changes also. It might be 400 feet to the basket from the tee but it there's a 50 foot difference in elevation one way or the other it makes a difference on how they line up the throw. I had been down to the former sheep pen in probably a year or two. This use to be a five foot fence going around the pen until the floods came. Pinto, Thelma, and Louise hung out here and then they're babies. I let them roam and then the Wildlife Division came and saw me and said "You know what happen 23 years ago?" I said "Maybe. Can you narrow it down a little." He did. "Domestic sheep bred with big horn and the domestic had some kind of disease, which wasn't a disease to them, but it was to the big horn who all went blind and died." Nobody told me. So Pinto, Thelma, and Louise had to go, so no sheep now, domestic that is. The regular big horn are wandering around the property. I'm glad I went down to the former sheep pen as I was out of the really strong fence to put on Kobae's pen but found some there though it didn't come off very easy.

Hannah, trail name Sage, came by hiking the Hayduke.

Kobae has a gift of finding the most difficult places to climb to get in the shade. He appears to want to have a view lately.

I ask Village Market in town how I can get his food to last longer as it has a shelf life of about a week for romaine, cucumbers, and green peppers. They said they keep it between 37 and 42 degrees so I plugged one of the refrigerators left over from the movie in the big garage next door and set it up for 40 degrees and I'm getting 10 to 11 days out of his food now. Which should save me a bunch of trips to town this coming year. Kobae left early to go hiking and I have to go but didn't have time to go next door and get some romaine and the like to feed him when we got back but it turns out when he came out of the shade he hiked next door to the garage and right to the fridge.

A month or so ago while Jax and I were out looking for some disc that someone lost we ran across a fox watching us in the rocks. I noticed him because he was moving around. I wasn't really focused on him as disc hunting was what I was doing but both Erich and Andrea email me and said there were three fox in the picture. I don't have that picture anymore but I took the one off the blog and am putting it up again though I have no idea if it will turn up very well on the re-post but it's pretty obvious, except to me apparently, that there are three fox in the picture.

Stuff

Kobae finally went down and spent a little time at the beach hiking along and soaking himself. We're out hiking most days. He has maybe a month left before going to San Diego for the winter.

It's the monsoon season for the Canyonlands. September and October yet this year we've just had a few touches of rain, lizard spit mostly. Some afternoons the dark clouds gather but Mother Nature doesn't release anything so far. Those were the scary times getting way out there, a couple miles, which equates to a couple hours hiking Kobae time. To see a storm coming and know you're not going to make it and to start looking for high ground before the floods come. I just looked at the next two weeks forecast and there's nothing coming so they say.

Supersoaker and Plax came through doing the Hayduke. Checking on water conditions and the feedback I'm getting from those in front of them is there isn't any water so you're going to have to pack enough to get to Needles 45 miles. Making the backpack a lot more heavy.

Then Kobae is Kobae. Lot more dogs this year for him to chase than usual. Other than during the unveiling of Jeep's new models here a couple years ago I've never seen a Jeep truck. Then within an hour or so of each other two guests check in and they are both driving a Jeep truck.

On Thursday Kobae and I are hiking up to Hurrah Pass and Kobae takes a shade break under a large rock and I lay down next to him finishing reading my book. Half hour or so later two big horn sheep walk right past us. The female notices us when I reach over to get my camera. Neither run. They pose.

Josh, Bird Guy

Josh is here four days last week. He's kind of a bird guy. Large bird flies over and before I can say anything he says "Turkey Vulture." All the other guests wants to go to Wind Caves and Chicken Corner. Josh hangs around the property and down by the river. As he's checking out he says "I made you a list of what I saw during the four days. Oh, add Peregrine Falcon just flew over."

A Hurry

I'm in a hurry to get to town. I told guests I'd be back around 10am so they could take a side by side out. Just got to drop a few bags of trash in the dumpster, not nearly as much as I've picked up. There's a guy walking over to the outhouse when I blow into the campground. He starts picking up the pace as I head for the dumpster. Then he's moving really quickly to the crapper. I pull up and he runs to the door. I said "I'm dropping trash in the dumpster. I'm not trying to get in line in front of you for the crapper." He nods his head with relief and goes inside.