Grand Staircase - Southeast Utah

My cousin Paula's husband, Tim Casey, is a university professor and social scientist.  I had the unique opportunity of accompanying him 'the field' while he collaborated with the Bureau of Land Management at the Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument.  I learned a lot about desert land management as we tagged along with BLM staff, and gained insight into the communities of southeastern Utah at public meetings aimed at surveying what resources people utilize and consider most special on the monument.  Here are a few photos from our 5-day road trip.

 

A picture of a picture, as this is a hard shot to get: 

Grand Staircase (brown, vermillion, white, grey and pink cliffs).  

Slot canyons and arches in the Grand Staircase area.

Colorful Juniper wood and unique sandstone pinnacles in Red Canyon, Dixie National Forest.

 A view of the San Rafael Swell.

San Luis Valley, Colorado

Our experiences in Colorado have been rich thus far.  Quality time with family, and outdoor adventures in the mountains.  I will write more about our home in Montrose soon, but wanted to first share some photos from one particularly magical weekend. 

Danielle had a long weekend, a rare treat, so we decided to get a bit further afield.  We spent the weekend in a little cottage several miles up a dirt road outside of Del Norte, on the edge of national forest land.  The quiet, and the spectacular night sky, were worth the drive.  For the first time I began to pick out constellations: the Gemini twins, Ursa Major, Covus. 

The San Luis Valley proved interesting in other ways too, particularly its colonial Spanish heritage and its dramatic natural splendor.  We took walks along an ancient volcanic caldera and its maze-like boulder fields.  And then we went to the Monte Verde National Wildlife Refuge to see the migrating Sand Hill cranes.  This being a critical staging and 'refueling' area, the sky was full of tens of thousands of these graceful birds.  Parachuting out of the sky with long legs extended, and barely a flap of their wings, they descended to feed on the rye and barley fields.  At dusk they could be seen commuting, single-file in lines approaching 5 miles in length, to their nightly shallow water roosts.  Their calls filled the air, enchanting and wooden sounding, like a cross between a croak and a purr.

After an overnight storm, we crossed the valley to play at Great Sand Dunes National Park.  Last I passed through here, twelve years ago on the way to Louisiana, the August temperature was boiling hot.  Danielle and I were new to each other, our future together uncertain.  What a story has unfolded since then!  And what different conditions on my return.  Snow blanketed the steep slopes, smoothing and muting the already supple lines of the dune field.  It was a visual feast.  We cross-country skied around the perimeter, between the dunes and the adjacent Sangre de Christo mountains that trap the airborne particles.  Later we clambered up and up and up, laughing hysterically as we raced Koa back down.

On the way home we soaked at a hot springs high up a mountain slope, gazing in satisfaction at the valley below.  The driving itself was rewarding, as we saw saw grey fox, herds of pronghorn antelope, hawks and eagles.  We spent those days in awe of our planet, its fecundity and diversity of life.