This post compresses two hikes into one post. The first was on West Mountain a few days before the first day of Spring, the second hike was in the East Tintic Mountains a couple days after the Vernal Equinox. Weather for both hikes was partly to mostly cloudy, with a chance for precipitation.
Click on the photos to see larger versions.
The first photo shows the approach to the stone gateway into the mysterious mountain!
Then through the gateway!
My hike followed a broad wash in a canyon which zig-zaged up the mountain. Here it passes a wall of vertical rock strata.
Looking back at a section of the rock wall.
I wonder what might live in that jagged cave?
Looking back down canyon. The rocky, treeless nature of this landscape reminds me of pictures I've seen of Siani, where the ancient Twelve Tribes of Israel wandered for forty years on the way to the Promised Land. Perhaps it even reminds me of remote parts of the Holy Land.
Looking down canyon again, a while later, with a view across the lake and towards the Traverse Mountains.
Getting higher up canyon where the snow is.
The wash begins to narrow.
Eventually, the wash narrowed into a gully. I wanted to climb higher, and did walk a little ways past where the next photo was taken, but storm clouds were gathering overhead, and soon some rain began to fall. Gullies are not good places to be in rainstorms, so I donned my rain gear and turned back down the canyon. Most of the return hike was after nightfall.
The rain ended and the cloud cover became broken as I reached the bottom of the canyon. Upon exiting the canyon I saw to the west and south, huge anvil-shaped clouds silhouetted against an orangish afterglow along the horizon. Above me the constellation Orion and the Pleiades shone down through scattered clouds.
Some might find such a barren landscape unappealing, but I enjoyed it! It doesn't matter to me so much whether a place is forested, grassy, rocky, mountainous, hilly, marshy, sandy, or what-have-you. What matters to me is that it is wild. I found mule deer and chukar partridges, among other wildlife, in the canyon. Some of the limestone outcrops and boulders appear to have fossilized crinoids or brachiopods in them. Someday I'll take that canyon again, when I have enough time, and try to follow it all the way to the top.
Me in the canyon:
__________________________
The next hike was around a week later, this time in the East Tintic Mountains. The first photo is well into the hike, as I had already climbed over a barbed wire fence, crossed a large chained area, hiked through some brush and over a small ridge. Here a rancher's road ended at a gate in another fence. One day I'll pass through that gate and explore farther up that way, but on this day I chose to go another direction.
One of the reasons I had picked this place to hike was because the Wasatch Mountains were socked in by winter weather that seemed unwilling to relent to Spring. I imagine a hike in one of my usual Wasatch canyons would have likely been a hike in a blizzard. Here, the weather was a little cool, but pleasant, with the sun shining most of the day. This photo shows sunshine where I was, and the distant Wasatch Range rising into storm clouds.
I hiked over small ridges and in and out of washes all afternoon, not following any particular route. The next photo shows the typical pinyon pine and juniper covered hills I hiked in that day:
In failing daylight, I photographed this rock outcrop at the edge of a wash:
Some of the hiking gear I typically take with me:
Once again, my hike back was after dark. I arrived at the car after 9:00 PM. Stars shone down through a hazy sky, with the planet Venus in the western sky upstaging every other star with it's dazzling brilliance. This time of year, it's still winter constellations that show in the late evening sky; Orion, Canis Major, Gemini, Auriga, Taurus, and the Pleiades, to name a few. Mid summer will bring a different parade of constellations to the night sky; Cygnus, Aquila, and Lyra - their brightest stars forming an asterism called the Summer Triangle. Also, low in the southern sky Scorpius will have finally climbed above the horizon. I certainly look forward to summer, but won't pass up the wonderful opportunities Springtime hikes provide!
A selfie from the East Tintic Mountain hike:
