Water Lilies

Having been raised in the desert Southwest for most of my life, I am fascinated by water lilies. Not only are they beautiful flowers, but they grow in water. In an around Arizona, they are a rare sight. They are almost as rare in Utah. The largest and most extensive growths of water lilies I have seen are along the banks of the Mississippi River. These particular water lilies are growing in an artificial pond in Utah.

Sunflowers

I began to realize that during the course of a year, the flowers changed. Living in the low desert, we had seasons and I did realize that the cactus bloomed in March and April and some on into June, but for the most part, annual flowers were in the background. Here in Utah, we have definite flower seasons. There are flowers that are actually planted in the middle of the winter and others that bloom in the spring, summer and into the fall. Sunflowers appear in August. I guess I had associated to change of the seasons with Fall leaves rather than flowers.

Chile Peppers

I have acquired a taste for chile peppers over the years. They are rated according to the "Scoville" scale of hotness. A mild chile pepper might rate below 500 on Scoville scale. But a hot pepper can reach to the stratosphere of hotness with the Bhut Jolokia pepper at over a million. The latest world record holder for the hottest chile is the Carolina Reaper. I thought it might be interesting to see what Wikipedia had to say about this chile:

The Carolina Reaper, originally named the HP22BNH7, is a cultivar of chili pepper of theCapsicum chinense species. Bred in a Rock Hill, South Carolina greenhouse by Ed Currie, who runs the PuckerButt Pepper Company in Fort Mill, South Carolina, it has been rated as the world's hottest chili pepper by Guinness World Records since August 7, 2013.[1][2] The original crossbreed was between a ghost pepper (a former world record holder) and a red habanero.[3] It averages a 1,569,300 on the Scoville scale with peak levels of over 2,200,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). Recently, there has been some debate over whether the Carolina Reaper is genetically distinct from the Trinidad 7-Pot Primo strain, another hybrid species of Caribbean chile which is very similar in heat level and appearance. There are YouTube challenges about eating these.[4] At the 2nd Annual New York City Hot Sauce Expo on 30 March 2014, Ed Currie was presented with his world record by Guinness World Records and an eating competition was held in which the fastest time to consume three Carolina Reapers was determined for a new Guinness World Records at 12.23 seconds by Russel Todd.[5][6]

I left in all the links in case you want to try some of this type of pepper yourself.

Frog in a Pond

I was walking along, looking at flowers, and I spied this frog sitting in a small pond. From my perspective, the water didn't look all that inviting, but if I ate bugs for a living, I suppose that the quality of the water would not be an important consideration. I am not sure that the frog's passive hunting tactic was getting him anywhere, since I did not see him so much as blink an eye while I took his photo. No, I did not get a model release from him so I suppose he could come back and sue me.

Zinnias

When I think of flowers, I usually do not think of zinnias. They are colorful and have lovely shapes, but they seem to me to be planted merely for the purpose of having a spot of color. If they were not so common, they would be spectacular. But they are usually planted in large beds that hide the individual flowers in a swatch of color. It is interesting that those who sell seeds, classify zinnias for the "beginning gardner." Of course, the implication is that any experienced gardner would not spend his or her time planting zinnias. Why is this the case? I would be glad if anything I planted grew. I have spent a long time gardening. I was once considered an "expert" and taught classes around the community on gardening, but I would still plant zinnias.

The first snow of August

I began wondering about the seasons. Since most of my adult life has been spent living in the low desert of Arizona, we only had two real seasons; hot and warm. Snow was a novelty and almost completely unknown except on very rare occasions. Last year, I was surprised to see this snow on Mount Timpanogos in August. This year has been warmer without the cold snap that gave us snow on the mountains. But I can see that that weather predictions indicate that the temperatures are dropping and Autumn is just around the corner. I will try not to get so busy this year that I miss the changes as they come.

Black Eyed Susan

We have been seeing these black eyed susans (Rudbeckia hirta) all over the past few days. they are apparently the late summer flower of choice. We even saw them blooming out in the desert along the highways. I speculated that they must have been planted, but there they were.

Camelback at Sunset

I spent a greater part of my life living in and around Phoenix, Arizona. This photo has two Arizona icons, a shaded view of a saguaro cactus and the outline of the famous Camelback Mountain. We used to climb the cliffs that make up the head of the camel. We had to get up about 4:00 am and get to the cliffs in the dark. We would climb until about 10:00 am or so, when the rocks reached about 150 degrees and you had to wear gloves to climb because the rocks would burn your hands. When I lived in Mesa, I really couldn't see the mountain, but whenever I drove into Phoenix, which was frequently, there it was, looming on the edge of the city. I guess now, you would consider Camelback to be right in the middle of the city.

Lake Powell and the Wahweap Marina

When I drive from Provo, Utah to Mesa, Arizona, I have several route choices. We usually calculate the route by looking at the milage and the possibility of road construction. One option is to drive through Page, Arizona and cross the Colorado River at the Glen Canyon Dam. This last trip, I took several shots of the lake and this one, showing the Wahweap Marina in the background. The distances and light conditions make this a difficult shot. On the way down to Mesa, the air was full of smoke from the fires in the Northwest. On this day, it was relatively clear, but there was still a hint of haze.

The Last Ray of Sunlight

Right at the time of the sunset and sunrise you can see some of the most impressive lighting conditions. This ray of light coming in between the clouds and the mountains was persistent. Usually, this type of phenomena lasts for a few seconds, but this ray stayed out there over the water for an appreciable length of time. It was quite dramatic.

A Typical Hanging Glacier

Where I now live in Provo, Utah, I can see the effects of the glaciers on the mountains. When we recently went around to the backside of Mount Timpanogos, we could see the huge glacial cirque that created the summit ridge. Years ago, there was a permanent snow field in that huge cirque. Some argued that it was the most southern of the glaciers in Utah, but glacier or not, it is almost entirely gone due to the change in the climate. In ancient times, the back and front of Timpanogos probably looked a lot like this Alaskan glacier. Last year, we had very little snow in Utah Valley and they are predicting that this year there might be even less. I guess all the comments we endured about moving to the north and snow will not come true for at least another year or so or never.

Lichen on a Log

I think that had I multiple lives to live, I would spend one of them studying lichen and moss. I love the patterns and colors of both these complicated living things. Lichen is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria (or both) living among filaments of a fungus in a symbiotic relationship. See Wikipedia: Lichen. Lichen is not a plant. There are over 20,000 known species of lichen, but I suspect that there are many more yet to be classified or even discovered. I always notice the lichen. This log is in the Denali National Park in Alaska.

Flower Discoveries

Every so often, I spot a very unusual flower and grab a photo. Sometimes I can identify the flower almost immediately, but other times the identification eludes me entirely. This is one of those flowers. Try your luck, maybe you have this growing in your yard. How about sharing your knowledge?

Mystery solved: Through comments from my readers, the plant was identified as a red lupine (Lupinus polyphyllus). Thanks for all the comments (mostly on Google+).

Low Tide

This is on the South Coast of Victoria Island in British Columbia. My recent trip to Canada reminded me of the ocean even though we spent all of our time in the mountains. This is my kind of beach. It has character and not just sand and water. I realize that the ideal beach is usually portrayed with white sand and sun, but I like the overcast skies, with a stiff breeze blowing off the water and a lot of drift wood and rocks to walk on and look at. In short, this beach is very close to my ideal.

Mountain Majesty

When I was young, I used to dream about climbing high mountains, preferably covered with ice and snow. I still dream, but the dreams are tempered with the reality of climbing in ice and snow since I have climbed my share of the mountains of the western part of the United States. On of my grandsons just climbed the highest peak in Utah. I still feel like I could do that, but feeling and doing are two different things. We were going to climb Mount Timpanogos in the Wasatch Mountains recently, but we got rained out. I can still remember the first time I climbed to the top of rather prominent hill in Eastern Arizona called Cinder Knoll. It was a windy day in the summer when I was just about eight years old. When I got to the top, I felt like I could see forever. There were a few clouds on the horizon and my father, who had let me run up the hill alone, was climbing the hill calling to me to come down. He was afraid I would be struck by lightning. He was probably correct, but the feeling of being on the top of the world gave me a lifetime of climbing mountains, both real and figurative.

Looking down on the lake

One of the advantages of having the physical ability to hike up into the mountains is the view you get when you get high up and can look down on the lakes and rivers. This is from a high ridge in Glacier National Park. Right now, this view might be hard to get with all the smoke from the fires that are burning. I like this little island. It is not quite large enough to think about living on, but one can always dream.

A Mountain Pool

You might have to look closely at this image and perhaps click on it to enlarge it on your screen to see that the water is practically coated with tiny insects. With the right light, the air here in the mountains was practically saturated with bugs. Most of them were so small, I really could not tell if they were mosquitos or flies, but they did not bite fortunately, so I didn't look too closely at them. They were so small, that I imagine I ingested a few in walking around in the cloud.

Falling Water

A 2000th of a second may seem very fast, but it is just barely fast enough to stop the action of water cascading down a hillside in the Wasatch Mountains. The interesting thing about this image is that even a split second later the whole image would have changed to something similar but completely different. The speed of the camera lets us see into the nearly invisible world that is all around us. We seldom see any detail at all in a stream or waterfall. We get the impression that there is movement but the complexity of that movement is completely lost by our own eyes. It takes the high speed shutter of the camera to freeze that movement in a way we can appreciate what is going on.

Dinosaur

Utah should really be called the Dinosaur State. It has one of the most active paleontology communities in the United States. There are several very active fossil quarries, including several commercial ones open to the public. It also has Dinosaur National Monument on the eastern border of the state with Colorado. I once considered becoming a paleontologist, but moved on to linguistics and ultimately law. That doesn't stop me from having an active interest in geology and other earth sciences. I monitor the geology blogs for both Arizona and Utah. This particular dinosaur skeleton is in the Thanksgiving Point Museum of Ancient Life, one of the best in the entire country in my opinion.

Canning Peaches

I realize that this image is not one of my landscapes or animal photos, but I could not resist the color and texture of these freshly canned peaches. These bottles come from the efforts of one of my daughters. I love peaches and it is always a treat to have canned peaches when they are out of season. Somehow, home canned peaches taste so much better than those that come in cans. My wife's family was very much involved in canning all sorts of fruits and vegetables. Of course, my own involvement has been limited to a support function, if that, but I do enjoy eating the fruits of their labors. Depending on their circumstances, my sons and daughters and their families have carried on the tradition of canning and preserving. It is nice to know that some of these basic survival skills are still being passed along to a few of those in our highly commercialized world.

A Visiting Bat

This tiny bat was snuggled on the wall of my daughter's home. I don't think I would be nearly as comfortable hanging by my toes from a crack in the wall.

Timpanogos from the west

If you have ever visited or even driven through the northern part of Utah Valley, you have seen the steep western face of Mount Timpanogos. Rising thousands of feet from the valley floor, this is one of the more dramatic mountain views in Utah. Getting a perspective of the mountain comes when you drive to the east and look back at the mountain from the eastern part of the state. The tops of the mountains you can see on the right side of this image is the summit ridge of Mount Timpanogos. This vies gives an entirely different perspective on the mountain and its relation to the rest of the mountains in the Wasatch Range. By the way, there is no traffic congestion out here in the middle of the mountains only an hour or so away from the bustle of the cities along the Wasatch Front.

A Snake Encounter

My wife was resting on a log and I walked up and saw this friendly little fellow about two feet away on the same log. We are not excitable folks and I just asked her to stand up and look at the snake. She immediately got out her iPhone and started sending Instagrams to her children. A typical family reaction to a surprising situation. I checked the following source:

Pack, Herbert J., "Bulletin No. 221 - Snakes of Utah" (1930). UAES Bulletins. Paper 182. http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/uaes_bulletins/182

 and quickly identified the snake as a Utah gopher snake, Pituophis catenifer stejnegeri. There was a large group of people coming down the trail, including a number of small children, and for the snake's protection and theirs, we encouraged the snake to move off of the log and out into the grass.

Cascade Spring in the Wasatch Mountains

The Wasatch Mountains are right outside my door. I can look out almost any window and see them rising precipitously to the east. The dramatic view of the mountains from the valleys is often referred to as the Wasatch Front that includes all of the cities and towns from Mount Nebo on the south, north to the Idaho border. The advantage of living so close to the mountains is that when I have a free afternoon, we can take a bike ride up Provo Canyon or drive into the mountains on the Alpine Loop. There are a number of remarkable areas including a huge natural spring area called Cascade Spring. There is a distinct contrast between driving out into the desert (especially in the Summer) and driving out into the mountains. I miss the desert, but I welcome the change to the high mountains.

Cooking Breakfast

Of course, I was not cooking breakfast. I don't cook. I get up early and take photographs. When I got back to camp, I did get to eat because the rest of the family got up a lot later and got breakfast. It is a remarkable experience to see the way that the light changes during the day. As I sit and review my photos on my computer at home, I can look out the window and see a thick forest of trees. There are plum trees, maples, box elders, oaks and some I am still meaning to look up and identify. But what is impressive is the way that the light changes on the leaves during the day. Since I live right next to a steep hill and in the shadow of the mountains, the sun does not "rise" until late in the morning. But I do get the last rays of light in the evening. Here in this photo, I was standing across the lake from the campfire. At first, I thought that the smoke was a fog or haze, but after I looked at the photo, I realized it was a campfire. I liked the way the trees and the smoke were reflected in the lake. I hope you can imagine being there.

About to Land

We have enjoyed having a hummingbird feeder right outside the window to our home office. There are quite a few visitors to the feeder during the day and some of them fly right up to the windows and take a good long look at us working. I have found that taking photos of flying hummingbirds is rather a challenge. So far, I have used my 300 mm lens. I am going to have to go outside with my 500 mm lens and a tripod before the weather changes and the birds start to leave for the winter. This is likely a female, Black-chinned Hummingbirg or Archilochus alexandri.

Glacier National Park, Montana

In our, now not so recent, visit to Glacier National Park, the scenery was magnificent as usual. The challenge was that the park has only two access roads. The recent fires in the Park have highlighted the challenge that visitors face: lack of access and lack of adequate parking. There is a Park shuttle service, but the parking for the shuttle is inadequate and the service is not nearly enough to make a dent in all the people visiting the Park and trying to park their cars in the very limited space available. This is the same challenge faced by Yosemite National Park. Both Parks are essentially traffic jams on a busy day during the summer. Zion National Park and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park have solved the problem by excluding cars altogether from the Parks. The shuttle system at both Zion and the Grand Canyon work wonderfully. The Parks are much safer and more orderly than the mob scenes at Glacier and Yosemite. Even though our last visit to Zion was marked by a huge crowd in the Narrows, the visit was not marred by traffic jams. In Glacier, there should be a much greater effort to provide shuttle service that matches the need. There should also be a much higher fee for parking in the Park outside of the shuttle areas. Since the main road, like the one in Zion, is used for crossing the Park, there should be a crossing permit that does not allow parking, either free or at a reduced rate. Right now, Glacier and Yosemite are on my list as the worst run Parks in America.

Allen's Hummingbird in Utah

This tiny Allen's Hummingbird or Selasphorus sasin has been zooming around our hummingbird feeder for the past two weeks. It pretends to be "king of the hill" and tries to drive away any other hummingbirds in the vicinity, usually without much luck. I have no trouble spotting him, but I have a really hard time getting him to sit still long enough to get a photo in focus, especially one showing his gorgeous throat feathers.

Police Car Moth

Yes, this is really the name of this strikingly patterned moth and no, it is not a butterfly. The full scientific name of the moth is Arctiidae Pericopinae Ghophaela vermiculata. It is found in the western parts of the United States and south-western Canada, from British Columbia to California, east to New Mexico and north to Manitoba. We found this one on a flower in the High Uintah Mountains of eastern Utah at about 10,000 feet above sea level. I find it interesting how many people walked by this moth without even noticing it. It is one thing to be in the outdoors, it is another thing to be aware of what you are seeing.

The Arrow of Time

We see our surroundings in patterns. This phenomena is called pareidolia or the ability of the mind perceives a familiar pattern where none exists. Pareidolia is the visual or auditory form of apophenia, which is the perception of patterns within random data. See Wikipedia: Pareidolia. It is almost impossible not to see a pattern in this image. I can see patterns, including faces and objects, in almost any arrangement of light and dark, including floor tile, leaves on trees, clouds and all sorts of other situations. If you go back through my photos, you will see the many instances where I have taken images that show underlying patterns. First, I focus on the arrangement of the elements in the photo, but then I often see the patterns in the elements. I presently have 2705 posts with photos on this blog. See how many have underlying patterns. You will probably be surprised.

Moosehorn Lake in the High Uintahs

We drove to the Uintah Mountains in eastern Utah hoping to find a camping spot. It was a busy weekend in August in the great outdoors and we found that nearly every available camping spot, including roadside pull-offs had been taken. We checked each of the campgrounds in succession and found them all full. As is my habit, I don't believe everything I am told, so I drove around in the campgrounds to verify that the signs posted were accurate. In the Moosehorn Campground, we found two open spots and quickly paid for the camp permit. I had never been to this campground before and it wasn't until the next morning that I found out we were camped only about 50 yards or so from the lake. I got up early and wandered down to the lake with my camera and took a series of incredible images. So, welcome to Moosehorn Lake.

Floating in the Sky

This makeshift raft was a perfect example of the visual, spatial distortion caused by the extreme reflection in the mountain lake. It is even more of a visual distortion to be standing there looking down into the sky. This phenomena has happened to me a few times, even while kayaking on a lake, but the clarity of this particular event was remarkable. This does point out the old saying about early birds and worms, but it is probably more realistic in terms of photographers and photos.

Mountain Moon Rise

This was the night of the rare, Blue Moon, in July of 2015. I sat out on the side of the mountain waiting for the moon to rise and when it did, there were clouds. I took a number of shots at different settings with two different cameras and finally got this image with the moon behind a cloud. I started out to be fairly chilly at over 10,000 feet up in the mountains of eastern Utah, but for some reason it warmed up a bit. Being from the low desert, I was surprised that I had to wear my winter parka to keep warm on a July evening.

The Monster of the Lake

This was pretty scary. I noticed it surfacing about 30 yards away and quickly got my camera to take one image before it sank once again beneath the calm surface of the water. Actually, it just sat there and I took my time composing the photo. It is impossible to plan this kind of shot, they just happen. This photo was taken at Moosehorn Lake in the High Uintah Mountains of Eastern Utah.

A Real Mirror in the Lake

A small boy came up the lake with his mother and said, "What happened to the water?" He could not see the surface of the water and assumed it was all gone. I had about the same reaction to this series of amazing images. Conditions have to be just right, with no wind and the sun at the right angle. It also helps to be at 10,400 feet up in the High Uintah Mountains. This is not the famous "Mirror Lake," this is Moosehorn Lake, about a mile away.

Reflections on Bald Mountain

This photo was taken from the shore of Moosehorn Lake in the high Uintah Mountains of northeastern Utah. I am not quite sure why this particular mountain is called Bald Mountain since all of the mountains in the area look pretty much the same. The summit of Bald Mountain is 11,943 feet above sea level and is considered to be one of the easiest mountains in Utah to summit. The trail gains 1250 feet to the summit, which I would not consider easy. But I guess you would have to consider that I was at 10.400 feet when I took this photo.

Once in a Blue Moon

July 31, 2015 was a Blue Moon night. No, the moon did not change color, it was the second full moon in the same month. This is a photo I took while high in the Uintah Mountains at about 10,400 feet. If you look closely, you can see the outline of a bat that happened to fly by when I took the photo. Yes, this is a color photo of the moon that night.

Mt. Nebo and Rock Canyon

The high peak in the distance is Mt. Nebo, the highest peak along the Wasatch Front visible from Utah Valley. The big rock cliff on the left is Rock Canyon. The hill in the right center is Squaw Peak from the north. If you look closely, you can see the Squaw Peak trail. This was a perfect day for a hike into the mountains.