Tag Archives: Aspen

An Afternoon With Lady Moon

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Yesterday was one of those days where you looked out the window and said “Ok that’s it, I’m out of here.” It was too beautiful a day to stay inside. The sun was shining, there was a slight breeze, a huge sky filled with gorgeous clouds and the seductive possibility that one could spend the afternoon with Lady Moon.

Lady Moon is a valley near Red Feather Lakes in Northern Colorado. It’s a long valley situated over 8000′ between the gently sloping valley walls, it feels close to the sky. Always filled with lush grass, and wild flowers so densely packed it is difficult to walk without stepping on one, it is a hike to take whenever your spirits are low, or even when you’re so happy you can’t stand yourself. The South fork of Lone Pine Creek, a slow moving stream and its attendant wetlands, take up much of the valley floor and meanders down to join other streams helping build the watershed that provides our water. Beautiful stands of aspen in all of their finest greenery line the edges of the valley. It is truly a beautiful place.

As a photographer this is where you want to be on a day like this. Add getting to spend the day with good friends and it becomes a very good day indeed. The other photographer vying for the attention of Lady Moon is a local resident who is fast becoming known as the Prince of Red Feather for his more than accomplished photographic skills. He led the trek which was supposed to be a short hike of a mile or so but turned into a mini marathon. This was not specifically his fault as the person he was shooting with was one of those types that would dart off in a one direction to shoot a picturesque clump of aspen, then dart back to rejoin you only to dart off again in another direction to shoot a clump of mountain iris, rather like when you walk with your dog off the leash and he runs 75 yards ahead, and when you don’t catch up to him quickly enough runs back to you only to run off again to repeat the process. At the end of the walk he has walked 30 miles to your three. That was how a short walk of a mile or so turned into five.

All in all the day couldn’t have turned out better. We arrived back at the trailhead with a camera full of pictures, tired, wet from giving up all attempts to stay dry crossing Lone Pine creek dozens of times and thoroughly satisfied with our visit to Lady Moon. Plans were made to visit Lady Moon again in the fall. Those aspen are going to be absolutely spectacular then.

Long Winter

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Well it’s been a long winter here at The Institute and there was a point where some despair was settling in, but as often happens when you set your resolve and say ” Darn it, it’s been a long winter and I sure as heck am sick of it, but I know that Spring will come, because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me” things will change and they did.

The last part of the quote we borrowed from an intern named Stuart who used to work for us and is one of the few that went on to bigger, and some say, better things. In fact he was the only one we know of that isn’t still on public assistance after leaving here. However the jury is still out on whether that is an improvement because becoming a bigwig in the government isn’t everyone’s idea of bettering themselves.

But we made it. It looks like Spring is here, our Aspen have those tiny little neon green leaves that nearly glow they’re so bright. There’s small little red buds peeking out from under last years canes on the rose bushes. Stellar Jays have arrived in flocks of indigo blue flashes as they flit from tree to tree. One day not long ago an entire herd of robins came and sat in one of our snags and completely filled every spot available for sitting. Usually you just look up and there’s a few robins but that day there were dozens and dozens. That’s pretty darn spring-like.

We wanted to show you some pictures of Spring here at The Institute but our cameras are still in storage and we can’t find the blowtorch to thaw the lock on the door so this shot of Spring in Arches National Park will have to stand in for us. It’s pretty close to what things look like here anyway so we didn’t think it would matter that much. The green on that tree is almost exactly the shade of our green, you just have to disregard the sand though as we don’t have nearly that much lying around.

Spring always causes a flurry of action here at The Institute. The snow melts away and we find the road again right where we left it last fall. That’s going to make our coming and going easier. The overflow of interns we had last fall begin to dig out of the caves they spent the winter in. We had a larger than normal number of interns for some reason, we think it was for the free food and the chance to watch HBO up at the big house once in a while. The dorms were packed and couldn’t handle even one more body. We need to pay attention to the fire code here as having over ten or more people in a single room often leads to friction and that leads to heat and that leads to fire and it’s awful. Plus we don’t need anymore adverse publicity after that fiasco with the Intern Riots, Fall of 2014 where they nearly burned The Institutes main center down. The only thing that saved us was that the main building’s first four stories are made of pre-stressed concrete and are very hard to ignite. However most of that crew is gone.  But being young and cunning and thinking more about survival, the more resourceful of them, at least the ones that didn’t perish in the cold, dug substantial caves and apparently made them quite homey.

Spring is always a time of renewal and it’s always a welcome sight to see the interns emerging from the cliff side, wan and somewhat emaciated but cheerful never the less, blinking and rubbing their eyes as they see the sun for the first time in months. They seem eager for the spring routine to begin where they’re run through the communal showers, shorn and issued their new spring work clothes. It’s a wonderful start to the year. Spring brings out the best in everyone and we’re looking forward to great things as The Institute gets rolling again. We have big plans. Stay tuned for further adventures.

Note: Due to an unexpectedly high mortality rate amongst our interns we are now accepting applications for employment. If you are considering a change of pace and want an action packed, semi-dangerous occupation with the opportunity to accomplish little or nothing of value at a criminally low pay scale please send your resume to the  Director@BigShotsNow.com We are an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Snow In The Canyon

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Wouldn’tcha just know it. Yesterday the sun was shining, it was almost hot with the temps in the mid 60’s and today just a few miles away as the crow flies, if he wasn’t frozen and stuck to his perch, it was cold, windy and the temps were in the low 30’s.

This is the Poudre River canyon where Colorado hwy 14 climbs up along the mountain along side the Cache La Poudre river as it rushes down to the flatlands below. In the background you can see the snow heading this way. It’s not a full-blown storm yet, more of a test or a warning that it’s going to be doing this in earnest before you can say “Maui, I want to go to Maui.”

It’s serious though, the storm that is, look back into that dark, opaque gray way up the canyon. Cars were coming out of that with 3 or 4 inches of snow on them. The elevation right here is between 8 and 9 thousand feet and it’s much higher up there where it is really snowing. What that means is the leaves that are trying so hard to change color are soon going to be lying on the ground and floating down the river and all of these aspen* are going to be standing here with their bare little branches sticking out, nude and defenseless until next spring, which is a long, long way away.

The danger here is that snow at this time of year is usually sticky and heavy with moisture and will cling to those bright golden aspen leaves and cause them to fall off much sooner than they would have without the snow. The leaves are in a weakened state and are barely clinging to their branches now and the slightest little breeze will send them flying off into the great unknown.

What that means for a photographer is that if you want color you better get your keester up there and shoot like you mean it for as long as you can, before the leaves are all gone off the trees and it’s game over. So today bright and early it’s off to the now chilly mountains and getting used to shooting with a heavy down coat, gloves and a thermos of hot tea again. With a little luck the storm will have blown through and left some of the leaves on the trees.

But even though the scene is muted isn’t it one of the most beautiful places in the world? Regardless of the conditions and discomfort it is a real treat to be able to be out there, communing with nature, freezing your hiney off, and seeing some of the most magnificent scenery in the world. Someone has to be taking pictures and saving these views for all to enjoy next summer when we’re all whining about how hot it is. Besides if I wasn’t doing this I might have to get a real job and that would really suck.

* Actually these bright yellow trees are cottonwoods. If you turn around and look across the road you’ll see the aspen standing there. Oh wait, this is a picture and you can’t look over there. You better just come along then and I’ll show you exactly where they are. Hurry up we’re going to miss them. And don’t forget your gloves.

Story Tree

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Aspen   Rocky Mountain National Park

This story tree is located in Rocky Mountain National Park. It is an example of the results of good elk gone bad. In the winter, or when the maintenance checks haven’t come in, elk get hungry and will eat just about anything. Anything but calamari. They don’t seem to like calamari and as near as I can tell this is universal throughout the herds. But they do like aspen, or aspen bark to be more specific and therein lies the story and the problem .

When you chew on an aspen tree and you chew around the tree just like you would eat corn on the cob, unless you’re one of those corn on the cob eaters that chew down one row and then the next like a typewriter, the tree dies. This is harmful to the tree. Fortunately Nature has provided a safety net for the aspen by giving the elk a teeny-tiny little attention span so they will lose track of and forget what they’re doing and stop before they completely chew around the tree.

The problem however, lies in the number of elk there are relative to the number of aspen trees there are and when one elk leaves to go find out what the others are talking about, another steps up and chews away, sometimes completing the ringing process. This again is bad for the tree as noted above. But because Nature has decided we need aspen trees she has built-in some safeguards for their survival. One of these is the teeny-tiny little attention span of the elk, another is if even a very small amount of bark is left unchewed the tree will still be able to do all the tree things it needs to live, and yet another is Nature puts a lot of these trees together in one place to confuse the elk so they forget which one they were chewing on and start a fresh one, hopefully foiling their plan to ring the tree and cause its untimely demise. Mother Nature is so smart.

There are casualties however and many, many near death experiences for some of these aspen. The one pictured above is a survivor but just by the hair on its chinny chin chin. Every mark on it tells a story if you look closely. Down near the bottom of the image you will see a series of short vertical bite marks. This is where Eunice and her BFF Clarice had lunch one day while they talked about that new hunky bull that had been hanging out on the edge of the herd.

The long vertical fissure that looks like an ugly wound was done by Stab, a young not so hunky and clearly frustrated bull, who used the unoffending aspen as an antler sharpening station and caused a near fatal injury to the tree. There are many more stories written on this tree but probably the greatest story is the one that shows the trees endurance as well as its constancy. Battered and chewed on, frozen by the cold and nearly snapped in two by the fierce winter winds, the tree is a study in survivability. Scars not withstanding it is a wonderful example of it not allowing misfortune to overcome it. A lot of us have scars like that. But I believe the more massive and gnarly your scars are, the more interesting your life has been. And the more stories you have to tell.

I Don’t Get Ulcers… I Give’em

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RMNP 2005-1629-Editclick to enlarge

Many,many strange things happen out in the wild. Some make sense, others take awhile to figure out. Normally these cow elk are placid, shy, introverted animals. They don’t look like drill sergeants or the Mayor of Chicago. But this young cow appears to break the mold. ( whenever I see the phrase “Young Cow” it reminds me of that old joke, “How do you say Calf in Chinese? answer – Young Cow.” but enough about humor. This is serious business.) That greenish thing she has in her mouth is a bone. She held it in her mouth like an old stogie and appeared to be chewing on it but not trying to break it up, just rearranging it for maximum taste. There are lots of places in Rocky Mountain National Park, where this event took place, that are wetlands, not quite swamps but very damp areas with some standing water and dense stands of Aspen and in this area were the remains of a dead elk. The bones were algae green and scattered about and she nosed through the pile before finding the one she liked best. Elk aren’t normally cannibalistic, at least in this dimension, yet this is very puzzling behavior. To get to the bottom of this mystery we consulted with our staff Mammologist, Dr. Frieda Houf, here at the World Headquarters of our Media Empire and asked her “Hey, What’s up with all this elk eating bones and stuff?” It turns out that this phenomenon isn’t as strange as we first thought. Herbivores, ungulates and other creatures who eat mainly grass lack a lot of the essential minerals and vitamins that we get from our diet of cramming whatever will fit into our mouths, and consequently they have to get those things wherever they can. Bones being made up mainly of really hard milk, and you know what’s in milk don’t you? Right, Calcium. Funny as it sounds calcium is needed to make strong healthy bones. This is why you should drink at least three gallons of milk a day. So you see, the circle comes around and there it is. Bone sucking by cow elk makes for strong healthy bones. Not so strange now is it? It is insight like this that makes the members of our staff here at the World Headquarters of our Media Empire so valuable. Unfortunately we can’t pay them anything at the moment, which is causing some dark murmuring down in the PHD dorm but hey, we don’t control the economy. The fact that they can come up to the big house I mean the headquarters occasionally to get warm should count for something. So there it is, another fact about the natural environment that surrounds us. Pass it on.