Picnic In Oregon Basin - Part 3

LC and I had planned on heading out to the Oregon Basin to have a picnic and do some bow shooting target practice, but by the time we had explored some of the basin, taken pictures, watched antelope, eaten lunch and then climbed high up onto a huge wind ravaged rock to explore, we had been out for a few hours.

We had practiced the weekend before this one - LC with his older but functional bow, and me with my beautiful turquoise left-handed bow, and I did want to go at it again.   

But we were both also having a very good time exploring this place, and (as always) decided that we would just take our day as it came.

We took a different route down than we had on the way up, and as we continued to tentatively descend we found many gnarly, twisted, wind-torn and mangled trees growing in the small and large cracks in the rocks.

They were not the tall, straight, beautiful pine trees that I have seen and loved in so many states.

But they were wonderful in their own right................

Bouldering and having a great time..............

A hugely interesting tree.

The thick trunk curved to the left at the bottom, and gradually became more and more narrow.

I followed the length of the narrow trunk across the surface of the rock for well over 10 feet until it eventually disappeared into the dirt.

Unbelievable...................... 

A huge hole in the surface of a rock.

There were unexpected holes, cracks and crevices all over the place............

A long crack close to the edge of the rock face (with LC's feet barely visible in the picture, on the right)................

Our truck suddenly in view.................

We had been wandering around on our new favorite rock for well over an hour and by the time we found our way back to terra firma we both getting hot and tired.

It was mid-afternoon in mid-summer, and we did end up bow shooting for a little while - and took no pictures.

I will have to post pictures of another time we shot our bows.

I like doing it.

I am only mediocre at it, but I like doing it................

As we slowly headed back the way we had come, on rutted out dirt trails on BLM land, LC stopped the truck and asked me to hand over my camera.

I asked him what he saw and he excitedly told me he saw two large birds nests in the rocks............

If you enlarge the picture below there are two antelope standing directly in the middle of the trail.

I snapped this picture quickly, knowing that these skittish and oh-so-fast moving animals could take off running at any moment.

LC very slowly eased the truck forward and I snapped pictures every few feet.

They may have been skittish and fast moving, but antelopes are also very curious animals, and I sat mesmerized by the two of them as they continued to stand watchful and curious, in the middle of the road.............

And then there were three...............

By the time we were still a football fields' distance away they (one at a time) decided that we (whatever WE were), had gotten close enough..................

A look back into the basin...............

We had taken a different trail back than we had going in, and when I saw these bones close to a cattle corral, I asked LC to stop the truck so that I could take some last pictures before we headed home.

It is very rare to go onto BLM land and not see the dried out and sun-bleached bones of some animal or other.

Over the past couple of years (and through two experiences living in Wyoming), we have found large mountain lion killing fields (huge areas in draws where carcasses, ribs, spines, long and small bones and bone fragments) have been strewn over hundreds of square feet.

We have found many individual long bones.  A few skulls.  Many individuals spines and ribs.

It is just part of life and death on BLM land for animals to experience this, and part of life for residents in Wyoming to witness this..............

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of the birds, the ebb and flow of the tides, the folded bud ready for spring. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter................Rachel Carson