Cedar Butte - Part 2

My Mountain Boy walking the ridge line around the one hill we explored on this day (one of many hills that make up Cedar Butte).

The trail was flat and easy to walk, but after only 1/4 mile it ended abruptly at a mountain of rocks...........

More lava rock.  Similar to what we had seen at the seven rock hills we had visited earlier in the day (and that I blogged about a couple of posts ago), only grey instead of jet black.............

When the trail ended there were only two ways to go - back the way we had come or up and over the rocks.

We went up and over.

LC went first and I watched as he scrambled up, and then turned to face me

Smiling down at me he did the two-arms-in-the-air gesture, and I could almost hear the theme music to the movie Rocky, playing in the background............  

After scrambling up to meet him, we both sat on the edge of the rocks sharing a bottle of water and looking out over the silent world.

There are subtle colors in the Snake River Plain - shades of grey and orange and brown and green.

Endless shades of blue in the sky.

Dusty, muted shades that look much like those we saw in Wyoming.

There is something uncomplicated about the scenery on the plain.

I like many different kinds of scenery and this is one of them.

Uncomplicated.  Soothing.  Silent.  Vast.  Empty.

As we continue to explore the area around the place we now live, I am coming to realize that a lot of people come out to the Snake River Plain and overlook it because they see a whole lotta nothing.

I don't think that they are looking closely enough............

While still resting on top of the rock hill we heard the 4-wheelers rev, and we watched them as they single file rode down the hill.

We would like to get something to drive and explore on BLM land aside from our trucks.  4-wheelers would be nice, but in truth we could probably buy something like an old Jeep Cherokee for the price of one 4-wheeler.

There seems to be a lot of them around............

The pictures above were zoomed in, but the picture below was the true distance that they were from us as we watched them.............

An intriguing and beautiful rock.

As we continued to share a bottle of water we found this rock and studied it for a few minutes while still perched on our make-shift seat.

And then we found another one.  And then another.  And then a huge wall filled with endless colorful rock.............

We spent a long time looking at rocks and then climbed up and over them, and onto BLM land on the back side of the hill after we saw the trail pick up there.

As we headed down to the trail we christened this place Paint Rock.

Like Wind Rock on BLM land outside Cody neither one of us cared whether that was the correct name - or even if it had name - to us this place would forever be Paint Rock...........

One more sun bleached animal bone.

As consistent a presence in the desert of Idaho as it was in Wyoming..........

As we climbed down the hill, headed for the trail that continued around the ridge, I looked over at Big Butte again.

We were running out of time if we were going to walk the butte before winter hit.

I looked at LC and pointed over at Big Butte.

We could drive it, but I wanted to walk it.

We were both a little scared of the challenge.

LC isn't a young man.  I'm not a young woman anymore.  And nowhere near in top shape anymore.

We decided to walk it on Saturday before the forecasted rain and snow hit on Sunday, and before the projected sunny but just-above-freezing temperatures of the rest of the week hit.

We were running out of time.

We walked it on Sunday.

A blog for another day...........

A look back the way we had come............

After the black lava rock of the morning, and after the grey lava rock we had found so far on Cedar Butte, this dense and colorful rock was startling.

It was beautiful.

A desert rock, filled with muted tones of grey and blue.

The old couple that we bought the house from collected rocks, and then split them to see the wonders inside them.

We had seen them when we first looked at the house, and by the time we moved into the house the previous owners had moved a lot of them to their new home.

But they left a small pile of rock slices inside the green house, and left a huge pile of large and beautiful multi-colored rocks in a pile outside and against a wall of the house.

When Jamie died we placed all of those rocks on top of her grave.

She is covered by beautiful rocks...........

You'll have to enlarge the next two pictures to see the snake.

Thankfully not a rattling beast.............

Circling down the last hill to the truck............

A residents' front yard Halloween decoration................

No doubt you are wondering what you will find, out there. The Commandant said it for me.
'Well, it would be useless for me to try and tell you. The desert tells a different story every time one ventures on it........Robert Edison Fulton Jr, One Man Caravan