Mountains and malpaís
Monday, 5 December 2016
Before we headed to breakfast, we checked on road closings, and our route was to be open at 8am. The timing worked for us. Sure enough, WYDOT’s website indicated “our” highway was open at 8:05. Off we headed! This is Red Canyon. Guess why?!
At high elevations where there had been more snowfall, we saw several of these beasts. Fortunately, the sun was working in our favor, too.
After days of seeing raptors cruising the skies, today we saw crows, eagles—bald and I’m not sure what, and magpies busy breaking down roadside carrion, but only a few hawks—still cruising above.
We lunched in Kemmerer, at the only place that was open—yummy, BTW. I found the snow “removal” pattern interesting. I figure the plan was to remove the berm from the middle of the road. I have seen a central berm left in the middle of the street for all winter, but only when the road was about four lanes wide (in the summer).
Much later, we drove through malpaís, old lava flows that generally had little water and were tough to traverse. Mal país, or bad country, is a great name for this terrain.
As the sun set, we watched these blades turning at a stately pace, and were glad the wind we had yesterday—gusts, we were told, up to 50/60mph—did not haunt us today.