Wyoming 2011
> Wednesday, July 6 Monday, July 4 <Tuesday, July 5
Tuesday morning I drove out on my own just after dawn. I saw a lot of birds along the Salt River and east end of Palisades Lake. After breakfast, we loaded up a pair of ATVs on the trailer and drove to a picnic site on McCoy Creek road. Then we spent the day driving around the dirt roads and up the foothills of Caribou Mountain to Caribou City - the remains of an 1870's era gold rush town.
Buteo jamaicensis. Light-colored and possibly a younger bird.
Near the Salt River in Wyoming
I drove through his herd on the river access road
Buteo jamaicensis. Best I can tell, this is the "rufous form" of coloration for this species.
Pandion haliaetus. Nesting on a pole.
They didn't like me being in the parking lot near their pole.
A huge flock seemed to spend the early morning at the Alpine end of Palisades Lake.
Sturnella neglecta. Near Palisades Lake and the Salt River.
Pica pica. Beautiful iridescent tail feathers.
Palisades Lake, Wyoming
Actitus macularius
Spring flowers on the hillside
Aspen trees lost to the local dam-builders
Abandoned, but still habitable in an emergency
One goes down the road, the other flooded by the spring runoff.
Off Palisades Lake in Idaho
An abandoned gold mining town near Caribou Mountain, Idaho.
Near Caribou City, Idaho
According to Marty, this old building collapsed since the last time they visited.
About 120 degree field of view, taken from atop a rock pile in the middle of the sluiceways at the Caribou City gold mining site.
In 1870, gold was discovered in the hills of eastern Idaho. This barren hillside is what remains of the mining operations.
Is that a spring, or springtime? Yes, both.
Kellie posed for me while we waited for our friends to catch back up with us.
Feeding McCoy Creek in the Caribou forest of Idaho
GPSvisualizer helped me put together this topo map of our ATV ride in Caribou National Forest.