Postcards from Desert Conference – Saturday September 24, 2010

Brent, Devon and WendyKay have invited me to post some snapshots of Desert Conference 2010. I hope others will add some postcards of their own in comments or send me some thoughts and/or photos to post. ~ for wild deserts, Lizzie Grossman

Yesterday nine of us hiked up into Horse Heaven. 

Sage, juniper and the occasional pine. Rabbit brush, desert spray, the last lilac asters, husks of buckwheat, up high whorls of spent pasque flower and wild onion. Debra points out needle grass, Idaho fescue, Sandburg's bluestem. A bench near the summit has the surprise of hedgehog cactus – high desert sea urchins. But there is also cheat grass, medusa head, and in a road cut near some old mine buildings, what may be a relative of knapweed. We pass coyote scat. The leavings of coyotes who've been eating juniper berries. Mule deer and elk scat. In the cactus gallery: one dark lizard. 

Devon helps us identify mountain bluebird, Townsend's solitaire, Cooper's hawk, redtail hawk, Brewer's blackbird, mountain chickadees. 

Ochre yellow grasses, acid yellow rabbit brush blooms, red and pink sandstone mottled with black-green lichen.

The ground is littered with the remnants of what ancient volcanoes spewed across the landscape. There are occasional bits of smoothed white quartz, scatterings of iron bearing rocks greened by oxidizing iron and chalk white chunks of solidified ancient ash. The footing demands attention. At the base of the summit are overhangs that are almost shallow caves, nearly big enough to shelter in. There are 360º views above the Cherry Creek drainage. Sutton Mountain, Stevenson Mountain – the John Day far below and just out of sight. When we begin our descent the light has an autumnal slant. 

We stop to admire the view and Will tells us a tale of lava flows, molten rock, upheaval and subsidence. We are standing on slopes shaped by explosive vulcanism and water.