Hotlinks

At the start of this month I had some familiar faces come out west – my buddy Garett flew into Las Vegas where we met with another NC friend Shayon and now Arizona resident Zach in Zion before heading to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Garett being a geologist got a chance to take in all of the rocks he could over the few days he was in the southwest.

Left to Right: Garett, myself, Shayon, Zach.

I won't bombard you with photos of Zion yet again but we were lucky enough to snag a pass to hike Angel's Landing, which we spent most of the day doing after a hike up the Watchman trail.

Sacred datura continues to bloom as the summer goes on and I'm always so excited to see it. I am still working on a write up on this wonderful plant but it has been put on the back burner for now.

A stamp was necessary of course (onto the second page, this is the perk of having a geologic wonder just two hours away from your place of work), and I wasn't alone in getting my cancellation this time! I convinced Garett to get a parks passport and he was immediately hooked – for the rest of the trip he was thinking about other parks to visit now that he had a nifty way to track where he's been.

Say hello to Shayon's hat

We spent our morning doing some rim hiking and sightseeing before the threat of rain pushed us inside to the Lodge, which was open this time as the water main had been fixed! We got lunch at the dining room which was quite good, and we had an excellent view into the canyon which allowed us to see an afternoon rainstorm that came pummeling through.

Photo taken by Zach

It was just before this storm really hit that we went outside to see what was up and we ended up on an observation point that jutted out into the canyon. As I was posing for a photo taken by Zach, a gust came upslope from in the canyon and blew my hat deep into the Grand Canyon. My hair has been poofing up and my hat wasn't so snug on my head, and now it's somewhere at the bottom of one of the world's natural wonders.

Many postcards and two stamps later, we took off for the scenic drive up to Imperial Point.

We spent a good amount of time driving along the byway and stopping at the different observation points to take in the views as it cleared up. Between Imperial Point and Cape Royal, we went from cloudy and windy to full sun over just a couple of hours.

While at Angel's Window, I spotted a single-tree fire on the south rim that was caused by a lightning strike from the system that had just passed through, maybe 15 miles away from where we were standing. It's in this photograph above, and I called the South Rim office to let them know where it was so they could get on it. I talked to my supervisor and unfortunately he said I wouldn't be paid for calling in fires while on my days off.

I left Garett to spend time with Zach and Shayon in Arizona while I headed back to Nevada as I had work the next day, but it was nice to see some familiar faces for the first time this summer.

Night Shift on Ella Mountain

2023.08.05

I recommend you play the sound of this wind at the tower as you read this post:

I've spoken a bit about what sunset, twilight, and dusk are like at the tower but I didn't really give a good idea of what nighttime proper looks like up here where the air is rare.

I still do feel like a lighthouse up here when the sun goes down, and chatting with locals I've confirmed that my light is able to be seen from many miles away, but that still doesn't wig me out and I still haven't felt uncomfortable up here at nighttime. Yes, it's isolated and remote, but from my first night up here I've never felt like the hills have eyes and I've never felt uneasy about the distance between me and the rest of the world.

It's actually kind of funny – for the last two weeks the other two out-of-towners who stay at the station have been on a call in Washington so when I stop into the station overnight it's just me after hours. It's not a serious thought but being alone in the station feels creepier than being alone all the way at the tower.

We'll start at dusk, where it still feels like the winds carry the night sky over you and past the western horizon. Though the days are getting shorter, twilight still hangs around for an hour or more after the sun goes down below the horizon. It's still bright enough to see and the orange glow slowly deepens into indigo.

Spending so many days and nights at the tower has let me experience many different types of nighttime from new moons to full moons, entirely clear to overcast and no visibility. I've done my best to try and take photographs to show the diversity that nighttime can have when you're in such a dark area of the country.

When it's a new moon or when the moon rises late in the night, the stars come out in force and the Milky Way is readily apparent as you step outside. In the above photos there is some blurring present as I don't have a tripod (an unfortunate story) but you can see how blatantly it is smeared across the sky. For better viewing, wait until nighttime to look at these photographs as in a bright room some detail is lost.

The two shots above where photographed looking south, past the air force repeater towards Henderson and Las Vegas (roughly 100 miles as the crow flies). I should note that the brightness of the light on the air force trailer is overstated, as is the orange glow of the light dome from Las Vegas. While the air force light is the brightest bulb nearby and I can see some light pollution from Vegas, it's not nearly as bad as shown here. In addition to Vegas, I can see the faint light domes of St. George to the southeast and Cedar City almost due east.

A camera doesn't show things exactly as the human eye does, and when photographing the stars there's a compensation of letting lots of light in, which allows the aforementioned sources of light pollution to appear brighter than they are to our eyes. My buddy Rupert says that light domes are a pain for astrophotography (as is the moon for some), and you can see why in these shots.

Looking northward to Caliente and Panaca, we see how the camera still misrepresents light pollution as our eyes see it. Above, you can see in the bottom left the canyon in which Caliente is situated, and in this photograph it looks like floodlights are beaming light all night. In reality, the only light pollution I see from Caliente is a single bulb at the base of a telecommunications tower (you can see it shining brightly in the photo, but it's quite dim in reality).

Similiarly, Panaca (those lights spread across the valley in the center of the photo) is also quite dim, and none of the glare you see in this photograph is visible when viewing with just your eyes.

Looking above the valley and back into the night sky, you can see two horizontal streaks about halfway up the photograph's frame. These are satellites (likely belonging to Starlink) that I intentionally tried to capture. You can actually see them with your naked eye when the moon is new, and they appear as little white dots moving slowly but steadily across the sky. You can spot many in an hour if you sit and watch, but here I've only managed to photograph two. I have not yet been able to photograph a meteor as it burns up but have seen many such streaks as extraterrestrial rocks plummet into our earth.

These are all examples of what a night with little moonlight looks like. It's very cool to sit on the porch of the tower and look up until you're almost dizzy and you feel like you're going to get blown up into that vast expanse. It's fleeting but you can often get the sense of scale that the universe is presenting when you have it displayed above you like this, and I'm sure that the feeling is only heightened by the fact that I'm on the highest peak for many miles so it really feels like I have to hang on or be sucked away.

Below are examples of what the camera picks up on a night with a full moon (exposure 1-2 seconds), and my adjustments to try and make it look closer to what the eye perceives. On the left hand side is the unaltered image and on the right hand side are my edited images.

Obviously when compared to the photographs on the left, it seems like you can't see anything in the full moon but if you managed to look at these photographs at night, you can still make out a fair bit of detail for quite a distance. Every time the moon is bright I'm amazed at the fact that I can make out most all of the peaks that are visible to me in the daytime, with loss of detail occuring mostly in lower-elevation areas. It's bright enough to not need a light when traveling outside at night and shadows are clearly defined.

Another thing that I have noticed about full moonlight is the fact that things almost appear as though they are in black and white when all other lights are off. I didn't preserve it in the above photo edits but colour is obviously still present in the lights from Vegas, the air force repeater, and Panaca, but when it's just moonlight your colour vision is greatly diminished and everything seems greyscale. It's a pretty cool feeling and it only adds to the otherworldly feeling of nighttime out here – my perception of a lot of things (sunset, nighttime, thunderstorms) has changed just because I'm able to experience or observe them in such an open-sky area.

Meanwhile, back on the ground, the tower has a nice warm glow from the single lamp I have inside, and it's enough to patter around on the catwalk with. That light is also enough to attract almost every bug on the mountain - remember what I said about being a lighthouse.

But the inside is quite cozy and as is true for daytime, what you see is what you get. When it's time for lights out, I once again become an observer and on nights with bright moons it's nice to fall asleep while looking at the mountains.

Thank you for reading about nighttime in the tower, I hope my descriptions have helped you get an idea of how cool it can be and how even the night sky is changing out here. I've only learned a few constellations so far but either way I've been very appreciative of how dark it is out here. I feel fortunate in feeling comfortable up here at night and that I've spent so many up here on the mountain. It's really something nice to be able to stand on the catwalk each night before bed and soak in the nighttime.

Low Visibility Days and Monsoonal Moisture

2023.08.10, 2023.08.13, and 2023.08.20

With the onset of the monsoon season, the main concern has been dry lightning – thunderstorms that either don't produce rain or where the rain evaporates before it reaches the ground, leaving fuels dry and susceptible to lightning. However, there have been a small handful of days where it has been nothing but totally overcast skies and constant downpour.

While this is a good thing or bad thing depending on who you ask (no overtime or hazard pay for those raring to fight fires), it certainly is a cool feeling when the cloud layer decides to pay you a visit. This is yet another post of me gushing about some cool weather phenomenon.

For some ambient wind recorded on this day at the tower, listen to the embedded audio clip:

2023.08.10

The most calm and most surreal feeling is shown in the above photographs, where there was a slight soaking rain with an incredibly low cloud layer that brought visibility at the tower down to near zero on August 10. It hung around like that for several hours and even knocked out the power so I was pretty much entirely cut off from everyone else for most of that day.

2023.08.13

Just as cool only a few days later was this surprise afternoon storm that came directly over the clover mountains and surrounded the tower. I was pretty much directly under the storm, and it was filled with cloud-to-cloud lightning so the thunder was directly overhead. Because it was cloud-to-cloud (I'm assuming), it wasn't necessarily big claps of thunder but almost more hollow or echoey, as though the thunder was bouncing off of the clouds that were right over the tower.

Here is an audio clip of some of that thunder (with some intermittent radio chatter):

2023.08.2023

The above two photographs were taken on August 20, the day that Hurricane Hilary hit our area. I was told that it was the first hurricane to hit the area in 80-ish years, and it brought at least 1.50 inches of rain (likely more) on that first Sunday. For reference, the annual average rainfall for Caliente is 9 to 11 inches of rain a year, and that was all put down in one day – definitely not normal.

Luckily it was a very gradual soaking rain, so there were very few floods in this area in particular. I will say, it is odd to consider a hurricane coming through at 4500' to 7500' when compared to North Carolina where they spend so much of their energy between sea level and 500'.

I took these two photos at the station as there was concern for road conditions getting to and from the tower (I was getting my wisdom teeth out the next day) and they didn't want me getting stuck on the mountain should the rain be a solid downpour. I spent the morning driving two folks from the station north to Ely so they could head to a fire in Washington, then spent the rest of the day with Engine 4335. As you can imagine, it was a slow day with all of the rain.

Brother Visit – Zion and Great Basin

2023.08.14 and 2023.08.15

I flew my brother Malachy out here as a late birthday gift for him before he went back to school for the fall. We had a blast romping around Zion and Great Basin Parks before spending a night up in the tower.

We were lucky in that we landed a pass to hike Angel's Landing so that was our first stop that Monday morning.

He was definitely noticing how thin the air was here when compared to North Carolina's altitude, but we kept a good pace and made it to the top of Angel's Landing in one piece.

Showing off his good side

He did very well on the chains and I don't think there were any parts where he was too nervous, which was good. I remember taking it slowly when hiking the chains for the first time.

After making it back to the canyon floor, we went up canyon and did the Riverwalk up to the start of the Narrows (but went no further), then came down canyon to see Angel's Landing from below at Big Bend, we saw the hanging gardens at Weeping Rock, and then made it back to the Lodge for a quick bite to eat and for a stop at the Lodge. From there, we went to the Lower Emerald Pools and saw some down-canyon showers.

After a lunch at the Lodge, we kept going towards the visitor's center where we did the Court of the Patriarchs and the start of the Watchman, where we turned back due to constant sun and an unexpected spike in temperature caused by the rainfall (the morning forecast showed no rain and a high of 80F, but it was easily over 95F by 4PM).

At the Visitor's Center, I surprised him with a passport and stamp for him to start (he was also hooked), and he adopted a bighorner. The park has a cool program where you can buy a stuffed bighorner, receive a certificate of adoption, and have the proceeds help pay for a GPS collar for a real bighorner.

The next day we headed north up to Great Basin Park for a peek at some old trees and some caves.

He had fun skipping rocks and once again showing me his good side.

On the way up to the bristlecone pines we spotted this witch's broom growing on an Engelmann spruce, which was likely caused by mistletoe. Once we got to the bristlecones (we were both feeling the rarity of the air greater than 10,000'), he was really in awe of the age of the trees. I'll show their forms below without further comment.

After meeting with this ancient giants, we headed back to the visitor's center as we had a tour of Lehman caves booked.

What's this, a plant or two on my flora website? I know it has been a long time since I've shown any cool plants and I'm sorry for that. The flowering plant above is Fendler's sandwort (Eremogone fendleri, Caryophyllaceae), and they would creep up here and there as you approached the bristlecones.

Also present as you got closer to the treeline were lichen, often displaying brilliant colours such as the neon green shown above. I attempted to dig and find out what lichen were present on this rock but I had no luck.

Once again the caves were breathtaking, Malachy thought they were super cool, and they were a great way to round out two days of hiking before two days of R&R in the tower.

This time, we did the Grand Palace tour, which is half an hour longer and takes you deeper into the caves when compared to the Lodge Room tour (which I have previously photographed and posted here). Three rooms that were new to me are the Inscription Room, the Cypress Swamp, and the Grand Palace.

The Inscription Room is so named due to the numerous instances of graffiti formed by candlesmoke that litter the ceiling. This room was previously only accessible by belly crawling through a long, narrow passage, and so to celebrate making it through to this spot, visitors would write their initials onto the ceiling.

According to our ranger, there were efforts to remove the graffiti some time ago but the methods used by the Forest Service actually had the effect of changing the cave surface in such a way that new stalactites would not form, and so efforts to remove the graffiti were stopped. It's a mixed bag to see the inscriptions, as it shows our need to leave our mark but it also is a part of the history of the cave and shows how it's important to ensure enjoyment not just for yourselves but for those who come after you.

The above photograph is of the Cypress Swamp. Though not quite the same in appearance as those found in the southeast, this room was gorgeous to see and the standing water was almost perfectly still and gave the impression of a mirror.

One thing that makes the cave so brilliant is the lighting fixtures that allow visitors to see everything the caves have to offer. These lights are turned off between tours to allow darkness in the cave as that is its regular state, we just brought lights in because of how bad we are at existing in complete darkness.

There are issues of the lamps providing enough light and warmth to allow for algae to grow, a group of organisms that never would have been in the caves without us putting lights in there. Every so often, you'll see a "test lamp" where the bulb is left on for long stretches at a time (up to months) to see whether or not algae is able to grow. Hopefully they get it worked out, as you can sometimes notice splotches of green when going through the caves. This is just another facet in which the folks at the park really do care about preserving the cave and there are so many things you may not initially think about – lights allowing algae to grow, lint from your clothes disrupting water flow, oils on your hands altering bacterial behaviour – it's commendable work.

A side note, I was talking with one of my supervisors and he said that his dad was the one to install and maintain the lights when the area was newly established as a National Park in 1986, which blew my mind.

As I was looking through the photos from this trip, I noticed that I had two slightly offset photographs of this scene and decided to make a stereogram out of them (I am sorry if this is headache-inducing).

The Grand Palace, pictured above, is aptly named. It has a very high ceiling and ample room to walk, and the ranger was sure to give us a few minutes just to take it all in.

Aside from the additional rooms, there was some new discussion on this tour as well, and talking points consisted of: lint, shields, musical organs, algae, and cave kisses.

Once more through the cave airlock hallway, and it was out into the sun then back to Caliente for Malachy to spend a night in the tower. Pairing that with another passport cancellation and another stack of postcards to burden the US Postal Service with, I'd consider that a good visit with Malachy.

August General Update – End of Summer and Beyond

2023.08.30

Hello there! It has been about a month since I last kept up with this site, though I did just try to make up for it by dumping everything fun I've done for the past few weeks here as one giant post. I've been a little busy both with work and in anticipation of what will come after this summer. Before all of that, here's a bit of a rundown on what August has been like here in Nevada:

I've had some familiar visitors on two occasions, and I was able to see Garett, Shayon, and Zach, as well as my brother Malachy this month (Right photo credit: Malachy).

I've spotted two fires (three if you count the one at the Grand Canyon) and was given a close flyby by some smokejumpers.

I nabbed a really cool but dark Smokey Bear mug.

I had my wisdom teeth taken out (here is the sunset from the hotel I booked in St. George rather than any grody photos of bloody teeth).

And I've been getting excited for the onset of fall as I notice Halloween decorations being put up for sale (even if it's as early as August).

On the note of autumn, I've been working out what that looks like in terms of work following this job here in Nevada. Since May, I've applied to 50 or more jobs all over, mostly with regional/state conservation programs but also a number with the US Forest Service.

As of writing this on August 30, I've received no positive word from any of them, save one from Gana-A'Yoo, Limited, in response to a job as a cook at McMurdo station in Antarctica for the austral summer (2023–2024).

I applied and interviewed with them back in June and was offered an alternate contract meaning I was not first in line for a job in Antarctica, but an offer could come up should enough people back out. As an alternate hire, I still had to go through the extensive process of hiring should things pan out, and that includes mountains of hiring paperwork, a thorough background check, some online training, a physical qualification packet (PQ packet), and a travel document outlining what my travel and lodging accommodations would look like.

The PQ Packet is the most intensive part of this process, and it details anything medical or dental that could come up should someone go to Antarctica. It requires a full physical examination, EKG, abdominal exam, a full questionnaire on health history, a dental exam and X-ray – the works – and it's reviewed by a third-party to make sure nothing is out of line. It is thorough because it has to be – nobody wants any medical or dental surprises while in such a remote location with limited facilities, as it risks your safety and potentially the safety of those caring for you.

Either way, that is what I have been spending a decent chunk of my off days doing since mid-July; physical exam, vision exam and an update of my vision prescription, a dental exam, cleaning, and one small filling, and most recently the removal of all four of my wisdom teeth.

As an alternate, I wasn't holding my breath and continued to apply to jobs until last Thursday when I was given word that I was to be offered a primary contract, with the intention to have me fly south for an October start. Being honest, I was blindsided by the offer and accepted the job.

Since then, it has been a lot of reading, list-making, and planning to get ready for my "ice flight" in about a month or so. There is definitely a mix of emotions present, but working in Antarctica has been creeping from the back of my mind for a couple of years now and it's a cool chance to get down there and hopefully open the door to further opportunities down on the ice (I'm looking at you, atmospheric sciences labs).

As for this page, I will do my best to keep on top of what the entire process of working in Antarctica looks like, not only while there but also the journey down and the process to get there.

As far as plants go, they are relatively scarce as you could imagine. According to wikipedia, there are around 250 lichens, 100 mosses, 30 liverworts, 700 algae, and two flowering plant speices. I can't guarantee that I'll be able to see any of them, but if I do I'll document them in full to present here.

This post definitely was a bit of a ramble and not in the same vein as my other posts (even if I have deviated from plants quite a bit over the past month or two), but I intend to continue using this page as a way to post where the next adventure leads. Thank you for reading (if you've made it this far) and I'll keep you posted on what comes ahead.