Moose lying down in brush just off short trail
between Maude Noble’s cabin and Menor’s Ferry,
Grand Teton National Park.

This bull moose, along with a cow and a calf, was laying down just off a trail we were walking on. Karen spotted it, and thinking it would be a great picture, got my attention. When I saw it, I figured that we were way too close to it, even though it was laying down, so we left the trail and looped away from it to get back to the trail at a point further down where there was an old barn. As we got back to the trail we saw a young ranger gesturing to us to where she was standing, which was in the direction we were going anyway. The moose had apparently already been reported and, since they were in an area with frequent pedeatrian traffic, rangers just arrived to keep people away from the animals. Though the moose were obviously used to the presence of people, they are still wild animals… and they are big and can move very fast. As well, according to the ranger we, some boys had been throwing rocks at the moose the day before.

While we were there, the rangers strung a yellow plastic barrier tape — the kind you see at crime scenes in movies and TV shows — to keep the public at a safe distance from the moose.

This picture was taken from a window inside the old barn.

Now there are two.

The second page I’ve completed since getting back to work developing content for Haw Creek is the page for Woolly Hollow State Park.

Woolly Hollow is a nice little state park in Faulkner County north of Conway and near Greenbriar. The centerpiece of the park is a 40 acre reservoir, Lake Bennett, constructed in the early 30s by the Work Projects Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) as a watershed project built for scientific studies of the effect of run-off, silt and erosion control in a specific watershed. See my Woolly Hollow State Park web page for more information.

Administrivia details:

I’ve had the page on Haw Creek for quite some time in a different location. However, I’m moving all of my places and images pages and changing their format. I’ve decided to concentrate on optimizing the pages for search engines as well as adding new, accurate content. A lot of the content will be available in other places on the web, but, generally, not all on one site and, in many instances, the information is sketchy and often inaccurate. My intent is to provide useful and interesting material as well as valuable links that should be viable for a reasonable period of time.

Seven Hollows Trail, Petit Jean State Park, Arkansas

A nice hike

November 17, 2007 at 1.45pm CST
Camera: Pentax K10D
Exposure: 0.006 sec (1/180)
Aperture: f/4
Focal Length: 120 mm
ISO Speed: 100

Canyonlands National Park, Utah.

The day was relatively cool — a great day for a hike!

September 23, 2007 at 12.29pm CMT

Camera: Pentax K10D
Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/350)
Aperture: f/8
Focal Length: 18 mm
ISO Speed: 100

Karen and our oldest daughter went for a hike at the Bona Dea Trails near Russellville Saturday while I stayed home to do some work on the shop. We had heard that there was an alligator in the wildlife refuge that the trails wind through. Karen was always looking, hoping to see it everytime she was there. Of course, I was a bit skeptical that any of us would ever see it.

I was wrong!

Our daughter took these pictures yesterday. Karen estimates that it was 70 to 100 feet away. She has a post about it on her blog, too.

It doesn’t look like this guy — or gal? — needs to go far for a meal!

Delicate Arch is one of the popular destinations in Arches National Park. We had seen it on our one previous visit to the park in the early 90s, but it was on a relatively short and moderately strenuous trail to the rim of a steep canyon across from Delicate Arch, so we weren’t able to get very close.

On September 24th, 2007, we took the longer trail that goes right up to the arch. The trail is slightly over 3 miles round trip and the arch is out of view for almost the entire length of the trail. Starting from the parking area of Wolfe Ranch, the first half mile is easy and well defined. After that, however, the trail goes out over open slickrock, but is relatively easy to follow as its path is marked with rock cairns.

The easy part of the trail is readily seen in the picture below. The slickrock part of the trail goes across the image from about 1/3 down on the left side of the picture diagonally across towards the upper right side. Hikers going across the slickrock can be seen in the picture on the right above, which was cropped from the original of the photograph below.

It was a good hike and the day was cool. Even though it was cool, one bottle of water each was NOT enough. The National Park Service recommends at least one quart (litre) of water per person. In the heat of the summer, it would be prudent to carry more.

Devil’s Walking Stick

We spent Saturday morning of our late autumn camping trip just lazing around the camper. Having spent somewhere around 90 nights in various campgrounds around the country in the last year, sometimes it’s nice to just have a lazy morning.

After lunch we decided to try a trail that we hadn’t hiked since the late 80s or early 90s. Seven Hollows Trail is 4 1/2 miles long loop trail that is rated moderate to hard. Despite its name, it actually only goes through 4 of the 7 hollows.

At this time of year, streams along the trail and in the hollows are normally either dry or just a small trickle. In the spring, though, water flows through at a pretty good rate at times. If it is raining, some parts of the trail could be a bit treacherous.

One of the things we both were looking for — though neither of us realized the other was looking for it — was a plant called the devil’s walking stick. It’s a woody plant that grows very straight — straight enough to make a good walking stick — and has very devilishly sharp thorns on it. We found quite a few. There are more images in the flikr set gallery for this trip.

A sign at the beginning of the trail warns not to take the trail during periods of high wind due to the potential of falling trees — dead trees killed years ago in a forest fire that burned through the Seven Hollows.

The summer of 2000 was hot with minimal rainfall. Just before Labor Day, a trash fire on private land outside the park got out of control and spread up the south side of Petit Jean Mountain towards Seven Hollows. As it burned in the hollows area, it primarily burned downed leaves and undergrowth. Along the ridges, though, strong winds pushed the fire along into a crown fire — where the fire moves at the top of the trees from crown to crown — a rarity in Arkansas fires. Trees along the ridges were decimated, while trees in the hollows for the most part survived.

On the trail, we saw several instances of trees having fallen across the trail. Several times we had to go over trees and in other instances, we had to go under — a couple of times we actually had to crawl under the dead trunks. The worst area was a place where the trail goes through a notch in the rocks about ten feet deep and several feet wide for a couple of hundred feet. Several trees had toppled across and into the crevice. To get past them we had to climb over and under the fallen timber. (See image below)

We were worn out by the end of the trail and, even though it was a cool day, probably should have taken more water with us. We had originally not planned to do the whole trail, so, though we were tired, it was a good feeling to have completed the whole thing.

All of the photos from this trip to Petit Jean are posted in my Petit Jean 2007 flikr set for those who may want to view them.

It’s been almost 2 weeks since I posted last. At that point I had intended to start posting material related to our trip out west here on the blog as well as building content pages and photo galleries on Haw Creek Outdoors.

I wasn’t satisfied with the process and wanted to figure something out a process that I could use for publishing material in a relatively short period of time.

Forty-eight hours ago, we were on our way home from a hike at a Woolly Hollow State Park north of Conway. Between then and now, I’ve edited all of the photos that I took and put together a new web-site format that will present the photos along with information about the place(s) where they were taken, with a fairly rapid turn-around.

The new format includes a wide center column where I’ll be including information and links relevant to the location that is being presented. Instead of having a separate photo gallery, the right hand column is used for that. Each image is linked to it’s respective page on flikr.com. An option is also provided to view the flikr slide show of my pictures.

Ideally, in the future, I’ll be able to research information in advance of our visit to a location and have the web page(s) up and ready for viewing much sooner than I’ve been able to do before this.

We’ve been to Jackson, Wyoming, and the Tetons many times in the past. This time, we found some areas that we hadn’t ever been to — or hadn’t seen in a very long time.

The first three photos are an old homestead on the Gros Ventre road. It reminded Karen and me of the old TV series, “The Monroes,” a show about a group of orphaned brothers and sisters trying build a life in the early days of the American West. The only thing that I remember about the show was that the backdrop was the Tetons and they had a cabin about the same size as the one below. The show only had one season, premiering in 1966. I had been to the Tetons for the first time in 1963, when I was 11 years old, which is probably the only reason I remember the show.

A view though one of the windows.

Looking through the ruins of the back of the log cabin from a window on the side opposite the Tetons.

The Tetons and a barn in the old abandoned Mormon Row community.

It was a very windy day — and cool — so Karen went back to the truck while I was taking pictures. A mini dust storm blew up while she was waiting for me.

This is a panorama view of the Tetons from the Antelope Flats area.

A view of the mountains across Lake Jackson from a part of the Colter Bay area we had never been before, even though we had camped several times in the Colter Bay campground.

Karen was within just a few feet of this bull moose near Menor’s Ferry when he turned his head. The motion caught her attention and then she whispered, very loudly, “Michael! Michael!” in a way that she has of getting my attention. She wanted us to move very quietly past on the walkway, but I said, “No, let’s go this way,” wanting to move out and away from him. There was an old wagon shed not far in the direction we were going and as we got near it, there was a young ranger beckoning us to move in her direction. We talked to her and another young ranger for a while. They were both appreciative that we had moved past the moose through the grass a ways away from it rather than staying on the path. It had gotten antsy earlier in the day because of the proximity of people and had nearly charged several, including one of the rangers trying to keep people away. The day before some people had been trying to get it or another bull to get up and move by throwing rocks at it. Really dumb!

There was also a cow and a calf nearby. We had seen another bull, cow, and calf earlier in the day between Jackson Lake dam and Moran Junction and another trio the day before in Cascade Canyon.

William D. Menor’s country store. It was his home and a store combined. Today it is part museum and part gift store, in a very rustic manner.

On the way back to the campground by way of a road that goes from near the Moose Junction visitor center to Teton Village, avoiding the crush and bustle of Jackson at quitting time.

September 18, 2007 — On the way over to Jackson, Wyoming, we took Teton Pass. The steep grade was interesting for towing our camper over — especially on the downhill side!

We’re camped right next to the Snake River. We walked down to the water’s edge shortly after we got here and saw a couple of boats of fishermen floating downstream.

September 19, 2007:

The new visitor center at the Moose entrance to Grand Teton National Park has only been open a few weeks. It is quite impressive, and, given the volume of visitors through here, sorely needed.

The “courtyard” going into the visitor center.

The visitor center includes a very modern museum/interpretive center. In this photo, Karen is standing on top of a set of video panels showing the role of fire in the park’s natural cycle. There were several of these floor video panels, each showing the same video, I think, but sequenced so it seems like they are all different. Instinctively, it just feels wrong to walk on the displays, but that is what they are designed for or there would be a barrier to keep people off.

There were quite a few bronze statues depicting different parts of the history of what is now the park.

The Tetons, looking across Jenny Lake. We walked a trail later in the day that goes up the notch on the left into Cascade Canyon.

On the trail, headed first to Hidden Falls.

There are some huge trees in the park.

Hidden Falls

A British couple that had road the same boat across Jenny Lake took this photo for me after I had offered to take one of them with their camera. We ran into them again later in town.

Fall colors on the way up. On this trail, it is a constant climb up to and a little past Inspiration Point, which is about a mile in. Then it levels out in Cascade Canyon. We hiked a ways into the canyon, but turned back because we were at our limit for distance and we also had to get back to ensure a ride back across the lake. We ended up doing about 5 miles all told, which is an improvement for us.

This is the toughest part of the trail — not for the faint of heat or those who fear heights. There is a long drop-off at this point. Sensible shoes highly recommended! — although we saw people with smooth soled shoes and even sandals! These folks were very tentative coming down, especially the last guy. He kept very close to the inside wall and even then almost fell when he got down to safety at the point where we were standing.

We had been there before and went up — and down — with no problem.

One of the few pictures of me — I take most of the pictures.

After we got to Inspiration Point, we continued a ways, but were planning to turn back before too long as we had already done a lot better than we had thought we would. Along the way, several people returning told us about 3 moose off the trail a ways ahead so we kept plodding along. We finally found them. They were a ways off the trail laying down. We couldn’t see them very well, but I was able to enhance this photo to bring out the rack on this bull moose.

Looking back up behind us as we headed back down the trail.

Coming back across Jenny Lake.

After the hike, we drove north a ways in the park. This is at Oxbow Bend turnout near Moran Junction.