Connie in Ouray

Ouray County is finally starting work on Camp Bird Road.  They have a lot of equipment in place to do both repairs and maintenance.  They've done the section from the water tower down to the Ice Park and put down a layer of mag chloride.  The damaged section is still blocked, and although Mike says they're not working today, the equipment is still there.  I suppose they'll start again next week. We had some corn snow the other night, and it got below freezing later that night.  The forecast calls for more freezes Sunday night and Monday night.   H eadline in today's Ouray Plaindealer,  "Skimpy snowpack slipping away."  It's looking like a tough summer for wildfires in the southeast section of the state. Mike and I went to Box Canon Falls earlier this week.  I like to go in the spring when the runoff is high, and it did not disappoint.  The power of that waterfall is something else. Looking up at the Perimeter Trail bridge

 We have two geese making their home on the upper pond, and as a result, there is a lot of goose poop on the dam road.  It seems a small price to pay for such interesting visitors.  The number of crawdad carcasses seems to be diminishing, but maybe the live ones have just gone deeper.  There have been no dead fish seen - yay! After much work on the spillway, the leak continues.   Maybe someone visiting this summer will be able to figure it out.  In the meantime, Mike thought he had spotted some algae on the spring stream feeding into the pond, so we went to scoop it out.  Turns out it's mostly grass, and we scooped out as much as we could.  The stream otherwise looks healthy. Mike and I hiked the Perimeter Trail from the Visitors Center to Cascade Falls last week, and it's completely clear of snow.  The Ouray Trail Group had done a lot of work on that section earlier in April, and even though Mike talked me through what they had done, I ...

Mike and I walked up the trail this morning.  This is when I miss Mirabella the most.  She would have been lying in the few patches of snow around, frolicking and splashing in the swampy area, and going off on adventures only she understood.  She was definitely the ringleader as Dempsey goes with us, but he doesn't go far from the trail.   New snow on Abram The wildflowers are starting to bloom all the way up to the overlook.   buttercup field of pasqueflowers pasqueflower  mountain pennycress I got a video from Barb today.  It's from their webcam at their house here, and it shows two big bears meandering across their front yard.  Aaron reports he's only seeing foxes on their webcam.  We saw no evidence of bears on the trail, but the voles are building underground cities.

 It's a gloomy, rainy day, rain in the forecast for the next five out of six days.  I'm not complaining. Mike and Aaron, along with our Ouray friend Mike Pelkey, have been working on the pond issues.  Pelkey is an engineer and has owned ponds - even had one dam fail when it overran its banks.  They've been digging and looking, trying to figure out where the leak is and what to do about not finding the source.  Three holes have been dug, and we're going to try some QuikCrete and some gel-type product to seal up some concrete cracks.  Aaron and Marchelle's contractor, Bumper, has suggested dumping in a load of sand and then pouring concrete or bentonite on top of it.  They are trying everything they can to avoid draining the pond.   I got an email yesterday from Ouray County about the rockfall in the narrows:  Rockfall mitigation is complete.  Next, Ouray County Road & Bridge Department will commence clearing debris from the road ...