Day 4:Theodore Roosevelt Natl Park North Unit, North Dakota 9/7/09
Map of the north unit. We camped at the Juniper Campground site #23.
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Awoke before dawn to go out and take photographs and explore. Cliffs were carved out by the Little Missouri River.
Looking down onto desert terrain: prickly pear with big spines, fragrant sagebrush.
Petrified wood with orange lichen and crystal quartz. The south unit of the park has an entire Petrified Forest.
Back to the tent for some grub, camp-style coffee and gruel. Barb shows off her new backpacking stove with windguard. Picnic table is made from recycled plastic bags, pigment, and sawdust pressed to look like woodgrain (TREX). Good stuff.
Camp coffee. Next time I'm bringing my little single espresso pot to put on our little campstove. And a tablecloth! The "What Would Mary Dee Do" on a camping trip list was officially started.
Product placement here with the Coleman tent. We had not figured out how to make the rain fly tarp taut. We would test the mettle of our little abode during the deluge to come in the middle of the night! Barb has Tina Turner hair in the morning.
!!! Buffalo!!! Mountain Sheep!!! Rattlesnakes!!! Rock & Sandstone Formations !!!
The eyes of the mountainside.......
Barb was clicking away with her tripod so I wandered off along the Buckhorn Trail, to explore the deep walled ravines to my right. The sun was low in the sky to my left so the steep walls were brilliantly spotlighted with shadow filled nooks and crannies. The air was still, hot and dry. No one else was around. I walked slowly, noiselessly, respectfully exploring....hoping to see a cougar (!) or to meet some other creature. Sure enough...walking deep into the third coulee my peripheral vision caught some movement at ground level about 3' ahead of me to the right. A snake slithered into the base of a tall sagebrush, curled into a circle around itself and started shaking the end of its tail in a rapid movement. My first rattlesnake! It was small (3/4"-1" in circumference and approx 16" long). The tail end didn't make any sound so I figured it must be a juvenile and not developed enough for the telltale sound. But what do I know about rattlesnake sounds? NOTHING! This is what an article in Nature (the journal) has to say: "SOUND production is one of the most energetically costly activities in animals.Rattlesnakes produce a sustained, high-frequency warning sound by extremely rapid contraction of their tailshaker muscles." Maybe this little rattlesnake was tired? I kept a respectful distance in case it were to lunge out at me, which it did not. I was able to get just a few photos...shooting into the sun...so just this one came out. What a beautiful creature!
Map of rattlesnake sighting. Barb was shooting the "Cannonball Concretions". *** is location of coulee where I saw the snake.
More to share....tomorrow.
Miles traveled: 30 (to go buy drinking water in Watford City).