December Evening Gold on Honey Lake.

 

C1704

“December Evening Gold on Honey Lake”

(Northeastern, California)

Oil on Pannelli Telati fine Cotton Panel

5” x 7”

I wrote this post in May and intended to publish it then, but several things intervened; not least of which my automatic email notification service [Feedburner] was being eliminated by Blogger, and so you, my subscribers, were no longer to be notified of new Blog Postings. After much research, it appears that "Follow-it" will be my new notification service. This posting will be part of a test to see how this is working. 

*****

In the third week of December, last, Oregon was left behind as I headed for Colorado. My second day out I wound along the back roads between Klamath Falls, Oregon and Susanville, California. A few miles south of Susanville, on the road to Reno, Nevada, you pass by Honey Lake. It's a magnificent setting, surrounded by low mountains, as it is, and especially wondrous when the lake is still and calm and reflecting the mountains, as it was that evening. The mountains seemed to glow with an internal light of their own, rather than reflecting the light of the evening Sun. Of course we can argue whether it was, in fact, an evening Sun, or a late afternoon Sun, at that time of the year, since it sets well before 6 PM, but I tend to follow the patterns of light and dark, rather than the artificial man-made divisions of the day, when labelling my Paintings. It reminds us of a slower World, than that in which we now live; a time when the Sun … and Moon … and Stars … guided our lives, rather than the impersonal flow of electrical currents. 

It was dark by the time I passed through Reno … celestially … but of course those pesky (or beneficial?), electrons were flowing fiercely throughout Reno, as I headed east.

***** 

Awhile back, I came across a blog post where a painter was extolling the virtues of the pigment Caput Mortuum. I had used it occasionally in Watercolour, where I might use it as a more purpley Indian Red. Now, in oil, since I've had an unused tube of Schmincke's Caput Mortuum for some years, I’ve broken it out and have begun to explore its qualities. I like the purpley darks I get with it when mixed with Ultramarine Deep, and the blue to red lilacs when mixed with Cobalt Blue and Lead White. These last mixtures seem to be useful in tertiary mixtures with brighter colours in the shadow areas. More explorations are forthcoming.

Pigments used in the painting were:

Imprimatura: W&N Venetian Red; 

Pigments: W&N Cadmiums Orange & Yellow Pale, Ultramarine Deep & Cobalt Blues, and Venetian Red;

Schmincke: Caput Mortuum;

Rublev:  Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Orange Molybdate, Lead White #1.

Cutting my way into Oregon.

Friday, 1^st of June to Saturday, 2^nd June, 2018; 

Big Den Creek, Nevada to the Warner Mountains, Oregon.

Sand Mountain.

Once the Pony Express ran by here …
now ATVs sputter about.

Upon leaving Big Den Creek, I crossed over or passed around several more mountain ranges, and the down into the Salt Wells Basin to Fallon, NV, re-supplied, crossed over the Carson River and the edge of Carson Sink.  This fairly dismal landscape, seems to form a frontier between many of the plant communities I had become used to over the past months, and those of the High Desert and the Basin & Range section of the Pacific Northwest, for when I camped that night, half a mile off of Hwy 477 and northwest of the Black Rock Desert (think Burning Man Festival), I was surrounded by Junipers only … no Pinyons … and certainly no Snakeweed.  It was beginning to feel like southeastern Oregon still close to a hundred miles off.  From Fallon I had passed through Fernley, crossed over Interstate 80, picked up State Hwy 477, passed by Pyramid Lake, spotted wild burros north of mostly dry Winnemucca Lake, in the Poito Valley, gazed up the flat expanse of the Black Rock Desert as I crossed over its southern tip at Gerlach, NV, to my campsite for the night near Squaw Summit.  The next day would see me back into Oregon, but not without incident.

Pyramid Lake … for obvious reasons.

Lake Winemucca … mostly dry.

Wild …

… Burros.

There did not seem to be any Snakeweed in the area, so somewhere while crossing Nevada, I must have passed out of the zone in which that plant thrives.  Snakeweed is one of those plants I became familiar with, during my months spent on the Colorado Plateau.  The Native Americans would use bundles of it to brush the prickles off the Prickly Pear Cacti, during food preparation; so much to learn about the plants and animals in the world around us!

Last Camp in Nevada
… no Pinyons … no Snakeweed.

June 2^nd and twenty or thirty miles after crossing over Squaw Summit, Hwy 477 descends down into Surprise Valley, and passing from Nevada into the extreme northeastern California.  The Warner Mountains had been visible all the way from the Summit, and now formed the western wall of Surprise Valley.  The eastern side of this long valley is still the high desert terrain, I had been passing through, and in the Valley are three long alkali lakes, dry for the most part, but with stretches of water.  However, the western side of the Valley, between the alkali lakes and Warners, is lush and green, especially at this time of year, and dotted with farms and ranches, and some of the largest and most magnificent Cottonwoods I have ever seen.  There are pools, and ponds, and marshes, and green pastures; such a contrast with the lands I had passed through, beyond the alkali lakes.  And, yes, Surprise Valley is a surprise, just as it was for some early pioneers heading along the southern route to Oregon, some of whom turned around, once they got to Oregon, and came back to settle.

First view of the Warner Mountains
from Squaw Summit on Hwy 477.

Looking up Surprise Valley from the South.

Down the Surprise Valley
from Fort Bidwell.

Cedarville is the largest of three small towns in the Valley, with a population of about four or five hundred.  From here the main road turns west and crosses over the Warner Mountains, to US Hwy 395 and Alturas California. From there it is north along the shores of Goose Lake to the Oregon border and Lakeview, a few miles further on.  I did not go that way, but took the roads less travelled.  Heading north from Cedarville, I passed through Fort Bidwell, with no shops still in business that I could see.  From here the choice is northeast, on the lower desert/forest roads to the “wide spot in the road,” Adel, on Hwy 140, or north on County Road 2 into the Warner Mountains, and the latter is what I took.

Climbing high out of Fort Bidwell …

… and higher still …

… and even higher into the Warners.

Indian Paintbrush.

Unknown white flower.

Climbing and climbing, up and up for ten miles, and from 4000’ to 8000’, brought me to the crest of the Warners; I could have stayed on County Road 2 down to Hwy 395 and Goose Lake, but I turned northeast onto a small forest road (148, I think), and began my descent towards the Oregon border that way.  Squeezing past several trees that had fallen onto the road during the Winter, finally brought me to a pair of trees that had fallen all the way across the roadway.  ATV drivers had already been through, but had only cut a path through wide enough for their little machines.  I lifted the tops of the trees off the road, but because of the small stream on that side, was still unable to pass; time to give my Christmas axe a workout!  I worked through the branches of both trees, clearing the way to safely get a swing at the main trunks of the fallen.  My Christmas axe ... a hand-forged, Scandinavian Forest Axe, cut beautifully; thank you siblings.

Moonlight Mine, just as I started down towards Oregon, from the highpoint.

Half a mile along brought me out onto high mountain meadows.  The road became more rutted and very rocky, and I began to think of turning around … there could be twenty miles of this!  But as I crested a ridge I could see mountains in the distance that I recognized thirty or forty miles away, and in Oregon; Hart Mountain on the right to the east, and Drake Peak in the Warner Mountains on the left to the west, with the Warner Valley in between.

Out of the woods with
Mount Bidwell behind me.

Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge
in the distance to the northeast …

  … & Drake Peak to the west
of the Warner Valley.

Some sort of yellow flowers.

I saw a cattle grid a couple hundred yards away, and I decided to make my decision to turn around or not, once I got there.  The border was closer than I thought, for once at the grid, a sign on the other side said “Welcome to the Fremont National Forest.”  That's Oregon, I thought, since I was in California's Modoc National Forest.  I crossed over into Oregon, eleven months after departing the Twin Cities.  Two miles farther on, I camped within a grove of large trees that from a distance I had taken to be Ponderosas, due to their size; they turned out to be enormous and magnificent Lodgepole Pines; I've never seen Lodgepoles so big.  I had said to the Ranger at the Great Basin National Park Visitors Center, that I would spend about ten days crossing Nevada … it took me seventeen … I was in a bit of a hurry, or it might have taken even longer.

Standing in California
looking at my truck in Oregon … made it!

First camp in Oregon,
amongst the large Lodgepoles.

Pretty Blue Flowers hereabouts.

These little blossoms were tucked in
under the leaves, and only accidentally 
spotted they were under there.

Garnets, Hickison Petroglyphs and Big Den Creek.

Monday, 21^st May to Thursday, the 31^st May, 2018; 
from Ely, to Big Den Creek, Nevada.

C1672

“Late Afternoon Light on the Canyon Walls”

(Big Den Creek, Nevada)

Oil Study on Pannelli Telati fine Cotton Panel

5” x 7”

Click here to make this Your Own

Pigments used in the painting:

Imprimatura: Rublev Ercolano Red;

Drawing: W&N Cobalt & Ultramarine Deep Blues;

Pigments: W&N Cerulean, Cobalt and Ultramarine Deep Blues, Cadmiums Orange & Yellow Pale;

Rublev: Ercolano Red, Purple Ochre, Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Italian Burnt Sienna, Orange Molybdate & Lead White #2.

(Take Note: for those receiving an email notification, click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, in the email, (not the title of the painting itself); this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

West of Ely, about five or six miles, there is a rock hounding site called Garnet Hill, about three miles up a gravel road.  I went to see what it was all about, and spent an hour turning over rocks looking for garnets. I did find several small crystals embedded in the rhyolite rocks, and of no great quality, but I had fulfilled what I had wanted to do … to find an example or two within the base rock, as a souvenir. I think a fun day of it could be had here with a shovel, hammer and chisel, and probably a few decent garnets might be found.  By the end of my hour on Garnet Hill, I had got my eye in, so what would a whole day be like?

Another thirty miles down the road, I turned south onto the Hamilton Road, another gravel road, leading to the ghost town of Hamilton, ten miles in.  I had no intention of going to Hamilton … I was just looking for a decent campsite.  I found several, but deemed them too muddy, and after I crossed over the pass, I found myself on the west slopes of the Mokomoke Mountains, part of the White Pine Range.  And here things got hairy, as the road was quite slick with clay, and even in 4-wheel drive, the truck would fish-tail, I drove extremely slowly, with a dry mouth and throat, as I have experienced lack of control sliding down an incline on clay.  But extreme slowness was the key in this case.

So? … What? … I like flowers.

Derelict building
in the ghost town of Hamilton.

As stated I found myself on the side of the mountain, and as there was no good places to camp, I found myself in Hamilton, or what's left of it … there are a scattering of stone building, most fallen in, some collapsed wooden structures, and one modern sheet metal barn, by the look of it.  It was late, so I didn't hang around in Hamilton, but found a lower road, not so muddy or slick with clay.  It turns out I was on the Lincoln Highway, which was the first automobile road across the entire USA, from New York to San Francisco, conceived in 1912 and dedicated in 1913; I remember seeing a documentary, with Model Tees chugging along a dirt road … much like I was doing there on the Hamilton road.    I drove very carefully … just in case.  Four or five miles on I found a good campsite, which turned out not to be muddy, thankfully.

Lincoln Highway.

A mixed flock of birds flew through my camp, the next morning, which included a Western Tanager, a pair of Mountain Bluebirds, a several Cassins Finches (both male and female), a Rufous-sided Towhee, and a male Mountain Chickadee.  The Cassins Finches were a first for me.  I decided to spend the day here, and let the intermittent showers pass through, and head out the next morning.  I would paint, and keep my eye out for birdlife.  A few yards from camp, I found a butterfly that blended into the earth it was sitting on.  Just then the Sun went in, and the butterfly folded its wings.  I watched as the Sun reappeared, and shortly, the wings unfolded, soaking up the Sun's rays, warming enough to fly, but not before I got a couple of photos.

Sadly, my butterfly book is packed away.

For a desert state,
sure has a lot of showers floating about …

… but it brings out the flowers
at this time of year.

Although tempted to stay longer, at this excellent camp, I headed out after my second night.  Stopping in the town of Eureka (much smaller than Ely), I failed to make a blog posting, since the local library, although connected to the Internet through their own computers, did not have Wi-Fi!  The library did, however, have a water pump outside, which allowed my water bottles to be filled.  Thus stymied the westward “Loneliest road in America” beckoned.  Hickison Petroglyphs were the next stop.  A trail leads to several groupings of these insisted drawings in the cliffs and boulders, as well as to various viewpoints, of the surrounding landscape.  My favorite petroglyphs was of the “mad cyclist,” (my interpretation), who obviously represents the yellow jersey holder in an ancestral Native American Tour de Southwest cycle race!!!  There is a campground here (no water), but I followed a forest road and camped for three nights 1.4 miles in from the highway, topping up my AGM battery, and painting away.

“Mad Cyclist?”

There was a large anthill about twelve feet away from my car, and on the first evening I inadvertently stepped on a corner of it.  I was surprised to see that I had opened up access to several galleries.  I thought that there would have been several inches between the surface of the mound and the first tunnels, but evidently not.  Over the next days I watched them working on repairing the damage.  To make amends I also distributed a couple of ounces of Bob's Red Mill TVP (textured vegetable protein), which they hoiked away into the tunnels with great alacrity!  I'm assuming they were suitably grateful, and that mitigated to some extent my accidental misstep.  If I remember correctly, I understand that ants communicate with pheromones and scents, maybe through touch.  Sometimes I would watch an individual carrying a grain of sand, seemingly aimlessly, wondering if there was some plan he was following, but I could discern no logic as to where he finally placed it; sometimes within my damaging footprint and sometimes up on the sides or top of the mound.  Sometimes they would drop their load independently, but more than half the time I observed that at some point in their meandering, another ant, seemingly at random, would touch them and the load bearing ant would, at that point, drop his burden.  Was a message passed by touch; by scent; by pheromones?  Was there a logic to it?  For the time being, the ways of the ant remains a mystery to me. 

View from my campsite
near Hickison Petroglyphs,
looking back the way I had come.

Ooops!

Sorry, Guys!

Austin was the next town encountered on Hwy 50, and is the smallest of the three between Baker (outside Great Basin National Park, and just inside the Nevada/Utah border), and Fallon, NV.  Built on a steep hill, with two petrol stations, and no real grocery store, I was only able to top up my water supply from the garden hose outside the closed Ranger Station, at the bottom of the hill.

I drove up this valley,
from left to right, back in ’13, it was.

Loneliest Road in America.

From here I proceeded on Old Hwy 50 through the Desatoya Mountain Range, to Eastgate, on the western flank of the range, and followed a forest road five miles to the entrance of Big Den Creek Canyon.  Thus ensconced amongst the Junipers and Pinyon Pines, I remained for the next six days including the Memorial Day weekend.  There is a rough trail that leads up the canyon to a lower waterfall (where I discovered a geo-caching box), and somewhere beyond that an upper waterfall (that I did not get to).  I learned of the upper falls by reading entries in the geo-cache log, which also mentions a rattlesnake seen ten feet from the box back in `07; I had wondered about rattlesnakes when negotiating several scree-slopes that the footpath crosses.  Evidently it was just a tad too early for them to be out yet.  But the lizards were out here; three in residence in the large campfire ring I camped next to.  The trailhead, the trail itself and the waterfalls are not marked on my maps, and there is only a small sign out on the highway, five miles away, that says “wildlife viewing area,” to indicate anything of interest up this way.  I found the site through the free campsites app.

Looking west from my Big Den Creek camp.

Shower fading away.

The entrance to Big Den Creek Canyon,
in the Evening Light.

In the gloaming.

What did I say before ‘bout flowers?!

Cuddles.

The lower waterfall …
not spectacular,
but pleasant enough.

Further into the Basin & Range.

Friday, 18^th May to Monday, 21^st May, 2018; to the Schell Creek Mountains.

C1671

“Desert Rain”

Oil Study on Pannelli Telati fine Cotton Panel

3½” x 9¼”

Click here to make this Your Own

Pigments used in the painting:

Imprimatura: Rublev Ercolano Red;

Drawing: W&N Cobalt & Ultramarine Deep Blues;

Pigments: W&N Cobalt and Ultramarine Deep Blues, Cadmium Orange;

Rublev: Ercolano Red, Purple Ochre, Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Italian Burnt Sienna, & Lead White #2.

Just down the hill from Great Basin National Park, a couple of miles north of Baker, is the Baker Archaeological Site.  It is worth a twenty minute visit to stroll to the site of the former dig, reading the guide, provided in the steel box at the beginning of the trail, and to think about and visualize those who have gone before.  At the dig site there are low adobe walls marking the layout of the building that were excavated here, and on the way features in the landscape and plants have been brought to your attention that have a bearing on the Fremont Culture whose community this was.  The Fremont Culture was contemporaneous with the Anisazi peoples (otherwise known as the Ancestral Puebloans), of Hovenweep, Mesa Verde & Chaco Canyon, but occupied the territories north and west from them.  They have been considered as the country hicks of era, but the excavations done here were instrumental in changing that perspective.  It appears that they were more sophisticated than previously thought, and that they were victims of the less long-lasting materials they had at their disposal (adobe, wood, etc.), compared to the stone buildings of the Ancestral Puebloans. 

From here I moved on to Ely, Nevada, on US Hwy 50, billed as the loneliest road in America (the Extra-terrestrial Highway further south is lonelier, as far as I am concerned).  For the past couple of days I had been studying the map and mulling over where I might look for campsite to continue charging my AGM deep-cycle battery, for a day or two, after I filled up my petrol tank, and got some dry ice to delay the melting of the remaining normal ice I had left in my cooler.  I had spotted a road marked the Success Scenic Loop, northeast of Ely, and on the west side of the Schell Creek Mountains, but the high pass on the route was marked “closed in Winter.”  After checking with the Ranger Station in Ely, I drove north on Hwy 63, for 18 miles, turning right onto County Road 486 for 8 miles, or so, and then left 5 miles to Berry Creek where there were a few campsites, and free, as far as I could see.

Sunlit mountains in the middle distance
are the Duck Creek Mountains,
with the Schell Creek Mountains beyond.

Snow ...
still on the Schell Creek Mountains …
Berry Creek Canyon right of center
where I will set up camp

I settled in at the first site just after crossing the Ford at the creek, and that provided enough open space to keep the Solar array clear for much of the day, considering the canyon here is only about a hundred yards wide at this point.  This seems to be a transition zone between the Junipers and Pinyons, and the Firs, Pines and Aspens of the higher altitudes; there is also a grove of those Mountain-Mahoganies on the opposite slope from my camp.  I hadn't intended to camp this high, but found myself at 8100'; I had thought I would be camping at about  6000’ – 6500’, and thus at warmer temperature, but it's a nice camp, so we'll see how the battery charging goes.  A crescent New Moon and Venus, graced the evening sky that evening.

In the morning … a butterfly.

Frost on the vegetation in the morning!  Several mid-ninety degree days last week at Zion, and now frosty mornings, but I am 3800' higher, so I shouldn't be surprised.  The vault toilet, across the way, is a mixed blessing.  Upon opening the door there were scored of black flies dropping off the door jamb and walls and milling about on the floor, too cold to fly.  After ascertaining there was no toilet paper (the camp is not yet officially open), I went back to the truck to get my own.  Since there is really no real place to dig a convenient hole in this narrow valley, the vault toilet was the place, so I girder my loins to wreak slaughter on the dozy flies.  I crushed dozens underfoot, leaving those few left on the walls to deal with the next day,  and then went and scraped the soles of my boots across the grave, in the shallows of the nearby stream, to clean them of the un-illustrious dead.

The ford as seen from my camp …
the blue skies belie the cloud
and showers to come.

The battery charging went better than expected, considering that it clouded over by mid-day.  I have discovered that the Solar array works even through an overcast, although slowly.  And then it rained for a couple of hours.  I recalled that when researching the Solar array, it was safe to leave it out if it rained, since the controller is on the underside of the panels which are set at an angle, when set up, and thus protected from the falling rain.  This was the first time I had ever tested this, and it turned out to be true.  I did unplug it from the battery, however, just in case.  After the rainfall, I plugged it back in, and everything was fine … good to know, but even so I won't make a habit of it.  This evening as I write, the cloud is clearing away, and the stars are appearing.

Water Violets.

A second day was spent at Berry Creek, recharging the AGM battery further, throughout another series of cloud and showers, and an Oil Sketch completed.  No stars that night. 

A walk among the Aspens.

The last of the flies were slain at the vault toilet, on the Monday, although there were a few that managed to warm up enough to fly off during the time I was at this camp.  Packed and ready to leave, I strolled up the creek towards another campsite, about three hundred yards from my own.  Another camper had come in on the Saturday, and I thought to ask him a question or two, if he knew the area.  He was just driving down as I started up his road.  His name was Pete, from California, and this was his first time in the area.  We chatted for awhile, and parted ways, as we both were heading out that morning.  I had wanted to know about the road south, but he had come in from the north, just as I had.

Aspen grove.

Nevertheless, south I went on the gravel road, with the Schell Creek Mountains to the east and the Duck Creek Mountains to the west, climbing to 9000' before the descent towards Cave Lake State Park, where I refilled my water bottles.  It was a beautiful drive, especially through groves of Aspens before the summit of the pass.  After watering up, I completed the scenic loop back to Ely, with desert rains sweeping across the Steptoe Valley to the south.

Dropping down the pass …

… to the valley floor.

Desert Rain.