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We flew into Salt Lake City, rented a car, and drove to Park City, arriving Monday evening. The scenery along the way was really impressive. |
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We checked into the Marriott Summit Watch in Park City. Accomodations and location were outstanding! |
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Tuesday morning we went shopping to stock the kitchen, and then we hit the trails. This is the Lost Prospectors Trail, which we were able to walk to from the resort. |
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The Lost Prospectors Trail turned out to be great birding, and even produced a few cool butterflies, like this Common Ringlet. |
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At the end of each day, we selected a beverage and reading material of choice and ... |
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...we unwound at the hot tub and the pool! |
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Wednesday, we headed off to the Uinta Mountains (which is the only mountain range in North America that runs East/West) to meet up with Merrill Webb for some birding. (Note, this pic is not actually of the Uinta Mts, but I needed a general scenery pic here for transition.) |
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Jeff, Anne, Merrill |
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We birded the Uintas near Strawberry Reservoir. We saw some great birds including our quarry: Three-toed Woodpecker (#650 in the lower 48 for Jeff). I didn't get many pics at this site, except for this really cool slime mold! |
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That afternoon, Merrill headed off to a meeting while Anne & I went to Bridal Falls in Provo Canyon to search for Black Swifts (at Merrill's suggestion). The swifts were about a mile high over a ridgetop in Sundance, so we used the car to balance while scanning. Yes, we saw a couple, but they sure were a long way off... |
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Later in the day, we hiked around the Jordanelle Reservoir near Heber City. A nice mitigation project re-established a natural riparian zone around the river at the base of the dam. |
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This Four-spotted Skimmer was one of the cool bugs we found there. |
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This male Yellow-headed Blackbird was making its nest in this wetland mitigation preserve. |
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Naturally, when we returned to the resort, we needed to relax back at the pool. Here's the resort manager, Brenda, chatting with Anne. |
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On Thursday, I did a hardcore day of butterflying, while Anne explored Park City. I spent the entire day at Lambs Canyon, roughly between 6500 and 8000 feet. Check out more of my Utah butterfly pics. |
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This is the canyon. |
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This long horned beetle of some sort was one of Lambs Canyon denizens. |
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Fortunately, there were lots of butterflies here, too. Here's a Rocky Mountain Duskywing with several Western Tailed-Blues. |
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One of the great things I enjoyed about hiking there, was signs like this! |
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Thursday night (after the obligatory soak in the hot tub, we hooked back up with Merrill to look for Flammulated Owls. Andrea, also with the Forest Service, joined us this evening. |
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The mosquitoes were out in full force under the full moon that evening, so Anne, Merrill, & Andrea were prepared! (No, we didn't see any Flams, but we did hear a distant bird hoot a couple of times. Guess we'll have to go back again one of these days for this bird!) |
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Friday morning, we took a 15 mile mountain bike ride out of Park City, where we were picked up and taken further east to the Weber River where we enjoyed a picnic lunch followed by an afternoon of rafting the river. Our guide, Vince, did a great job, and we shared our raft with a family of 4 from Holland, MI! |
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Friday evening, we headed back to the pool, then headed off to dine with Robert Redford at his highly acclaimed restaurant in Park City named "Zoom" for the camera lens. (Robert wasn't actually able to join us, but we still had a fine meal!) |
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On Saturday, I met up with one of Utah's premier lepidopterists, Todd Stout, and we butterflied a couple locations in the Prove Canyon. Here's Todd searching for (and finding!) butterfly caterpillars. |
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And here's Todd extracting a Pale Swallowtail from his net. |
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We stopped here for some roadside butterflying and I snapped a pic of our rental vehicle with the Wasatch mountains in the background. Many of the high mountain roads/trails were still closed due to late season snowfall! |
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One of the places Todd took me was Big Springs Hollow in the South Fork of Provo Canyon. Great place with great scenery and great butterflies! |
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Not just butterflies, but I found this cool cicada at Big Springs Hollow. |
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And the only snake of the trip was this young Western Garter Snake. |
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After a day of butterflying (Jeff), and shopping/touristing (Anne), we had to once again relax at the pool for our last evening in Park City. We mused over the very odd pool "decoration" structure of a railroad trestle that towered over the pool. It apparently had no other function and was built for the purpose. Weird! |
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We also took our final walk around the resort. Black-billed Magpies were common, which I thought was great! |
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Part of the Rail Trail ran right next to the resort, and one of it's historical attractions was this "shoe tree", which apparently has been adorned with shoes for decades! |
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Whatever. |
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Sunday morning we bid farewell to Park City and drove back to Salt Lake City to fly home. |
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A couple more scenery shots. |
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That's all for now, but I've got some wildflower photos I still need to work up, and Anne's got some photos to add, too, so eventually, it'll be updated again! |
Created on ... June 28, 2005 | Update on ... July 2, 2005 | jspippen@duke.edu