Ferron Rock Art

This week, a couple of us from work busted out for a brainstorming / rock art finding roadtrip.  My bosses are the best -- instead of just sitting around an office making plans for the park, we drove around looking for rock art.  We always seem to come up with more creative ideas when we're exploring and hiking around.

This week, we drove out towards Ferron to find some Fremont and Barrier Canyon rock art panels.  Our Region Manager is a pro at finding obscure, remote rock art panels and he can remember places he hasn't visited for 20 years!  So the rest of us followed his lead to find the rock art in the Ferron Box and Short Canyon.  Honestly, we went on so many unmarked dirt roads that I have no idea how we found these panels.  But if you're in the Ferron area, it's definitely worth poking around!

Ferron Box

Molen Reef snake

Segregation Panel @ Ferron Box

 

 

 

Short Canyon

Short Canyon

Short Canyon

Utah Field House of Natural History

Sweet!  This week, I actually got paid to go to a new place.  The Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum had its grand opening for the new curatorial facility, so a bunch of park employees (including Jordan and I) went to help out.  The Field House is a dinosaur extravaganza showcasing fossils found throughout the Uinta Basin.  The outside of the building is surrounded by life-size dinosaur replicas, including a Tyrannosaurus with six-inch teeth, a horned Triceratops, six-ton Stegosaurus, and a winged Pteranodon.  The inside of the museum reveals over 600 million years of life, from the Pennsylvanian to the Pleistocene.  You could definitely spend a solid days investigating all the artifacts.  My favorite exhibit is the wall of fossilized leaves -- each rock with the fossil imprint was shaped into a rectangle, then mounted on a green wall.  It's art.

grand opening!

fossilized leaf wall

However, very few museums can display all their artifacts, and the Field House is no exception.  The curatorial facility is a humidity- and temperature-controlled building where they keep fossils, bones and other artifacts they don't have room to show in the museum.  It won't typically be open to the public, but for the grand opening the community was invited to get a 'behind the scenes' look.  Each park employee had an artifact to talk about, so I pretended to be an expert on fossilized turtle shells for a day.  Sweet!

The Field House is located at 496 East Main Street, Vernal, UT 84078-2605.  To reach them, call (435) 789-3799.

Jordan + ridiculous Unterman paintings

Pronghorn fawn!

We've had some great critter adventures in the park this year!   This afternoon, a guy on his motorcycle drove up to the Visitor Center and told us there was a baby pronghorn on the side of the road.  Our campground host, Diana, and I followed him to the spot and saw this little guy on the shoulder.

We didn't want him to become roadkill, so we decided to move him off the road and onto the desert behind a bunch of joint fir.  Momma pronghorn was watching us from a distance, so she saw where we placed him.  I hope he survives!  He seemed a little parched and didn't put up much of a fight when I picked him up, but I could feel a strong heartbeat and he let out a couple healthy bleats.

Fingers crossed!

Peregrine attack

I had a crazy wildlife sighting on the way to work today.  I was driving to the Visitor Center, when I saw a duck in the middle of the road.  Duck?  This guy was waaaaay off course -- there's no standing water for miles around Goblin Valley.  He started to fly down the road, when I saw a pair of peregrine falcons zooming towards him.  Right in front of me, one of the peregrines folded up his wings, turned downward, and DIVEBOMBED the duck.  Peregrines can stoop up to 180 mph, making them one of the fastest animals in the world. The force of the impact knocked the duck to the ground, but didn't kill it.  The duck flew away, and the peregrines stayed in hot pursuit.  Awesome.

Peregrine stoop (Photo credit: http://gerryco23.wordpress.com)