Buffalo Bill Creek cliff icicles 2012 (1)

There is a logging road that goes up through the canyon of a small stream called Buffalo Bill Creek. The first two miles are open to traffic and because there are homes in the area it is maintained year-long. Two miles past the maintained road the sides of the canyon are composed of steep cliffs about 500 feet high and on those to the west side a variety of icicles form every winter.

The hike up to the cliff area begins along a large meadow on a piece of private land after which it enters land owned by a timber company which allows hiking and hunting access.

Nearly two miles up the road after a climb of around 900 feet the road levels out and enters the cliff area.

I have never been able to get a good photo of the whole of the cliffs themselves because of the thick, heavy brush along the stream. The following two photos show a little of it.

Following are pictures of some of the icicle formations. I wish there were some way to show size perspective, but there isn’t. The longest ones I would guess are over 20 feet in length. I will do a second post with more photos of the icicle formations.

The icicles of Buffalo Bill Canyon

Although this may look something like a series of fountains, it is really a display of naturally formed ice on the side of a cliff about three hundred feet above the bottom of a small canyon. They are formed by water from small seeps through the rock, aided to some extent by snow-melt, which drip and trickle down, freezing over months of cold nights into icicles. I would estimate that the taller ones are six to ten feet tall.

The icicles in Buffalo Bill canyon (2)

Perhaps the art that hangs on the cliff walls of this lonely little canyon in winter is one of nature’s ways of providing a metaphysical balance between the reality of our planet and the artificial world that men have superimposed upon it.

Munson Creek in winter (2)

Water and ice

In search of a trail

Today I spent a few hours searching for the lower end of the Fourteen Mile trail (USFS trail 1714), with little luck except to find several great locations where it isn’t.

This icefall along the highway was rather pretty though

and I enjoyed seeing an eagle soaring above a sharp ridge in the Patrick’s Knob roadless area,

jumping a dozen head of elk on this rocky hillside above the river,

and admiring the winter-green water of the Clark Fork flowing between its ice-caked banks.

 

I’ll find that trail yet before spring: it’s still going to be a long winter.

River ornaments (2)

It has now been 9 days under the inversion clouds, with only a very few moments of clear sky. The temperature early this morning was 22°; late this afternoon 23°, with a wind that would chill a witch’s heart. Not a great day for photography. However…

Investigating the shallow waters right at the river’s edge, I found that nature not only decorates willow twigs with crystal, but shoreline rocks with milk glass. There are always small places of beauty somewhere!

(The first photos from a new camera for which I have high expectations!)