North Cottonwood Creek – Again
September 26, 2008 at 3:14 pm | In Nature, North Cottonwood Creek, Pictures, Sagebrush, Sagebrush Steppe, South Hills, backcountry | 1 CommentTags: idaho, North Cottonwood Creek, Sagebrush, South Hills
Another post from May – all part of my catching up because I’m a very bad blogger. Bad blogger. Bad. Anyway, more from North Cottonwood Creek. Beautiful! I just love the sweeping views of land and sky. Many people are sure to think these photos uninteresting and nothing out of the ordinary – but that’s not the point here. This is my backyard. Your backyard if you’re from Idaho. And your backyard if you look at the world as an open adventure for all to take part in. These views of sagebrush, hills, basalt, willows, sky for miles – this is familiar to me, it’s comforting, and it’s beautiful. Enjoy!
More: North Cottonwood Creek
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© 2008 Idaho Explorer
A Bit of Here & There
May 24, 2008 at 9:45 am | In Black Widow, Boat, Cemetary, Hagerman, Idaho History, Milner, Nature, North Cottonwood Creek, Oregon Trail, Pictures, Sagebrush, Sagebrush Steppe, Snake River, South Hills, Spiders, Spring, Waterfalls, Wildlife, backcountry | Leave a Comment
Here’s a few of the places we’ve been as of late: Boating on the Snake River by Hagerman (mid April)…
complete with beautiful waterfall.
A windy day at Milner (early April) – just part of a drive while Collin snoozed in the back.
Complete with Oregon Trail ruts (gives me chills!)…
…and little graveyard with weathered wooden tombstones (gives me chills of another sort).
A day out at North Cottonwood Creek in the South Hills (one of a few already) - end of April.
A burst of red.
Greening up.
That burst of red again with a crumbling creekbed behind it looking in poor health.
And complete with a big black widow in a hole in the ground with its metallic blue pray in the bottom left-hand corner. I’ll admit it, my hands trembled a little as I took this picture, and for some reason, I wasn’t aware that they lived right there on the surface – in the top of a hole in the ground. Made me look twice before I took each step. Black widows are quite beautiful looking, though, with their glossy almost plastic looking bodies. One time, we found one living under our couch – that gives me chills too!
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North Cottonwood Creek in the Fall
Everything South Hills Related
Everything Snake River Related
© 2008 Idaho Explorer
Southern Idaho Places in Picture Form – North Cottonwood Creek, South Hills
November 11, 2007 at 11:41 pm | In Cottonwood Trees, Nature, North Cottonwood Creek, Pictures, Places, Sagebrush, Sagebrush Steppe, Salmon Tract, South Hills, Willows, backcountry roadtrips | 5 Comments
About a week ago, my little boy and I took a trip out to the South Hills and ended at North Cottonwood Creek. The South Hills are a kind of sanctuary for me. I was born in Twin Falls and lived in a house “a mile North of Nat Soo Pah” (the way it was explained to others), right down the road from my grandpa’s house. We moved away from Idaho when I was just one, but my mom and the two youngest girls – my sister Dana and myself – moved back and lived at my grandpa’s house, where my mother grew up, when I was 11 years old. This area is know as the Salmon Tract and it is my ancestors (the Grays and Jones) who settled the area in the late 1800’s. I feel connected to the land and know that a part of my history runs in its waters and lies deep in the soil. When I wonder amongst the sagebrush, I feel at peace and am full of reverence for the land.
Southern Idaho is made up of the sagebrush steppe – a wonderful ecosystem full of life and beauty. (Though I didn’t think so when I first moved here in 1994.) The area is sometimes referred to as a cold or high desert. Many people see it as a wasteland, but if one looks, one can find vast amounts of beauty and life. Unfortunately, the sagebrush steppe is dwindling in size due to special interest groups. Much of what does remain is badly altered. Luckily, there are people working to preserve this amazing habitat.
A Sagebrush Community
Here is the riparian zone of North Cottonwood Creek – the creek’s dry of course. Sadly, the cottonwoods are now far and few between.
This is opposite of the creek – quite a starling difference in flora and color schemes.
Glowing willows with the blue hills and sky as the canvas.
Looking to the right…
and looking to the left – quite the contrast!
Willows with their seeds surrounded in cottony down, ready to float in the wind and begin new life.
A closer view.
This road leads to self-discovery, bliss, peace, happiness, or whatever it is you need. Care to travel along?
Which way, which way?
Looking Upstream…
and looking downstream.
I was very disappointed to find LOTS of trash – beer bottles, shotgun shells, plastic bags, pop bottles and cans, and the usual-out-in-the-boonies junk that seems to plague most isolated places. I can never understand how people can go out and enjoy these beautiful places and then leave their litter spread about. So careless and disrespectful they are!
Willows in a Sea of Sagebrush
Sun Shining Through the Cottonwood Tree
More from the South Hills
© 2008 Idaho Explorer
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