Potato Fire Revisited

Remember the Potato Fire? Our botanist and I headed out on a stormy day to see how the vegetation is recovering. We'll be setting up some formal trend plots later, but we wanted to get out there to see what's coming back and get a good plant list going. We surveyed through rain, hail, snow, and grauple, but had a successful day!

	mists over the Bodie Hills
	sagebrush skeletons in the mists
	how many wildflower species can you find?

Saline Valley Salt Tram

The Saline Valley Salt Tram is buried deep in the Inyo Mountains Wilderness, accessible by one of two rather frightening 4WD roads. A group of us took a trip up to evaluate a fuel treatment project in the area.

The Salt Tram was constructed between 1910 and 1913 to transport salt being mined in Saline Valley across the Inyo Mountains and into Owens Valley where it could be processed and shipped. Specially-designed gondolas each moved 800 pounds of salt along the 13.5 mile tram through a series of towers. The control station at the summit allowed the gondolas to move from one side to the other without stopping.

More information than you could ever want is available at The Waag Brothers' Saline Valley Salt Tram Blog.

looking down on the control tower and caretaker's cabin

within the control tower

view out into Saline Valley

view out into Owens Valley

Back down in Owens Valley, we stopped by a neat petroglyphs site near Swansea.

believed to represent an atlatl

bighorn sheep!