The weather forecast for Sunday April 20th, 2008 wasn’t exactly encouraging for exploring Vinson Wash off of Poison Creek Cutoff along what I’m calling the Front Range of Owyhee Mountains. But we decided to give it a try any way. The winds were rather brisk…gusting in the 25-35 mph range in places. We ran into a quick snow shower on the way south but nothing that would stop us from exploring the Idaho high desert.
Getting There
We headed south on Mud Flat Road and then took a right on Poison Creek Cutoff road which is a gravel road. Our destination was Vinson Wash and access was supposed to be on an unnamed dirt road I found on a BLM Map. Using our trusty GPS unit, we found the unnamed road but it didn’t look like a place I should be traveling in a truck that isn’t 4-Wheel Drive. So we continued heading west and a little north on Poison Creek Cutoff a little longer. With little knowledge of exactly where Vinson was located we found a promising shallow wash, parked the truck and started exploring. The best part of exploring in Idaho isn’t knowing where you are but the exploration itself. I later determined we were likely in Vinson Wash.
What We Found
As we walked up the wash, we found some pretty cool rocks, great views and some wild flowers. We also discovered that dog is very impatient when it comes to stopping and kicking around in the dirt. She just wants to go, go and go some more. See a photo album from this trip below.
Click on the Photo above to see a slideshow of pictures from this trip.
Other Things We Saw
Some of the farmers along Mud Flat Road were watering their fields and we noticed small patches of ice mainly around the active sprinkler valves. With my truck thermometer registering temperatures in the low-mid 40’s F, I thought it was unusual to see these patches of ice on the fields. Then it dawned on me that the ice was likely caused by the evaporative cooling process. In other words the atmosphere was so dry that the cooling effects from the farmers watering and low dew point temperatures below freezing, cooled the air down to below freezing. Magically ice forms when the free air temperature is well above freezing! Cool theory huh?
Picture is not from this trip!!!!!
See maps from where the above photo album were taken on 20 April 2008 by:
Click the "Read more…" link below.
While we stopped at 3 different place to take pictures and explore this little portion of the Owyhee Mountains, the map only shows Vinson Creek Wash.
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