Five Springs

On our recent road trip we headed back to Five Springs so I could do some paragliding. It's an obscure spot that we discovered years ago. There are signs that other people paraglide here, but I've never run into anyone else flying. These days I don't do enough flying to be very good at it so I try to stick to easy, relatively safe conditions, when the wind and thermals are mellow. That means I mostly get short, tame flights, but better safe than sorry. Thanks to Shelley for the videos. (If you're reading this by email and the videos don't work, try viewing them via the website or directly on YouTube.)

I also like Five Springs for the surrounding country, with desert below and mountains above, especially in the spring when there are so many wildflowers.

I think this is Fragrant Evening Primrose. It's normally night blooming so it was nice to see some flowers out during the day.

I think this is Northwestern (or Desert) Paintbrush, which I think of as normally red, but can be a range of colors.

I was on the lookout for insects on the flowers. I found a couple of these Ornate Checkered Beetles on Balsamroot flowers. (checkered beetles are pollinators)

I was photographing this flower when I noticed the ants all over it. Looking more closely I realized they were farming/herding aphids. (The aphids aren't visible in this photo.)

With lots of flowers, I expected more butterflies, but I didn't see many.

I spotted this bird in a distant bush and I could see it had markings on its head and yellow/green on it. I managed to get close enough to get an identifiable photo. It's a Green-tailed Towhee. There are Spotted Towhees in Victoria but they're quite different (more like an American Robin).

This Dusky Grouse played hide and seek with us but eventually it came out in the open where we could get some photos.

There were quite a few rabbits and chipmunks around.

We stayed at Five Springs for 5 nights and I managed to get in 10 short flights (the longest was 30 minutes). We've been coming here since 2017 and I always enjoy it. Hopefully we'll make it back a few more times.

See all 46 photos in this batch

Paragliding at Five Springs

Thanks to Shelley for putting together her video of me flying at Five Springs (Wyoming) in June.

I love it here. It's a nice launch and a good landing area, and I've never seen another person flying here. (That might be a negative to most people, but it suits me.) The launch is within walking distance of the small campground at the top, and the road up is paved. And the vertical is small enough (500m) that you can hike back up. Usually there are good thermals and reasonably long flights. Unfortunately, although you can't tell from the video, conditions this trip were not great for flying, there was a lot of wind and often from the wrong direction. That was disappointing after two years of no flying due to Covid. But it was still great to get back in the air.

Paragliding at Colima, Mexico

After diving at Manzanillo we headed inland to Colima where there was another paragliding site. The day we arrived we managed to find the landing zone near Piscila (recognizable by the wind sock). It was a nice big open field next to the road. After Malinche (Tenincingo) I was a little nervous that the landing zone was quite far from launch. But there were some alternate fields where you could land. We tried to drive up to launch, but the road was blocked with traffic cones. We saw some people hiking up though.

It was a bit cloudy the first day I flew. That would slow down the thermals which is usually a bad thing, but I was happy enough to have mellow conditions for my first flight. We arrived early enough that we would have time to hike up but the road was open so we got up to launch quite early. It's an impressive launch - large and covered in artificial turf. You'd almost think you were in Europe.

As expected, the wind was over the back when we first arrived, but around 11am it started swinging around to the right direction. We expected other paraglider pilots to be flying since it's a popular site and it was the weekend. Finally, about 11:30 a truck load of pilots showed up. Several of them made a point of coming to talk to us and giving us an introduction to the site. They obviously had the timing figured out because pretty much as soon as they arrived, they launched.

It was nice to see where they went and where they got lift. Once they were all launched I followed. No one was getting very high, but there were enough light thermals to stay up and get a bit above launch. Often we (paraglider pilots) use clouds to find thermals (the rising moist air often turns into a cloud). But here, because it's dry, the skies are often clear with no clouds to mark the thermals. Instead, the trick is to look for the vultures (turkey and black). They prefer not to exert themselves any more than necessary, so they also look for thermals, and are often better at finding them. At one point I was circling in a thermal along with a vulture. As well as helping me stay in the lift, it also helped me see the turbulence. When I saw it's wings getting rocked from side to side I knew I'd be hitting the same rough air in a few seconds.

I was thermaling with one of the local pilots and when the thermal ran out, he headed out front. I figured he probably knew better than me, so I followed. Unfortunately, we didn't find any lift. The other pilot managed to circle back and presumably stayed up, but I was low enough that I figured I'd better head for the LZ. I could see another pilot packing up in the field before the LZ. Presumably they hadn't quite made it. But I had plenty of height to reach the main field and make a good landing.

I could see people in the shade under a tree in the corner of the field by the road. I kited my wing the rest of the way across the field towards what I assumed were other pilots. It turned out to be a couple of local kids who didn't seem all that impressed with my kiting skills :-)

The next day was even busier with other pilots, and a couple of tandem flights. Although it was clearer, conditions were light and everyone was waiting. Finally, around 1pm everyone got in the air.



There was an alternate landing area that you could reach if you got high enough and that was my goal for the day. From what other pilots had told me, I figured I needed at least 300m (1000ft) of height over launch. I found various thermals, and at one point I got 270m up. I considered going for it, but decided to stick to my cutoff. Shortly after I found a stronger thermal and was 300m up and still rising. At about 400m up I didn't track the thermal quite right and hit the turbulence at the edge of it. Since it was a fairly strong thermal, it bounced me around a bit and I chickened out and left it. (Generally you want to stick with thermals as high as you can get.) With 400m I figured I had lots of height to get to the other LZ. The first part crossed the river and a bunch of forested area where it wouldn't be pleasant to land. There should have been more thermals on the way across, but I didn't find anything. It soon became obvious I wasn't going to make the LZ but there were other fields I could land in. When I got closer, I saw another pilot had landed in one of the fields so I headed there. Another pilot was also approaching the same field. Obviously I wasn't the only one to not find lift. Despite not quite reaching my goal, it was fun to do a tiny bit of cross country.

The next day we decided to hike up to get some exercise. It took about 45 minutes and was a nice hike except that it was already very hot. (Temperatures were over 30c during the day.)

hiking up the cobblestone road with my paraglider

It was Monday so we weren't sure if there would be any local pilots or not. It was windier and I was afraid it might get too windy to fly if I waited too long, so I launched on my own. The thermals weren't as good (probably because it was earlier, and the wind tends to disrupt them). So I ended up with a sled ride to the Piscila LZ. As I was packing up I saw four more paragliders launch. While they didn't have incredible flights, they stayed up a lot longer than I did. Maybe I should have waited a bit longer. Of course, it might have been a question of skill rather than conditions.

checking the wind speed

Tuesday morning we went to the zoo first and then drove up to launch. When I first got out of the car I thought it was less windy but when we got out in the open on launch I realized it was even windier than the day before. Judging wind speed is hard, especially gusts versus lulls so I got out my wind meter. The average was ok but the gusts were hitting 32 km/hr. That's about the speed of my wing so if it picked up much I'd go backwards (not what you want). We hung around for a while to see if any other pilots showed up. No one did. I checked the wind again, thinking maybe it had slowed down. No, the gusts were now 37 km/hr. We headed down.

Photos thanks to Shelley

Paragliding at Tenincingo, Mexico

launching from Malinche

From Valle de Bravo we drove to Tenancingo where fellow Canadian pilot Guy Harrington (Sea to Sky Paragliding) has the Casa del Piloto bed and breakfast for paraglider pilots. He was a great host, making us some great meals and drinks and showing us the local markets and restaurants.

We flew mostly at the Malinche launch, which is the closest to the Casa. Given a thermal or two you can fly back to an LZ right close to the Casa.

The first day I launched before Shelley. I got reasonably high but came back to launch (losing most of my height) to join Shelley as she launched. I fully expected to climb back up again since it hadn't been difficult the first time. But our timing was unlucky and we hit big sink. I still wasn’t too worried since sink in one place means lift somewhere nearby. But that only helps if you find it, and we didn’t. We had to head directly for the LZ. But we got sink all the way. If we had fully realized how much we were sinking and taken the straightest path to a landing we would probably have made it. Shelley was slightly behind and above me, making it hard to keep track of her. With both of us landing almost at the same time we had to be careful to avoid each other. I saw her swing wide to the right, following the landing pattern we'd been briefed on. But we didn't have enough height for that, and as soon as I saw her go to the side I thought, "oh crap, she's not going to make it to the LZ". I got a slight bump from a thermal and tried to follow it, hoping for a low save, but it was nothing. Now I was too low. We came in almost side by side. I was hands up trying to eke out a little more distance, but neither of us made the end of the field. Shelley managed to land on her feet in a small clearing. I didn't have quite as good luck One thorny tree left a few claw marks on my left arm. And a branch snagged my right leg and twisted it under me painfully as I reached the ground. Luckily it wasn't badly injured and was just sore for the next few days. I'd have been really pissed if I'd done more damage.

There's a saying in paragliding that there are two kinds of pilots - ones that have landed in a tree, and ones that haven't landed in a tree yet. Since neither of us ended up actually hanging in a tree, I was told this didn't count.

Both our wings ended up draped over small trees, luckily not thorny ones. The trees were too tall to reach the top, and too small to climb, so we waited for help to come with saws and machetes.

Guy flew down to help us. By now it was noon and the LZ was very thermic. We watched him get bounced around on the approach, and then to our horror, take a huge collapse not far above the the ground. Having recently watched someone take a collapse and crash at Tapalpa, we didn't want a repeat, especially when the only reason he was there was to help us. Thankfully this time the wing opened up again and he landed safely. A less skilled pilot might have had a different result.

Daniel also showed up in the truck and between us we quickly got the wings extracted, thankfully with no damage.

I was really bummed out. Hitting so much sink and no lift was unusual, not something we could have predicted. Perhaps a different line might have avoided it, who knows. But my failure to fully grasp the situation and handle it was pure pilot error. At the time, I wanted to tell Shelley not to swing wide, but I didn't want to take my hands off the controls to use the radio. In hindsight, I could have just yelled, we were close enough.

We got our wings packed up and headed back up to launch for the afternoon flight. Shelley was not keen to fly but she decided to get back on the horse. She didn't really want to land back at the same LZ, but she also didn't want to try for cross country to one of the other LZ's. I got up high again but I was keeping an eye on Shelley. Eventually she landed at the LZ, but neither Guy nor I could get hold of her on the radio to confirm she was ok (her radio wasn't working properly). We could see her start to pack up, so presumably she was ok, but I didn't want to leave her on her own to hike out and find a taxi so I lost height and landed. Between being psyched out about landing there again, and not used to sloping LZ's she'd had an awkward landing and pulled something in her leg. Unfortunately, that put an end to her flying for the rest of our time in Tenancingo. Having made it unscathed through landing in the bush, it was frustrating to get hurt landing in the open.

better second landing, launch is at top right

The next day we headed back to the Malinche launch. And ended up waiting all day. It was cloudy and almost no thermals coming up. Eventually, late in the afternoon, Guy launched and sank out. A couple of local pilots launched and managed enough lift to do a single circle and top land. Finally someone launched and managed to stay up, prompting everyone else including me to launch. I got some decent height but decided to top land before everyone else so I could take my time. Top landing (where you land at or near the launch) can be tricky and I had only done it a couple of times before. I was happy that I ended up doing a reasonable job at it.

The next day was forecast to be windy so we headed to a different site (Picacho). It was mentioned multiple times that we had to get there early or it would be too windy. But that didn't seem to have any impact on getting up late, going for breakfast, etc. We arrived at the site at noon, and of course, it was too windy. We ended up at the training hill, where it was also quite windy (gusting over 30 km/hr) but we managed one flight down and then a bunch of kiting. Ground handling practice is always worthwhile, but it's one of the few things we can do at home, so I wasn't too excited about coming all the way to Mexico for it. The plan was to get back to the Malinche launch around 5pm in hopes the wind would die down later in the day. But by the time we finished kiting, and then went for lunch, and then walked through the market (!), it was more like 6pm when we got to launch and other gliders were already in the air, so all of a sudden it was a rush to launch. With my fairly minimal gear I got set up and launched first. I was extra careful with my safety checks given the rush. What I didn't account for was Guy's dog running around on launch. Just as I was getting airborne it ran between my legs jumping and barking. I don't blame the dog, it doesn't understand what's going on and gets excited by the action. But in that case it should be tied up. I managed to launch ok, but a botched launch could at best mean a nasty tumble down a steep bushy slope, and at worst a crash after launch. Launching is critical enough without extra canine obstacles. And to make it worse, apparently it's happened before. (BTW if you're not a dog lover, you might think twice about staying at the Casa del Piloto and flying with Guy)

trying to avoid the dog

I had a reasonable flight and was setting up to top land when I was told to back off and let a tandem land. I understand we give the tandems priority, but it was a little frustrating because it was getting late and the sun was going down (because we'd arrived so late). The tandem pilot had no doubt top landed there many many times. Despite doing ok top landing the day before, I was still quite nervous about it. Especially since if I missed it and got below launch I'd have to fly out to the LZ and land in near dark. I managed to stay up while the tandem landed, but when I came in I misjudged my height, went too far over the back, and came too damn close to another close encounter with the bushes.

In the end it was a very frustrating day for me. On top of being late for everything and almost botching my top landing, I spent about three hours riding in the back of the truck (with the dog) getting bounced around in the dust and exhaust fumes, not very pleasant.

The morning we left Valle we mentioned to another pilot that we were headed to Tenancingo. He said the only problem there was that the LZ wasn't great, and top landing could be tricky. Little did we know how prophetic those comments would be.

There's obviously good flying around Tenancingo, and the Casa del Piloto is nice, and Guy is a great host. But unfortunately our few days there didn't work out very well for us.

Photos thanks to Shelley

Paragliding at Valle de Bravo, Mexico

nice big landing area

When we were "planning" this trip (a few random conversations) we decided we weren't going to go to Valle de Bravo. Although it's one of the top paragliding sites in the world, it's also busy, and can be challenging. But by the time we visited the monarch butterfly sites, we were quite close so we figured we should at least have a look. And that evolved into we might as well try flying there. We knew people bring groups here that include beginners, so it seemed feasible.

Because of the reputation we hooked up with a local paragliding instructor, Marko Hrgetic (Flumen Paragliding), and his group. I was actually thinking of finding a local Mexican company but came across Marko’s web site and he was instructing rather than just offering tandems so it seemed more what we were looking for. I didn’t realize at first that he had competed in the last X Alps.

Also, since there are so many people (we counted about 50 paragliders while we were there) it's nice to be in a group. Thankfully, as less experienced pilots we launched earlier in the morning and later in the afternoon than most people. Although, if you managed to stay up after an early morning launch, then it wouldn’t be long before everyone else came out to play. I told myself it was good practice to fly with other people but I still don’t like it. Flying is challenging enough without constantly having to be on guard for collisions (which do happen) As with driving, it isn’t so bad if everyone is rational, but there’s always someone who isn’t.

For some reason I was nervous about flying at Valle. Partly the reputation, partly the potential crowds, partly not wanting to get in the way of good pilots. We emailed but hadn’t received an answer by the end of the day. The next morning we got up at 7:30 to find an email that they were heading out at 8:15. My first thought was to rush to get ready but it would have been tight so we decided to wait a day. Instead we wandered over and found the meeting place and introduced ourselves. Later we drove over to check out the landing zone. We had a point on the map but it took us awhile to find the access road. It’s always nice to walk the LZ before landing there. In this case it’s not on the way to launch so we wouldn’t have seen it otherwise. (Other than from high above.)

As I fully expected, the flying went fine. Shelley was happy to launch first since she wasn’t hung up on a long flight. Most people don’t want to go first in the morning because if the thermals haven’t started you end up with a short flight.

In hindsight we should have come earlier in the season. By February conditions are getting strong at midday, which meant we wanted to be down by 11:30, limiting our morning flights to under an hour. And the days we flew the winds didn’t die down till late in the day, limiting evening flights to 30 min or so (before the sun went down.)

It was too far (about 45 min drive) to go back to town between flights so we hung out at the landing area. Luckily there was shade and a couple of taco stands. But it made for a long day e.g. leaving the hotel at 8am and getting back at 8pm.

The flying was good. It wasn’t too rough and there were usually enough thermals for even beginners to stay up. Most people come to Valle to fly cross country but we stuck around launch. I got high enough to cross to the next peak - El Piñon - but didn’t get up the nerve to go on my own.

We only ended up flying for a few days. We missed our last day because I got sick and spent  the night throwing up. Unpleasant, but par for the course. No matter how careful you are with what you eat and drink, there are always plenty of opportunities to fall prey to some unfamiliar bug. After that Marko had a group of new students and our hotel was full for the weekend so we moved on. But we enjoyed flying at Valle and would be happy to come back sometime. Marko was great and we'd be happy to work with him again.

waiting for the thermals to start

Photos thanks to Shelley. See also her blog post

Paragliding at Tapalpa, Mexico

We’re in Tapalpa to paraglide at the nearby site. Our first day we found the launch and got our gear organized and did a little kiting to get back into it since it’s been a few months since we flew. We had contacted a local pilot (Miguel) to get site information and he turned out to be up at launch. He was very helpful and filled us in in the launch and landing, and set us up with a someone who could drive down to pick us up if we both flew.

I got in a late afternoon flight of about 30 minutes before the approaching rain made me nervous and I headed down. Unfortunately, I misunderstood the instructions and landed in the wrong one of a pair of fields, in the new barley. At least I landed near the edge and kited over to the road. Unfortunately, another pilot followed my bad example and landed in the middle of the field.

The next day we got in morning flights while conditions were mellow. We call it a “sled ride” when you don’t get any lift and just glide down. Here they call it “piano”, as in how a piano flies if you throw it off a cliff - straight down.





We were happy with our morning flights and arrived back at launch ready for more. We walked out just in time to see two pilots launch and one of them almost immediately have an accident. You could see he hit a little turbulence since his wing wobbled. Then the left tip folded in, which is usually harmless. But whether it was the turbulence, or a wrong reaction by the pilot, it went from minor incident to his wing collapsing and spinning into the ground. The whole incident was over in a second.

He had been quite close to the ground which was bad because there was no time to recover or throw his reserve parachute. But good because he didn’t have far to fall. Not that you have to fall very far to get badly hurt. He went down in heavy bush and small trees not far below launch. We could see the wing draped over the bushes but couldn’t see the pilot or what kind of shape he was in.

Shelley dropped our lunch on the ground and we immediately started working our way down the hill. It was slow going through the bush, but thankfully there were a few vague animal trails and only occasional thorns. But once we were inside the bush we couldn’t see. We yelled to the pilot to see if he was ok and to use his voice to guide us. He answered and didn’t sound too bad. At least we weren’t going to a body. I arrived first with Shelley right behind me. The pilot was standing up and amazingly only his right shoulder was hurt. I started asking him questions about how he was, but quickly realized that this was Shelley’s area of expertise and turned it over to her. She did a quick examination but there didn’t seem to be any other issues other than his shoulder. We offered to make a sling for his arm but he didn’t want it. By now Pedro (the site caretaker) had arrived with a machete and he cleared a better path for us. The pilot was able to walk slowly back up the hill to launch.

We heard later he broke his shoulder blade. He even showed up the next day at launch with his arm and shoulder strapped up. He was very grateful for our help. He had been flying for almost 30 years and this was his first accident.

It was unnerving for us, to say the least. Obviously, you know incidents happen, but you want to think you can be smart and minimize the risks - the same thinking we’d had with climbing. But on the surface this seemed totally random. Conditions weren’t bad, we’d just had straightforward flights. The day had heated up a bit but not that much.

We found out there were actually several contributing factors. Most critically it was a high performance wing. The trade off for performance is that it’s not as stable and does not recover as well on its own. This kind of wing requires skill to fly properly. But he hadn't flown it lately, he was from Germany and it was a wing he left in Mexico. He didn’t even remember, till too late, that it was a high end wing. On top of that it was old which can also make it unsafe.

So we felt a little better since none of these factors applied to us. We had relatively new wings (Phi Symphonia) that met the highest “A” safety rating. A tip folding in on our wings would have much less effect and would be extremely unlikely to lead to a crash.

On top of that, the afternoon was also a bit stressful. About a dozen other pilots showed up. And the wind dropped to nothing and even slightly "over the back". And it sprinkled rain off and on. We almost gave up and left, but it seemed like there might be a chance to fly if we waited. There is a lot of inertia in a big group like that. There were probably times that were launchable, but no one wanted to be first. Eventually a local pilot set up and did a zero wind forward launch. That opened the flood gates and a lot of people started getting ready. The problem was that a lot of them spread their wings out on launch and then didn't launch. By this point Shelley didn't want to fly, but I was still keen to get in another flight. Eventually I had to ask someone if they weren't going to launch, could they please move their wing. Just when I was ready someone moved the flag/windsock from in front of another pilot and stood right in front of me, blocking my launch. But then the other pilot didn't launch. Finally the other pilot launched, Shelley helped herd the people away from in front of me, and I launched. For a zero wind forward launch I thought it went ok. The wing dipped slightly to one side, but I got underneath it and straightened out. Apparently someone else had yelled "stop", but I never heard them. I was listening for Shelley to tell me if anything didn't look right. I'm not sure why the other person thought I should stop.

The final frustration of the day was still to come. Shelley drove down to get me and decided to be a good Samaritan and offer rides to other pilots. But the other pilots were part of a group and they had their own shuttle, except they didn't know who was getting picked up where or when. So everyone dithered in the hot sun for almost an hour. Finally we gave a ride to a pair of pilots who weren't part of the big group. Then one of the group decided maybe he did need a ride to the rest of his group so we crammed him in as well. Then the road was blocked because they were filming a movie. We found a way around on back roads. But then we had to go back to the blocked intersection to deliver the one pilot to his group. In the end we never found his group and left him at the intersection. By the time we got back to town it was well after dark. Needless to say, I was very frustrated. What a day!

See Shelley's version of the day

Five Springs Again

In the first part of September I made another road trip through Montana and just into Wyoming to Five Springs in the Big Horn mountains. It's an obscure spot, but it's become one of my favorite spots for paragliding and hiking (although I wish it was a little closer!). This is another long one since I'm doing the whole trip in one post.

When I arrived in Havre I took a break in a park. I took a few shots of the fountain, mostly practicing with the new camera.



There were hollyhocks along the fence of a house backing onto the park.



The color attracted me, but I found the insects were also attracted.



The owner of the house came out to see what I was doing and was quite suspicious and almost hostile until I explained I was just taking photographs of the flowers.

As usual I camped in the Bear Paw mountains (more hills) near Havre, and got in a couple of brief warmup paragliding flights off Otis peak. This Woodland Skipper butterfly seemed to like the color of my paraglider.



I saw quite a few pronghorn on the drive. (I also saw lots of hawks, but didn't manage any decent photos of them.)



Of course, I took lots of photographs. For some reason a lot of them were insects this trip. Partly that was because I had my new camera and macro lens.

When I arrived at Five Springs I stopped at the landing zone to put up my wind sock. I found this Mormon cricket beside the road. It was rapidly running away and I didn't have my camera out. I tried to herd it back towards the van, but it wouldn't cooperate. I was pretty sure if I left it to get my camera I'd never find it again. I ended up picking it up and holding it one hand while I got my camera and switched to the macro lens one handed. The long "tail" is its ovipositor (for laying eggs) so it's a female. We have them in Saskatchewan but I'd never seen one till last year.



A few days later I was sitting in the shade of the one tree near the LZ and this male came wandering by. I only had my iPhone but it managed a decent shot. Their color can vary quite a lot from green to black. I've only seen individuals, but at certain times they can swarm like locusts.



My first two days in Five Springs I had a couple of good one hour paragliding flights. I thought those were the warmup for bigger flights, but it turned out they were my best flights of the trip. I had more flights but conditions weren't good enough for me to stay up. But I'm still happy to be here even if the flights are short.

I took two days off from flying to hike from the Five Springs campground up and over Medicine Mountain (10,000 ft) and down to the Wyoming High Country Lodge where I've stayed before. I carried my paraglider hoping to fly off Medicine Mountain either on the way there or the way back. Unfortunately, that didn't work out - the wind was the wrong direction on the way there, and too strong on the way back. It was still a great hike, and staying overnight at the lodge meant I didn't have to carry any camping gear or much food. I basically just took my toothbrush and a spare t-shirt. And my paragliding gear is pretty light.

Unlike last time when it poured with rain at the lodge, this time the weather was great. Normally they would have had frost by now at 9000 ft, but this year they were having a late fall and there were still flowers in the meadow, and lots of different butterflies. I had a good time trying to stalk them from flower to flower.













A small stream runs through the meadow.



People were talking about fishing, but the only trout I saw were less than 6 inches long. Can you spot it?



There were a few butterflies around the campground as well. There was only one kind of bush flowering so they were congregating. I thought these were Aphrodite Fritillaries, but on iNaturalist they were identified as Coronis Fritillaries. I looked them both up and I have a hard time telling them apart.







These wasps took a break from feeding on the flowers to mate:



I had another wasp visit me at the campsite:



And this spider was overlooking my picnic table:



I found this one inside the van. Luckily there's no wood in the van since it's a wood boring beetle.



I think this one is a burying (or sexton) beetle, another interesting critter. It uses its large antenna to locate dead mice or birds. When multiple beetles find the same carcass they fight over it (males against males and females against females). The winning couple lays its eggs on the carcass and buries it, after removing the fur or feathers. They bury it so it isn't found by other scavengers.



When I got back from my hike I threw my sweaty socks on the picnic table and they attracted this colorful fly:





The usual chipmunks and squirrels were also around. The squirrels were busily snipping pine cones off the trees and dropping them all over my campsite. The pinecones had a lot of sap oozing out of them, which the squirrels got all over their faces when they were eating them. And then the dirt stuck to the sap, giving them black faces.





I didn't see any marmots around the campground like other times, but I did come across this one on my hike:



There were lots of grasshoppers around. The most interesting were these Carolina grasshoppers. The males would fly up into the air and hover making loud clicking sounds to attract females. They were hard to photograph because they were so well camouflaged for the dry dusty ground. You'd see them land, but if you took your eyes off them for a second, they'd be almost impossible to locate again. Although there was a lot of clicking going on, sadly I didn't actually see any of them actually attract a female.



A more colorful variety of grasshopper:



The campground is in a great spot to watch the sunsets.





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