Beaver Video and Miscellaneous Mirror Lake Stuff

Okay, let's get this out of the way first. During the summer I hiked up Bald Mountain, beginning on the trail at the top of the Mirror Lake Highway. The only complaint I had was that the outhouse in the picnic area had no lock on the door. Luckily there was a short line when I was there, so the person at the front of the line more or less guarded the door for the person inside. But I'm sure this open-door policy proved embarrassing for more than a few people over the summer.

While up there this past weekend, I noticed that a bolt had been fastened to the door. What surprised me, though, was the toilet paper. I swear it has tougher security than my house: 1/4-inch plate steel with padlocks.

Now that we've got that out of the way...

I love the aspens this time of year, because they turn so white.

And they're everywhere mixed with the pines in the Uintas.

The beavers also like the aspens. They store small aspen branches and willows in a big pile mostly underwater next to their lodge so they'll have food that they can access below the ice all winter.

Here's a one-minute video of the beavers at work near Mirror Lake. I wanted to capture video of them climbing up the hill and gathering aspen branches, but I spent two days at the ponds, while all the beavers did was eat grass and gather willows in the meadow. I paid $45 for an annual pass for the Mirror Lake Highway. You'd think with that money the least the Forest Service could do would be to publish a schedule of when the beavers will be gathering willows and when they'll be gnawing down aspens.

I stayed at the beaver ponds a little too late, until it got pitch black, and there was no moon. Lucky for me, my video camera has an infrared function, so I was able to turn on the recorder and use the display to see my way, kind of like those night-vision goggles the military and the macho guys on TV use.

I made an important discovery some time ago for driving home at night: Don't even approach the speed limit, because there are deer, moose, and cows all over the road. And even the high beams don't cast nearly enough light to be traveling at 55 mph. At 40 mph I saw about four sets of deer and a moose along the highway on Friday night alone.

And oncoming bright lights are blinding.

This is something you don't want to see, trust me. I have a broken headlight, broken turn signal light, dented hood, dented fender, and missing driver's side rearview mirror to prove it. I went back on Saturday to see whether there was a dead cow on the road with my mirror stuck up his nose, but all I found were skid marks, a piece of the mirror, and the cow that had been hit by the red Dodge pickup on Tuesday night. I was being so cautious and alert, and this black cow stepped into my headlights as if from nowhere. What's worse, all the other cows that were here on Tuesday were gone on Friday, taken to winter pasture I suppose, except the cow I hit (or did he hit me?). It was the only cow I saw all afternoon and evening.

Confession: The night-vision video is real, using the camera's infrared, but I staged it just to see what it would look like. I wasn't really lost by the beaver ponds.

The cow is Photoshopped into the last picture, but this is almost exactly what I saw at 40 mph.