9-04-17

Trail along Marysville Creek, originally a jeep road, which has been a foot path for years and is now seriously overgrown. (Google still shows it as a road. Google is wrong!) Two of the more obnoxious overgrowing plants are seen here: Russian olive (exotic, with the pale gray-green leaves), and roses (native, with the darker green leaves and red fruiting bodies). Both have big thorns, which inspired the following bit of doggerel: Roses are thorny; Russian olives are too. We're bound to get bloody As we push our way thru! And we did--but a friend of ours says you must always leave some blood on the mountain on an excursion, otherwise you weren't pushing hard enough! Not sure I agree--

On Marysville Creek, Toiyabe Range, Nevada. Beaver have made a big comeback in the mountain West since being hunted nearly to extinction in the early 19th century. The inset is a close-up of the materials in another dam, where the gnawed-off ends of the sticks and small logs are evident.