DMXA - Providence Mountains (4/19/01)

[Mark Walker]

Day Two:

After a refreshing evening in Joshua Tree NP (complete with spectacular
sunset), I awoke to complete cloud cover.  The edge of the front on this day
appeared to be somewhere near the Nevada state line.  I packed up the car
and headed for Amboy, with hopes of catching some blue sky for some lepping
along the way to Las Vegas.  Amboy is home to several Sodium Chloride
processing sites.  Here they excavate (if that's what you call it) the salt
directly from the earth through evaporation.  This is an amazing thing to
behold.  The salt crystallizes and appears like freshly fallen snow.  White,
white, white.  The effect is even more pronounced where the salt backs up to
the black lava flows extending south beyond Amboy Crater.  Black against
White.  Way cool.

Just north of Interstate 40 the Mojave National Preserve shoots up in
elevation.  Here the Granite Mountains and Providence Mountains transform
the landscape from barren wasteland to pine and juniper woodland.  The Ford
Focus wagon I rented successfully morphed into a 4WD, and with it I
scrambled to the northern-most stretches.  The habitat is incredible here,
so I decided to put on my hiking boots.  For four hours in direct sunlight,
I made my way to higher altitudes - enjoying spectacular views, but seeing
very few leps.  The most common butterfly up here was the Sleepy Duskywing
(Erynnis brizo).  Males could be found hilltopping, while females could be
found perching under Quercus in canyon bottoms.  There were also Spring
Whites (Pontia sisymbrii) and Desert Marbles (Euchloe lotta) hilltopping.  A
Desert Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes coloro) could also be found on
virtually every hilltop.  Particularly large spotted Silvery Blues
(Glaucopsyche lygdamus) were flying in the heavily flowered pastureland
below the peaks.

By 1:00 p.m. I lost all sunshine.  From here I drove to Nevada, and checked
a few spots in the Spring Mountains.  Strong gusty winds and gray sky made
this mostly non-productive.  Amazingly, Neumoegen's Checkerspots (Chlosyne
acastus neumoegeni) could be found nectaring and hanging on for dear life to
the single yellow composites that could be found shooting up throughout the
desert.

Of course, I completely forgot to mention the Painted Ladies.  They were
everywhere, accompanying me on every day of our excursion.

Dave was due first thing on Friday morning, but the weather report was
looking very bad indeed...

Mark Walker


 
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