I did a solo hike to Deep Creek and DCHS yesterday. While walking along the creek my dogs found the carcass of a dead Beaver in some willows along the creek. They had a chew fest on the head and on what I think was the tail. At first the one piece they were chewing on looked to me like the tail end of some very big and strange fish since it seem to have the marks of large scales but since it was like no fish I have ever seen in Deep Creek I later figured it may have been the tail of that dead beaver. Whatever it was, it was really smelly and a treat I'm sure for my pooches :-) Later on I came across a pool and there was a live Beaver swimming in it! I watched the Beaver for about 5 minutes. It floated on the surface watching me and then would go under occasionally in a big swirl of water. I was about 50 feet away from this beaver and would estimate its length from head to tail at about three and half feet long. Earlier in the day I had found a willow branch laying along the creek with evidence of beaver teeth so I knew there was one active in the general area. Also when I first arrived at the creek I came across a two and a half foot Rosy Boa, very cool snakes and very non-aggressive. I took a couple of pictures of it and will put the photos at the Wizard's pictures link when I get them developed. I sat at a nice spot on the creek in the warm afternoon sun watching some swifts racing through the air. Those birds are like little jets darting around. I would look towards the sun with my hand blocking out its brightness and just off the edges of my hand the bright light of the sun illuminated the amazing amount of " stuff " floating and flying in the air along the creek. There was lots of fuzz that floats off of Willows and Cottonwoods that fills the air like little stars or pixies flowing with the wind. Also thousands of insects can be seen using this method of blocking th sun and looking just off the edge of your hand. There were individual insects going in differant directions and various large swarms near the tops of trees. Its just amazing how alive the air really is when you see it in this way. Normally the light never allows you to see all of this activity. Combined with the beautiful scenes along the creek in the Golden sun it makes it all magical to the eye. The creek is getting more tolerable and I took a number of refreshing dips. Eventually made my way to DCHS and came across some regulars. One of them was Scott who is a member of the DCV group and we talked for hours while we soaked. Scott told me about some people who had glass beer bottles down there and were tossing the bottles to one another and broke some of them. Scott and others had some words with these guys and apparently at one point things got pretty hot but fortunatly no one got in a fight. Unfortunatly it sounds like some of the glass may be in the creek below the Womb as I understand the story, so somewhere down the line someone my get a cut foot this summer. Anyway the weather was real fine yesterday and I really enjoyed my visit with Scott and everybody down thar at OZ!
