Juniper Dunes

Today four new friends took us on a new adventure to Juniper Dunes.  We started with a wonderful breakfast of Stuart's sourdough pancakes for all 8 of us.  Then off to the Dunes.

Juniper Dunes is a small BLM Wilderness area.  And what a wild place!  Out in the middle of the wheat fields lies a place where sand has blown into a set of dunes over 50 feet high.   Having been deposited by a combination of the Missoulla Floods and the prevailing winds from the west they left me wondering why just in this one spot is there a concentration of sand when there are silty soils all around.  Whatever the reason, the natural history was just wonderful. 

We were extremely lucky to be hiking with a Whitman Geology professor and a Whitman Natural History Professor.  So pretty much every question we has was quickly answered in wondrous detail. 

Cool caterpillar!

Kirsten and Tim have two boys.  One age 4, Tobias, who got on great with Dakota.  Here they are looking for beetles and crickets.

This is a close up of the wild buckwheat and yarrow.

And then the dune fun! We brought sleds to ride down the dunes.

Sledding first led to tunnels and just good digging.  By the end Wren their other son Brooks had helped Wren completely bury himself (except his face.)


















So the dunes were great!  The weather was fabulous with wonderful cloud cover, light wind and just right on temperature.