Table Rock, Boise, ID

During our recent trip to Boise to visit our friends Tim and Susan, documented in the next post, Tim and I walked from his house, situated in the southeast end of Boise, to the top of Table Rock, a distance of only two miles in each direction with a climb of 900 feet. After sitting in the car most of the previous day driving from Oregon to Idaho, I was pretty desperate to get out and get some exercise.

Just behind Tim and Susan's house in southeast Boise stands Table Rock, a mesa that stands 900 feet above the Boise River just below. Table Rock is a sandstone formation that was a sacred place to the Northern Shoshone who occupied this part of the world before we Americans displaced them.

Although the climates and lack of lush vegetation in Bend and Boise are similar, the terrain around Table Rock felt very unfamiliar to me. Coming from an area where all the rocks are volcanic, from granite to obsidian to cinders, the sedimentary sandstone in Boise is a marked change. And although from flying over at 10,000 feet, the arid scrub on the ground looks familiar, at three miles an hour at ground level, the flora is really different. Low, sturdy, drought tolerant Netleaf Hackberries replace our Western Junipers and Big Sagebrush replaces our Antelope Bitterbrush. While yellow is the most common bloom right now in both places, we surely don't have sunflowers in Bend nor do we have any appreciable amount of Yellow Rabbitbrush.

Atop the Table Rock prominence now stands a large illuminated cross which has been the subject of much controversy. The land around Table Rock is public property and the presence of a cross is sketchy at best for separation of church and state. In a bit of seemingly underhanded wheeling and dealing, a so-called "auction" in which the state rejected all bids except that of the Jaycees, a tiny parcel of land surrounding the cross was transferred to the Jaycees for $100, thus converting the land to private property. I'm pretty agnostic on the whole religious aspect, but I believe strongly in the Leave No Trace ethos and to me that means leaving our mountains alone and not defacing them. I'm looking at you, Mount Rushmore.

Cross or no, Tim and I had a good walk to the top and back on a wonderful delightfully overcast morning. To make that climb in the blazing sun would have been uncomfortable. I shot a lot of frames going up. Following are some of them in the order in which I shot them.

Sunflowers, Helianthus annuus, and Boise Downtown Skyline

Lewis' Flax, Linum lewisii

Dingy Cutworm Moth on Yellow Rabbitbrush, Chrysothamnus viscidiflorus

Curlycup Gumweed, Grindelia squarrosa

Fruit of Netleaf Hackberry, Celtis reticulata

Sandstone Outcropping with Hackberry Trees

Western Goldentop, Euthamia occidentalis

So Many of Ann's Favorite, Sunflowers

It's Not Four and Twenty Blackbirds,
But Would You Settle for Ten Black-Billed Magpies in That Tree?

Boise. Albertson's Stadium at BSU, top left; Downtown, top right;
1879 Old Idaho Penitentiary Complex, foreground

Our Destination: Controversial Cross Atop Table Rock

Invasive and Naturalized Moth Mullein, Verbascum blattaria

Autumn Willowherb, Epilobium brachycarpum

Desert Still Life, Sunflowers and Big Sagebrush, Artemisia tridentata

Sandstone Atop Table Rock

Treeless Boise Foothills Northeast of Table Rock

Scourge of the West: Highly Invasive Tumbleweed aka
Prickly Russian Thistle, Kali Tragus

Alfalfa, Medicago sativa

Crested Wheat Grass, Agropyron cristatum

Finally, the Sun Comes Over Table Rock

Rush Skeletonweed, Chondrilla juncea

Atop a Rock, a Say's Phoebe with Mouthful of Bug
A New Species for Me

For Annie, a Perfect Sunflower

An Unusually Silent Rock Wren

Compare the Hips on the Ubiquitous California Wild Rose, Rosa californica

...to the Hips on the Woods' Rose, Rosa woodsii

An Escaped Pyracantha Loaded with Berries

Hoary Tansyaster, Dieteria canascens