Junipers of the Owyhees - The Hardy Tree

Photo Details
Date: May 9th, 2009
Time: 1:53PM or 1953 UTC time
Where? Castle Creek Road west of Mud Flat Road
Photographer: Tim Bondy

South of Mountain Home and south of even Grand View, Idaho is a semi-primitive dirt road heading into the eastern portions of the Owyhee Mountains. This road provides a great opportunity to explore the deserty mountains in this area. The picture shown above was taken in the creek bed below “State 40 Spring”. The view of this small grove of deep green juniper trees was taken looking south towards Castle Creek.

Other Information
- From the sagebrushsea.org website “Western juniper occurs in Oregon, Idaho, California, Washington, and Nevada. The species grows slowly and trees can live over fifteen hundred years. Under natural conditions western juniper remains in balance with sagebrush, grasses, wild flowers and sedges in the Sagebrush Sea.”

- In a previous post (link), I mistakenly indicated that these juniper trees were on the decline but it appears they are thriving and expanding into the sagebrush steppe ecosystem of Idaho.