4-18-17

What's "secret", I guess, is that thru here it's not usually a creek at all! The presence of flowing water is another reflection of the heavy snowfall last season. The insets show a view downstream (right), and driftwood wrapped around the juniper at the left edge of the picture (left). Apparently the water was running a couple of feet deep back in January or so!

As a follow-up to a discussion elsewhere: "slough" (locally pronounced "sloo") is widely used in the western US for a low, typically elongate shallow pond, which may even be just mud (left inset). Here the "slough" is an abandoned distributary channel of the Susan River on its way to its sump in Honey Lake. With the heavy run-off this year, the slough is actually carrying some overflow from the Susan, as can be seen by the current ripples around the weeds in the right inset. The Susan is another landlocked river, draining eastward into the Honey Lake Basin which is within the Great Basin. It was named for Susan Roop, daughter of Isaac Roop, first territorial governor of Nevada. At that time, before any formal surveys, this area was thought to lie in Nevada.

Note the current ripples around the weeds in the foreground. The slough is actually carrying overflow from the Susan River.