Talus or Scree?

We recently went on a camping trip, and along our journey we crossed Monitor, Sonora and Ebetts passes. Lots of talus on Sonora pass, or was that scree?

C did a bit of research:

Scree: an accumulation of rocky debris, lying on a slope, or at the base of a hill or cliff; talus.

Talus: 1) slope formed especially by an accumulation of rock debris 2) rock debris at the base of a cliff.

He concluded: (with some frustration) that they are the same thing!

At the top of Sonora Pass, we noticed some dramatic looking trees, which we thought might be Bristlecone Pines. However, they turned out to be Sierra (or Western) Juniper (juniperus australis). We could tell by the location (grows from 7,000 to 10,000 feet, notably on Sonora and Tioga passes) and the bark was described as a cinnamon red. (From the Conifers of California). Dad says he also looked at the leaves and it didn't have needles.

At Grover Hot Springs State Park, we were lucky enough to be able to watch a snake in the stream, swimming up and down, slipping through the rocks. Weren't sure what it was, but it sure was neat! We were able to identify it later as the Western Aquatic Garter Snake (thamnophis couchii). Neat!

Finally, just outside the pool at Grover Hot Springs, where the overflow from the natural spring floods the ground, we saw some critters squirming around in the warm water, along with some mosquito larvae. We thought they were leeches, and asked the lifeguard, who was stumped. The next day he told us he thought they were larvae of some kind. So, we decided to research it.

From some cursory research on the internet, we found out a lot of interesting things about leeches and were not able to rule out that these things were leeches. Did you know leeches are closely related to earthworms? The bloodsucking kind (and they are many other kinds) inject an anesthetic to keep you from noticing you are being sucked, AND an anti-coagulent to keep the blood flowing!

More on the trip details in the next entry.