Inyo Mountains Salamander at home (momentarily minus the sheltering rock
We headed to the Inyo Mountains to try to whittle some species from the list.

“Turn right, ummm—here,” Gary said as we barreled along. I turned right and was confronted by a half-dozen boulders someone had rolled onto the dirt road.

“I can roll those.” Gary said (I didn’t argue because I wasn’t sure I could—roll them, that is).

Somehow between Gary’s efforts and the car’s 4-wheel drive we actually accessed the gravel-dirt road.

“See that ridge?” Gary said?

“I think so.” I said tentatively. There looked to be several ridges.

“That’s where we’re going.”

“OK.”

So I put the car in low and we went. As we bounced slowly along we frightened huge basking male desert collared lizards, Crotaphytus bicinctores, from boulder-top vantage points. Toasty warm, they were alert, unapproachable, and clad in scales of warm desert brown. Good road.

Somewhere along the way one of the low ridges developed a sombrero of green formed by one or more cottonwoods. Ahhhh-that was the ridge. That was good. It was considerably closer than the one at which I had been looking. A short spur turned right and we bumped our way to the cottonwoods and at the cottonwoods was a bubbling spring.

“This is one of two places where that salamander is found.” Gary said.

“That salamander” was, in this case, the Inyo Mountains slender salamander, Batrachoseps campi.

So we parked, got out, and began carefully turning damp rocks. Nothing. Nary a salamander, but we were serenaded the whole time by goldfinches so all was not lost.

Gary said “Let’s try the second spot.”

Sounded good to me, so off we went. The roads got worse and as we ascended and rock-hopped I found myself wishing I had a Wrangler rather than a Trooper. But the car was steadfast in its approach—until the road disappeared and I chickened-out.

So we stopped and walked upwards, ever upwards, and finally we entered a beautiful spring fed copse of cottonwoods. This was a magnificent desert spring, replete with terrestrial orchids, mosses, ferns, and flat surface rocks. If ever an oasis existed, this was it.

Gary went in the direction where on an earlier trip he had found an Inyo Mountain slender salamander. Not knowing better, I floundered around in a more open area having a great number of flat rocks, most of which were partially awash in the numerous seeps that emerged from the main spring.

And through dumb-luck, it was I who found the only Inyo Mountain slender salamander of the trip. This beautiful caudatan of the silvery phase was right at water level beneath a tilted rock.

What can I say but “thanks, Gary!”