The NPR weather forecast was calling for "morning fog" in the southeastern portion of our state.

Great. We're in the south-central portion, so I didn't know if we'd have morning fog or not. This was Friday morning, well before sunrise. (Yeah, I know. Two entries for the same morning. It's my diary, so you deal with it.) Skies were clear, the only clouds a low bank visible in the east, hugging the horizon.

We left plenty early, off to run the third standard count of the lek route in the dunes. But fog could screw me over. Miss a count on any lek in the route, and you should run the route again. Wasting a morning when there are no more mornings to spare. (Gonna run short of mornings as it is, with unchecked leks still left to survey when the strut ends. I can tell already.)

So, fog would be bad.

Got to the first strutting ground well before sunrise.

No fog.

And no fog as we raced to the second lek, taking the shortcut over the dunes. But I could see it. A white bank pressed up against the Continental Divide, just to the east of us. Still before sunrise, I watched a wave of white ebb over the Divide at the north end of the Haystacks, flowing down to enter our basin.

The fog pressed against the contours of the land, flowing down to come to rest on a bench in the mesas, then pouring over that bench to flow down to the next. Only to vaporize on the basin floor.

The second lek was nearly empty. Someone, an eagle or a coyote, had apparently been here before us.

I'm screwed. Going to have to run the route again another morning, even without the fog. But I dutifully counted the remaining four leks on the route, with no surprises. By this time, the fog had successfully established itself in the basin to the south of us, and was now trying to overwhelm the higher mountain ridges of the Divide immediately to the east.

I have no doubt the world on the other side of that divide is swathed with white, buried in fog. But the air mass on our side of the Divide held firm, vanquishing each successive wave of cloudy mist before it could reach the dunes. Brief respites where the western side of the ridges could be clearly seen, and then another bank of fog would sidle over the top, and slowly race towards the bottom.

We finished the route early, with the grouse on the last lek still actively strutting.

What to do with the rest of the morning?

I decided to head for two leks closer to the Divide, neither of which has been checked yet this spring. We arrive almost too late in the morning, with only two cocks on the first, and none on the second.

The fog is more desperate now, wave after wave cascading over the tree-covered hills just a mile or two distant. The mists reach the valley floor of the canyon, then fade away, soon replaced by the next rank.

After checking the last lek for signs of strutting, I sit and watch the mists for a few moments. A cloud of white rises from the hidden canyon, and makes a rapid dash into the sunny west. It gets diverted up a side draw, where it is soon melted away.

We turn west ourselves and stop for a long visit with a cowboy friend, outside his two-room log and stone cabin. Mid-way through our conversation, I glance to the east. And see the mists are gone. There was no longer any fog trying to flow over the Divide.

The morning fog was ended. The sun had won.