Yesterday's pronghorn classification route started us off in a desert basin, a dry land of saltbush, sage and greasewood. Eventually the route climbs up onto the Continental Divide, and even follows the crest of the Divide for three or four miles. But below, the land is rocky and dusty, and sparsely vegetated, with a long ways between watering holes. Unless it's been raining, it's not a place where you worry about getting stuck.

Except for one spot.

A couple miles below the Divide, the melted runoff from the huge snowbanks that line the Atlantic side is collected in a reservoir, just below the aspen slopes. This water is used to irrigate a huge hayfield, perhaps a mile across.

There's no sprinkler system. The flood gates of the reservoir are just cracked open, and the water flows through ditches that cover the field, flooding the land.

Now, the dirt road I am using used to be one of the main thoroughfares through this country, but was long ago abandoned. It's still traveled, by back-country wanderers like me, but no one bothers to maintain it.

It passes just below the lowest corner of the hayfield, and if they've had enough water on the field for enough time, a trickle, or even a steady flow, reaches the road.

Once upon a time, there was a ditch to divert the water across the road and down into the next reservoir, maybe 250 meters down the draw. But that ditch has long since eroded, and now the surplus waters from the field flow down the two tracks of the road itself.

The road in clay soils.

So years when they irrigate heavily, this stretch of road is a risky place to drive.

Like this year.

But no, I didn't get stuck. Yesterday's adventure was a lot more interesting than that.

The heeler sisters got to see and sniff their first ever crawdad. And yeah, it tried to pinch the masked sister's nose.

We had crossed the draw and driven maybe 20 meters up the muddy ruts before I realized things were getting worse as we climbed the slope, not better. The last vehicle before ours had left huge, deep ruts.

Time for a scouting excursion.

As I stepped out the door, I was startled by something quickly scooching down the shallow streamlet in the rut.

A crawdad.

A crawdad, out here in the sage. Yeah, it was technically in water, but geez, the only body of permanent water is 1.2 miles up the hill (I checked a map). And this "stream" wasn't even deep enough to cover the crustacean's back.

We're less than a half-mile from one of the main trails used by pioneers to cross this continent more than a century ago. I can't help but compare this aquatic animal's journey across this desert to theirs.

As I walked up "stream" to find a cross-country route off the road onto dry land, I found two other crawdads. One of which bravely stood its ground.

A stance that would have done it little good if I had driven six more meters up the road.

But it was this critter that got to say hello to a pair of nosy heelers.

Now, it is anticlimactic to say that I found an easy spot to get off the road and onto dry ground. And simply drove up the slope beside the road, as safe as could be.

But when I reached the crest of the ridge, I found the spot where the irrigation water was overflowing the drainage ditch, onto the road.

Five minutes of spade work, and I could have the water back in the ditch where it belonged, and a dry road for the next traveler, and maybe myself come this time next year.

But it would have stranded those three pioneering crawdads, and any others crossing the desert with them. Who had already remarkably negotiated well over a mile of land to reach this spot, and had only 250 meters left to go before reaching the safety of another reservoir.

Yeah, I left the water flowing onto the road.

I'll deal with the mud again next year.