I've read that one of the biggest causes of deer-car mashups is that during the fall they're playing mating games; the female bounds into the road, she's out of the road in time not to get hit, the car speeds up, and the male who was chasing her comes hopping after the female and the car hits him. So watch out for more than one deer. -- Joe --- On Wed, 11/24/10, Debbie <astrodeb@beyondbb.com> wrote:
From: Debbie <astrodeb@beyondbb.com> Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] ALCON 2011 Rainbow Point Private Observing To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Date: Wednesday, November 24, 2010, 11:02 AM I would not go past 40mph on that road going back to Ruby's Inn. I've had several near misses in the past 15 years driving home late at night. The only reason I haven't hit a deer is because I was driving slow enough to hit the brakes and make enough noise to scare them off the road. Still, it is better to hit the deer than to swerve off the road and crash.
Anyway, I think Rainbow Point would be a wonderful place to observe and I am looking forward to it. I love it up there and hope to do a little more hiking and biking. Tell us when they have the Paypal button set up so I can register.
Debbie
On Wed, Nov 24, 2010 at 7:22 AM, Lowell Lyon <bolide@sisna.com> wrote:
To address everyone's questions concerning Rainbow Point observing during ALCON 2011.
1) The Road past Bryce Point to the south end of the park will be open each night during the ALCON convention and will remain open all night each night we are there. There will be unrestricted access to Rainbow Point all night long Wednesday night June 29th through Saturday night July 2nd.
2) You will need to break down each night and we will all need to clear out by dawn. The National Park service denied our request (with the support of Ranger Kevin Poe) to have Farview Point set aside 24 hours a day for us to use. The Special Use Permit will only allow us to use Rainbow Point at night so that the public will not be hindered in any way during the day. We will be allowed to restrict access to a portion of the parking lot. This is a private star party for ALCON attendees only and the restricted area of Rainbow Point will not be available to the general public. Many of the details of how this will be set up and administered will be worked out at ALCON planning meeting starting in January. If you want more input into this, please plan to participate and attend the ALCON planning meetings. The next one is Wednesday, January 12th. Rodger Fry has graciously offered his home for these meetings. I'm sorry if this doesn't work out for some of you. There is adjacent Dixie National Forest land with plenty of places to set up your scope all night long if you desire. One campground in particular is Kings Creek near the Tropic Reservoir.
3) We'll just have to deal with the drive from Rainbow Point back to Ruby's Inn late at night. Drive carefully with your lights on high beam if you need to avoid hitting deer. Again, we need to clear out of Rainbow Point completely by probably no later than 6am.
We are just grateful that the Park Service is allowing us to use Rainbow Point.
Thank you, Lowell Lyon
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