My wife and I were camped at a small campground somewhere in southern Utah and we were making friends with the only other couple there. We were talking about the area being covered with fossils and stone flakes. They hadn't seen any fossils but noted that the area was crawling with lizards, which we had not noticed at all. So we showed them some fossils they were standing on and they showed us the fleeting shadows of lizards. Just an aside - the first time I saw a Leopard Lizard out by Pyramid Lake it scared me really badly and I was grabbing my wife and heading for the safety of the truck. They are as close as any modern creature comes to being a miniature velociraptor. I didn't know if it was just a baby...

The name Ponderosa comes from the multi top trunked huge "ponderous" old trees that look a lot like Ents. And they are BIG, very big, but they're brittle and when it gets really cold with wind, large limbs freze and snap off at the trunk. Often they don't come right away, but may wait until a warm wind storm in the Spring.
Jim