Last Week in Montana

As I sit here at the KOA campground, the sound of children splashing in the pool mixes with the mountain breeze blowing through the aspens tastefully planted as part of the landscaping. My mind drifts back several days to the huge groves of aspen, numbering in the hundreds. The faint whispering of their leaves in the wind doesn't come close to the symphony of St. Mary river, which I lay on her banks only 72 hours ago, lulled to sleep by the sound of rushing water and warm sunlight as the sun slowly slid across the western sky. I woke up from my afternoon nap as the sun disappeared behind the peaks decorated with glaciers and snowfields. The reality I was facing slowly sank in: this was my last week in Montana. How could the summer slide by like the afternoon sun- so quickly? I am still pondering over it...




St. Mary River, a turbulent stream dotted with rapids and cascading falls looked perfect for harlequin ducks. Yet, the "whitewater queen" as we have dubbed the female harlequin- continued to evade us. We were graced with a cow moose sighting- nearly too close for comfort.



Last night, we car-camped at the Two-Medicine campground. I enjoyed watching the moon set over the mountains. I listened to a Blackfeet Indian Ernie-Heavy-Runner tell stories around the campfire. These stories, most about the creator Napi, described the creation and purpose of many significant local animals- bison, elk, wolves, dogs, and horses. The stories were captivating- many integrated with his own experiences growing up as a Canadian-American indian at boarding school.



I will survey McDonald Creek again tomorrow (a Friday tradition) and then work Saturday so I can leave for Colorado on Monday. I'll try to give another update on Sunday! Thanks for all who have stuck with me so far on this adventure that has presented so many new experiences, challenges, and decisions that have influenced me. I look forward to the next stage of my summer, and where my adventures will take me next!

All In a Day's Work...

First off, I enjoyed sharing Montana with my dad, who visited this past week, for a day. He flew out from Seattle on Wednesday night, and he and I explored some fun places in the park on Thursday. We were able to get sweet views of Bighorn Sheep, Mountain Goats, and other wildlife, and spend some great time together visiting and talking about my summer. It's hard to believe I'm only here for another week! It's off to Colorado next...


This past Friday took me back to McDonald Creek, to survey for Harlequin Duck broods (females with young) Last Friday, we found one female with three young, etc. (I believe it's in one of my past blogs) Anywho, it was an early morning of wading in cold water, and Lisa (a park researcher) and myself surveyed the upper portion of McDonald, beginning at Avalanche campground and ending at Logan creek. In my mid-morning daze, I forgot the measuring equipment in the truck, and returned the next morning to take the valued data at each point we had seen Harlequins at. A brief summary: 3 broods, a total of 12 babies. A big improvement for the future of Harlequins since last week! Here's a couple of "harlie" pictures:

Can you find the young harlequins in this shot?

Hint: there's no rocks in the water- they're all ducks!

This one's a bit easier:



Overall, it was a great day, and I scouted some neat pools along the rapids to jump into on my day off. The following day, after completing my data points, I went back to the biggest and deepest of the pools, where the turquoise water foamed with a white froth begged a plunge from the highest spot I could find. I succeed in diving into the creek upstream from the jump site, so the current carried me to a suitable area to climb out, then up- onto the rocks. I made sure the area was deep enough by eyeing it from several different angles, and I figured since I couldn't see the bottom, it'd be safe. After my first jump, a guy offered to take my picture, so I opted to jump again. I spent a few minutes showing him how to use my camera, while I was warming up. The next jump, he failed to take any pictures, SO... I jumped again. And again, and again. By this tima, a crowd had gathered and another guy asked me how I did it, and jumped with me. I have only a few pictures to show for it, but mainly it was nice to relax and enjoy some "off" time in McDonald creek. Soon, I was too cold and went home.

Photo Essay: Return to Elizabeth Lake

Grinnell Glacier: A high-country adventure

The day began with an inspiration. I listened, and soon found the wheels rolling on the bumpy pavement on the highway to the East Side of the park, en route to Iceberg Lake. I arrived at Many Glacier at 10 am, before the tourists flowed out of the hotel onto the well-travelled trails around the area. On a whim, I checked with the ranger at the station, who informed me that the Iceberg Lake trail was closed due to excessive use of grizzlies. I wanted to see a GB, but being obedient to park rules (and out of respect for my safety) I chose a different destination: Grinnell Glacier. I didn't think twice about hiking alone in bear country, after taking a glance at the parking lot: full. I knew plenty of people would be on the trail to one of the most photographed glaciers in the country.

The 6.5 mile hike up wasn't too bad; I enjoyed feeling the sun's rays grow stronger as I climbed the well-worn trail uphill towards the snow-covered peaks. I jogged when I could- something I would regret at the time of posting this blog!

I passed several lakes, including Grinnell Lake, which glowed an eerie aqua/turquoise color. (you know how I am with colors...) The picture is accurate, despite not having a polarizing filter on my camera.



The glacier was simple: a snowfield. Several bighorn sheep scaled the steep slopes above the moraine. The biggest one sat on an outcropping of rock nearby, watching the tourists eat their lunches at the picnic area. I climbed above the glacier to a frozen lake, and explored the area a little. I splashed around in the icy water, and laid in the snow to cool me off from the hike. I did a little bouldering on this cool-looking rock and left my camera along the trail for someone to take a picture of me. Sure enough, two nice french-speaking ladies came along and were more than happy to take my picture. I thanked them and climbed back down.



The fields on the hike back down were gorgeous! Beargrass, a common alpine flower (related to lilies) that grows all over the park. It makes for some nice photos.



I spent the rest of the day playing in the waterfalls, catching some sun, and driving home on the Going-to-the-Sun road. I was greeted at the pass by a bighorn sheep ram, who made good company as I ate a snack, and observed him eating his supper of wild bushes.

The setting sun from the Going-to-the-Sun road on the drive back home.



The days here never cease to amaze me- the beauty, wildlife, and activity one day contains make me extremely grateful for this experience!

The Elusive Harlequin Duck

Recently I have 'conveniently overlooked' the goal of the project in order to find a feeling of success in our surveys. Simply put, Harlequin Ducks are uncommon in the park, so finding them on randomly selected streams has been virtually impossible. We have been gathering good data, but I haven't seen a harlequin duck since my first day on the job. I admit to thinking quietly to myself, "I may never see another Harlequin Duck again this summer!"

Yesterday morning as I woke up, that thought silently slipped away like campfire smoke into the forest. This was a good day, I could feel it. The anticipation was high as I jumped into a government truck, and headed for McDonald Creek to do brood surveys with several other park researchers. My chances of seeing female harlequin ducks had increased tenfold, and the possibility some would have young ducklings with her was also quite high. Nathan and I surveyed the upper portion of McDonald, which was 6 kilometers as the crow flies, and took several hours to traverse, bushwack, ford, and wade through the icy current. To sum a day's work into several paragraphs: we were successful! We found a lone female first (probably on her own after an unsuccessful nesting attempt) and then a pair consisting of a MALE!? and female harlequin. This is incredibly late for male harlequins to still be here, as they normally migrate back to the Pacific Northwest (Northern Washington and British Columbia, in the case of our GNP birds) to molt and "play golf" while the hen ducks raise the ducklings then migrate to the coast. In addition to the three ducks I've already mentioned, we sighted a female with three chicks, which looked about 10 to 12 days old. They were diving and following mom around, already proficient at navigating the whitewater, boulders, and eddies.

My last overnight trip (a short one) took us up into the North Fork (almost to Canada) in the northwest corner of the park. This was wolf country, and we found numerous wolf tracks, scat, and kill sites. Because we camped undesignated (not in an established campground) along a stream, the water was loud enough to keep us from hearing wolves. It also rained hard all night. (I stayed quite dry...)

To make up for a lack of the comedic lack of harlequin ducks on our streams we surveyed, we found many other interesting things, including several shed elk antlers, wolf tracks, and a mother Spruce Grouse with one chick. (Next three pictures)






It's hard to believe my summer is almost over... I have roughly two and a half weeks of work left, which will fly by! No pun intended.. =)

Soon the humidity of the midwest will clog my nostrils and my lungs will long for the pure, clean air of northern Montana. Each breath I take is bigger and fuller, as I savor the flavor of a summer I will never forget.

Life in a Burn

Quite an oxymoron, isn't it?

The past few days I've spent over on the "East Side"- of the park, that is. The mission, should we have chosen to accept it (did we have a choice!?) was to survey the Red Eagle drainage. All of us were relatively excited, because this was a burn area. My understanding of the history surrounding this puts Boy Scouts on the stand as the guilty culprits. Matt informed me that in 1998 the Boy Scouts were camped at the same campground we would stay at the second night, and accidentally caught the forest on fire! The burn consumed several thousand of acres of forest, and (I hope I have my facts straight) couldn't be contained to the park. Anyways, I was excited because that meant a new type of habitat for birds I hadn't seen yet (and easy bushwacking!)

On the drive over, we found ourselves sitting in construction traffic along the Going-to-the-Sun Road. Not the worst spot to be stranded, given the surrounding landscape of craggy peaks, green vegetation, and a steep drop a thousand feet over the side of a cliff, should I lean too far over the short wall...

The burned area contrasted strikingly to what I had prepared myself for. I had pictured stealth-black remnants of trees, still smoldering among clouds of ash hanging over a barren wasteland. As I trotted along the trail (hiking alone, of course!) was in fact, the opposite. Wildflowers carpeted the ground layer with reds, blues, whites, and yellows. The greenness of everything was surprising. It reminded me of the Smoky Mountains, except something didn't seem right, and it took me several minutes while I hiked to figure it out, and as soon as I did the transition had been complete. At the trailhead, everything had been untouched by the fire, and as I hiked deeper into the wilderness, the trees grew more dead, and more-burned, until I was hiking through waist-high green foliage of flowers, stinging nettles, and pretty blue flowers. Over my head though, the trees canopies gradually grew thinner, until most of the trees had been burnt off half-way up. Several miles in, the wreckage of tree trunks, and charred remains of what was once a great forest of spruce, pine, aspen, and cedar trees. Now, the skewed skeletons stand to tell the story of the ecological history of the area.




The trip itself went smoothly. We hiked in and camped at an undesignated site. I cooked supper, then did some birdwatching before bed. The next morning's weather dictated our schedule. The weather cooperated for a while, but the morning began with rain showers, and I spent most of my free time (not counting birdwatching) in my tent getting rained on. I stayed warm and dry, thanks to a newer-generation tent! Once the weather moved on we began surveying, and Matt and I waded a good stretch of the creek in the cold water, wearing our packs. The afternoon flew by. The sunset after a rainstorm did illuminate the landscape in an ephemeral way, and the beauty radiated on every mountaintop, tree, flower, and blade of grass. The day ended with more weather, but it was a good day's work, and I fell asleep full of good food and high hopes for the following day.



The birdwatching was incredible! I added 6 new birds to my Montana state list, and two to my life list, that I had never seen before. (Lazuli Bunting, and black-backed woodpecker) The birding on this trip put me at just over 100 species for the state! Other fun birds included Osprey, bald eagles (i found a nest with 1 immature in it) and numerous Goldeneye, woodpeckers, and songbirds. Hopefully I can keep adding to my list, although it gets increasingly more difficult to find birds I haven't seen yet.

Overall, the trip was wonderful! It got cut short by an executive decision made by our crew leader, considering factors such as the habitat, etc. I found myself for the first time not wanting to leave the backcountry to come back! I will admit that the monster cookies sitting in the freezer tasted great... Thanks Mom!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

As I sit on the slab of granite, slowly warming from the sun's showering rays, I take a deep breath. I close my eyes, and then open them slowly to help the reality of where I am sink in. The breeze dances over my sunburnt arms, giving me goosebumps. The surrounding mountains unfold before me like a pop-up book. I feel like I am sitting in one of the panoramic posters that are displayed on the walls of every gift shop, visitors center, and museum here in Glacier. It is beautiful, but I picture the scene before me in several week's time. The vast fields of summer snow that I skidded across to reach my current perch will soon melt, and the small, delicate glacier lilies will soon emerge gently from the lichen-clad slopes of scree and alpine flora. I feel a warmer breeze in my imagination and picture a mountain goat traversing the steep hillside below me. I take in a deep breath as I close my eyes once again, to savor the thinning air, and the unmistakable sound of silence. I am surrounded by beauty, that I am making my own, cherishing it in my thought. I am at peace.

Photo Essay III More Wildlife

Barrow's Goldeneye on Hidden Lake
Columbian Ground Squirrel

Harlequin Duck along McDonald Creek (taken earlier this summer)

Photo Essay II Bighorn Sheep

The BIG boys!

Photo Essay: The Three Billy Goats Gruff

Smiling Goats!

It's been a fantastic week here in Glacier National Park! It's hard to believe that a month ago today was my first day on the job, and I have just over a month until my employment ends. Time sure does fly when I'm busy!

Yesterday I woke up early and took an hour-long shuttle ride to the top of Logan Pass, at the Continental Divide. There, I explored, and hiked the 6 mile-stroll (haha) to Hidden Lake and back, doing a little fishing at the lake. I was happy to get back though! This is at the divide... Just after I took this picture (self-timer mode!) A big goat walked across the road and right under the spot I jumped! It would have been funny if I had waited a minute! Maybe I'll photoshop it in during some free time one of these nights...


The hike up to the saddle from the Visitor's Center was boring. It was just trudging up a snowy slope, but once I got to the saddle, it was beautiful! From there the trail continued uphill, and then the trail dropped down into Hidden Lake about a mile later. I bushwacked from the top of the pass down to the east side of the lake, to realize that I was about 300 feet above the lake, on the tops of some steep cliffs. I surveyed the route down, and the safest (and furthest from my current location) route was the designated trail down to the lake. Most of the ground was still covered in snow, and I slid the 300 vertical feet down to the lake on a snow bank, since the trail was covered in snow.

Hidden lake was mostly covered in ice still, and the trout and arctic grayling were not very active. I fished for about an hour, with no luck. There were several other fisherman, all of which had waders, and could reach the deeper sections bordered by ice and therefore, caught fish. I waded in up to my knees, but as you could imagine, lasted about two minutes and then had to warm up in the sun! As I fished, mountain chipmunks would crawl over my feet, onto my pack in search of food. I didn't feed them. Hiking back to Logan pass (an elevation gain of 700 feet) I took the trail, which traversed several snow fields, which only several people have passed over, since the pass opened on the 3rd of July. It was slippery, but I only fell and self-arrested once- still on the trail. Hiking back I saw several skiers who had hiked up as high as humanly possible and skied down, drawing a crowd of tourists in the parking lot of the visitor's center, who wondered aloud at what crazy person would climb cliffs just to get a 30 second ride on old snow...

The view from the saddle

Some of the goats were quite friendly; this one walked right up to me and licked me!


Most of the mammals here in the park are in the middle of shedding their winter fur as the snow melts and the temperature increases. Some goats were pretty scraggly looking, but this billy goat gruff was a good looking fella, complete with broken horn. In my off-trail excursion, I encountered several additional groups of goats, some had newborn kids with them, that looked to be a couple of weeks old! They were very sensitive little guys! They would often get lost in the trees, and then bleat and frolic through the underbrush until they found their respective mothers. I also saw marmots, pikas, columbian ground squirrels, and a few new species of birds for my Montana state list.

A group of Bighorn Sheep also decided to hang out at Logan Pass yesterday, and I was able to snap some shots of the big rams before tourists corralled them into the parking lot. Here's to you, dad!




My last trip took me to the East side of the park to survey Reynolds Creek, which was some of the best Harlequin duck habitat I've encountered out here. I spent 3 days with Ashley, and we bushwacked several miles UP the drainage, bouldering up waterfalls with packs, climbing over numerous dead trees, wading waist-high through swamps of glacial-runoff, (good moose habitat!) trying to locate GPS points that didn't exist... Our trip ended with scaling a 400 foot slope, from the bottom of the drainage up the side of the mountain, to the Going-to-the-Sun Road. When we reached the road, we both collapsed and then ate lunch. The winds were strong, and multiple tourists slowed down to stare at us. I was too tired to care.

Here's a good idea of what most of Reynolds (waterfalls excluded) looked like:

There very well could have been harlequins on the creek, but the females are still sitting on their eggs, so we wouldn't have seen them.

Overall, it's been a good week- and I've been enjoying taking some time off. I went to church this morning, took an 18 mile bike ride, done some hiking, fishing, and some more photography. I'm looking forward to watching a re-run of the Wimbledon final as soon as I can get ahold of it! (Hint, hint- anybody!?)

4th of July: out of the Belly

Today Nathan and I hiked out of the Belly River. (for the second time)

Two days ago we hiked in, from the Chief Mountain Trailhead at the Canadian border. The hike in went fast, because we were doing a good 4 mph pace, and we covered the 6 miles to Gablein no time. Being a holiday weekend, most of the campsites were full, so we grabbed a good one before taking off to do some surveying. My new tent works great! We surveyed a good 2-mile stretch of river (several hours worth of bushwacking, fording streams, and getting bitten by mosquitoes) As the afternoon elapsed, we returned to the campground and I cooked dinner and then went to the Belly River ranger station and visited with the resident rangers, and their guests, and continued reading a good book I've been working on.

The next morning we hiked from Gable to the head of Elizabeth Lake. There's no amazing tale to tell. Simply put, the bugs were bad and we didn't see any harlequins. (The habitat was good, however!)

Dawn Mist falls was a pretty sight along the way.


I might add that as I'm typing this, it's hailing marble-sized hail... I'm protected under the porch of the West Glacier gift shop, paying for access to wireless internet.

That evening, we relaxed and I took some photos of the surrounding peaks. Off the top of my head I think Ptarmigan Wall, and a few other famous peaks in the park surround Elizabeth Lake.





I woke up early this morning, to solo hike out to the border. While cooking my breakfast (organic maple and spice oatmeal, and some hot chocolate) a large black bear smelled my breakfast, and wanted some. I spotted him coming down the trail into the campsite, and waited for a minute to see what he was going to do. He was downwind, and I believe he wanted some oatmeal. I stood up when he got too close, and waved my arms, and shouted "HEY BEAR!" He looked up and stopped, and as I walked toward him, clapping my hands he turned around and skipped away. I paced out the distance at 30 paces. Almost too close!



I hope y'all have had a great 4th of July, I certainly have. I have the next couple days off, and look forward to buying good groceries, and getting into town to go to church on Sunday.