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Trip to Yukon and Alaska Summer 2011

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Trip to Yukon and Alaska Summer 2011 Trip to Yukon and Alaska Summer 2011 by Sylvia R. Gallagher Photographs by Jim & Sylvia Gallagher Part VI 9:30 pm, Thursday, September 15, 2011 KOA, West Glacier, MT Tuesday, Sept. 13, dawned overcast and gray, but we decided to drive up to Moraine Lake anyway. Last time we were there, the weather was similar and I had been hoping to see it in the sunlight. When we got there, we discovered that a huge lodge and parking lot had been constructed where there had been nothing but a small parking lot before. However, it's a tasteful-looking facility and allows more people to enjoy the area. The lake itself is just as it was, except for the fact that some potential photo sites are marred by a lot of rental canoes in the foreground. We took some pictures of the lake and the signs that interpret the geology of the area, but I think our slides from our previous trip will turn out to be nicer. I don't think it was quite such a dark day. [Later: That was true, but a few of these were pretty nice. Moraine Lake showing terminal moraine Banff National Park, AB 181 Trip to Yukon and Alaska Summer 2011 Moraine Lake Banff National Park, AB On our way to Moraine Lake I had spotted some plants with brilliant red leaves. On the way back we stopped and I got some pictures. They turned out to be Red Bearberry, Arctostaphylos rubra--related to the Manzanitas. 182 Trip to Yukon and Alaska Summer 2011 Red Bearberry, Arctostaphylos rubra Moraine Lake Rd., Banff National Park, AB Red Bearberry, Arctostaphylos rubra Moraine Lake Rd., Banff National Park, AB 183 Trip to Yukon and Alaska Summer 2011 Then we went back, hooked up the trailer, and got on the road just before the 11:00 check-out time. We headed westward down Hwy. 93 through Kootenay National Park, making only one stop along the road, Marble Canyon. I had used some photos from a magazine in my Mountain Birds workshop of Black Swifts nesting in that canyon. I recalled that the article said the nests were easily viewed from the trail. They don't really build nests, but just use the moss-covered ledges of the steep canyon walls. I did indeed see many potential nesting ledges and would love to be there during the breeding season. The interpretive signs along the trail only discussed the geology, which is pretty interesting, but didn't mention the swifts. The canyon was produced during the uplift of the Rockies, when "marble" (actually a mixture of calcium and magnesium carbonates, so partly dolomite) cracked open when a part of the old seafloor buckled upward. A creek found its way into the crack and is slowly cutting it deeper. The place is really very beautiful without any swifts and well worth a stop. Marble Canyon Kootenay National Park, BC 184 Trip to Yukon and Alaska Summer 2011 Possible Black Swift nest sites Marble Canyon, Kootenay National Park, BC We continued down the Kootenay River valley, then over a mountain ridge, and ended up at Canyon RV Resort in Radium Hot Springs. The RV park was nearly full, probably because the national park campground in that area was closed all season for refurbishing. Actually it's a very nice RV park and set in a deep canyon with a creek running through it. It's been nicely landscaped with typical riparian canyon trees on turf. Lots of flowers--English ones--have been planted; Canadians love flowers. In fact, all the motels and even the gas stations, in town have hanging baskets of flowers, mainly petunias, so the entire resort town is very attractive. The principal attraction is the hot springs. I hope they don't live up to their name and actually have radium in them. Although that used to be considered healthy and a cure for all sorts of diseases from cancer to arthritis, it's not anymore. I looked up the place on the internet and finally discovered that the concentrations of radium and its radioactive decay product radon are "inconsequential." However, the amount released would be unhealthy if one lived with it every day in their home. Wed., Sept. 14, was a day of driving and shopping. We had 214 miles to go, which doesn't seem far, but many of the roads had grooves where truck tires made depressions and when we drive on them, our truck wants to swerve back and forth, so Jim has to keep the speed way down. We stopped for lunch in the trailer along the way and got to Kalispell, MT, around 2:00. I had searched for WalMart on the internet, but Google Maps led me astray. It turned out it was leading me to the old site. Fortunately Jim caught sight of the new store as we were driving along and we turned around. I asked the checker how long they'd been in their new 185 Trip to Yukon and Alaska Summer 2011 building and she said since June of last year. Google Maps showed that property as vacant land! Just shows that you have to be careful. We tried to exchange our left-over Canadian currency at a bank, but they said they'd only change money for customers of that bank. That was not the case in Canada. There we could go into any bank and change from American to Canadian. I had seen a Bank of the West (my bank) a few miles back, but we were too tired to go there. [Later: After we got home, Jim took the money to his bank, but they would only exchange the paper money. We still have an awful lot of loonies--dollar coins. Anyone going to Canada and willing to take them off our hands?] We had been planning to stay in Kalispell that night and do our shopping the next morning, but after we got all of it done we decided to press on the last 35 miles to West Glacier, our destination. It was nearly 5:00 when we were situated in our campsite--a long day for us and we were exhausted. I had emailed former birding students of mine, Dave and Sue Duncan, who now summer in West Glacier and winter in Yucca Valley. We've kept in contact for many years and I hoped we might get together with them. It turned out that the next few days are good for them and they've invited us to their house for breakfast tomorrow. They had things to do today and so did we. This morning I washed a load of clothes--enough to get us home--and also bathed Toby. After that we drove to the Glacier National Park headquarters, picked up brochures and bought a book on day hikes in the park. After lunch in a nearby restaurant, we drove out the main park road as far as the Trail of the Cedars, a 0.7-mile walk through an old-growth forest. One of the signs said the last fire there was in the 1500s, based on tree dating in the area. I absolutely loved that walk, especially when I saw on one of the signs that Pacific Yew was growing there. That's a conifer that I'd never seen in the wild before, and I've come to love conifers ever since I started teaching mountain workshops. (I had seen cultivars at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont, but that's not the same thing.) None of the trees were labeled, so I had to find my own. At first, I mistook Western Hemlocks for the yew, but soon realized my mistake and kept hunting. Finally I found them commonly along the return (east side of the creek) portion of the trail. One, and only one, had a single red "cone", which looks more like berry--round and bright red with a single seed that is visible from below. I was thrilled and photographed it every which way. 186 Trip to Yukon and Alaska Summer 2011 Pacific Yew – fruit and foliage from below Trail of the Cedars, Glacier National Park, MT Pacific Yew – foliage from above Trail of the Cedars, Glacier National Park, MT 187 Trip to Yukon and Alaska Summer 2011 Western Hemlock – foliage Trail of the Cedars, Glacier National Park, MT I also photographed everything else I could find--Western and Mountain Hemlock, Western Red-Cedar, Western Mountain Maple, and a few shrubs. The trail went between rock walls along Avalanche Creek and at the upper part of the trail, you could look upstream and see where the creek cascaded through a colorful, narrow gorge. The day was overcast and the forest was incredibly dark, yet my iPhone succeeded in photographing everything I asked it to. Some of the photos are a bit grainier than my usual images, but still quite satisfactory. At no point did it tell me there was too little light for a photo. Yet again I'm impressed by what that handy little thing can do. The Avalanche Gorge was the darkest, yet the picture came out fine. 188 Trip to Yukon and Alaska Summer 2011 Avalanche Gorge Trail of the Cedars, Glacier National Park, MT 189 Trip to Yukon and Alaska Summer 2011 I spent two hours on that trail; Jim spent one, since he didn't look at the trees. I had just gotten back and we'd started back down the road when it started to rain.
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