Life on the Outer Coast

Took two hikes this weekend trying to prepare for the cross island expedition. On Saturday MB., Molly and I walked the Blue Lake road from the mill site to the lake. We had intended to walk up Harbor Mtn road, but road re-construction was a bit off putting. The purpose of this particular training hike was to test MB's back pack. She filled it with enough debris to bring the weight up to 30 lbs. Molly added 2 large cans of tomatoes to her

load. I stuck with the usual pack load of miscellaneous supplies.

Not too surprising, the lake was still frozen, I was kind of surprised that the boat we used as a commuter last summer was on the lake. I wonder how much space is between the ice and the water.

Picked up a couple of mosses from the cliffs on the way back. One looks like a Mnium (no sporophytes) the other is Pogonatum dentinum.

The sunny morning, inspired Molly and I to venture up the Verstovia trail on Sunday. The Early Blueberries were blooming near the beginning of the trail, and a few salmonberries had visible pink petals. The snow had retreated quite a bit since my last trip up here.

The photo is of roughly the same spot (about 850ft) that I took a photo a few weeks ago.

About 1500 ft, saw a Willow Ptarmigan on the trail ahead of us. It quickly moved above the trail, but not so far that we couldn't get a good look at the bird. It was in winter plumage, we could see the black on the tail and a faint bit of red above the eye. The red looked kind of like faint eye shadow. I don't think it was a Rock Ptarmigan, mostly based on the lack of a black eye strip. By the time I retrieved the camera from the backpack, it was gone.

Found Bear tracks about 2000 ft in the snow. They were undisturbed or maybe fresh enough that the claw marks were very crisp and clear.

We carried on to the clump of trees just below Picnic rock. There wasn't any wind to speak of and it was pretty warm sitting up there. The snow was compacted enough along ridge that the only use we had for our snow shoes that day was to use them to sit on while we took a break at the top.

Saw a large flock of Canada geese fly over just as we went into the trees on the way down.

I was kind of happy that I brought an old ski pole along. There were a couple of spots with very soft melting snow that were a bit unstable. Actually both of us gave up trying to stand on the way down the second cables. We just hung on the cable and slid, the turn was a bit dicey, but it was fun.