Super Siyeh Pass

I took one of the interns on a training mission on Siyeh Pass yesterday (Siyeh is pronounced sy-YEE, and is Blackfeet for "mad wolf" or "rabid dog" or some combination of those ideas). I was hoping to find some Jones columbine, an endemic species that only blooms very early after the snow lifts. Finding that flower alone would have made my day, but we found so much more. It's times like this when John Muir comes to mind, "In any walk with nature, one receives more than he seeks."





Because of the benefit of a lot of snow pretty low down on the trail, which continued throughout the trail, we got to look at a lot of animal tracks. We thought we found fisher tracks, we found some kind of canine tracks (too small to be a wolf, but what is a coyote doing up there?), wolverine tracks, and grizzly bear tracks.





I did find plenty of Jones columbine on the way up to the pass, which was pretty cool. Then we saw a golden eagle flying around and perch on top of the cliffs on Siyeh Mountain. When we got to the pass, a white-tailed ptarmigan was walking around close to the trail. It disappeared behind a rock, hiding in the cool shade, after we watched it from a close distance for a few minutes. It made me wonder how often they are hiding behind rocks like that and I just never noticed them.

We proceeded down the Baring basin, although the switchbacks were completely covered in snow. We were glad to have ice axes along. I held the record for "most wicked wipeout" when I lost my footing and slid for 40-50 feet down the mountainside in the snow, jamming the ice axe into the snow to stop myself. It was in this area where we saw wolverine tracks, in exactly the same place I had seen them last year.





Upon approaching the bottom of the steep section of switchbacks, I looked instinctively out into the meadows below to search for wildlife. I happened to look at the right second as two grizzly bear cubs were out playing in the snow. They chased each other, stood up and wrestled, and one slid on its behind down the slope in the snow. Then they ran off into the subalpine woods. A few minutes later, we spotted their mother in an open meadow among the trees. The cubs laid down and took a nap while she stood guard. They were about 1/4 mile from where we were sitting, but we had a perfect vantage point.

I have walked this trail at least 20 times, and this was by far the best ever. I will get to return on Saturday and take a new group of interns and new rangers on the hike to show them the ropes (I have responsibility!). Maybe that time, I will remember to put sunscreen on my ears.

Backpack to Cosley Lake

One of the perks of working for the park is that I get free backcountry camping permits (as opposed to the steep price of $5 a night). I had never spent time in the Belly River area in the park, and I procured a site at Cosley Lake for a weekend backpacking trip. The lake is named after the semi-infamous Joe Cosley, a flamboyant man who was one of the park's first rangers but defected and hunted and trapped at his leisure away from everyone else in the Belly River area.

A neat thing about the Belly River is the ranger station, which has a mixture of the old and the new - a modern refrigerator stands next to a cast iron wood-burning stove. It's quite a scene with the little log cabin in the woods, a pasture with horses in it, and snow-capped mountains all around.

The ranger station is a little over 6 miles from the trailhead, which feels a lot farther with a heavy pack on. Cosley Lake was 2.5 miles from the ranger station. I got a treat because Gros Ventre (pronounced Grow Vahnt) Falls is along the way. I think there's a new contender for best waterfall in the park!

Upon arriving, exhausted at Cosley Lake, I set up my tent and promptly fell asleep for two hours. I woke up long enough to eat my supper and watch it get dark while hoping to see some kind of wildlife. I only saw a mule deer buck that snuck up on me and a spotted sandpiper. But my site was really nice, right next to the lake. My private beach is in the picture below.

I awoke in the morning to the sound of howling wind, and with the pitter-patter of droplets of mist hitting my tent, I decided it was time to leave before the weather got worse. I was right. I stopped at the ranger station to visit with the rangers there for a while, which turned into a six-hour stay as we watched the weather move in with 40 mph winds, rain, and then snow. I waited around for them to get ready to pack some gear out (and then more in) since I thought it would be safer and more fun to hike with them instead of alone. I had hiked in with Phil, but he couldn't stay the night, and went the 2.5 miles back to the ranger station alone in the morning. Once the weather broke (although briefly) I helped, to the extent that I could, to prepare the packs and saddle up the horses.

I was very energized while walking the flat portion of the trail back to the trailhead where my car was waiting, at the Canadian border, but the hill and the end was a killer. I could barely walk when I finally got to the car. Nachos at the Park Cafe took care of that problem.

Coming up this week: I will be taking new St. Mary staff on Siyeh Pass tomorrow and Saturday.

The first signs of summer

There hasn't been too much excitement yet. The road is still closed in the center of the park and the waves of visitors have not started pouring in. Those that do all are met by disappointment as they learn that the road isn't open and probably will not open while they are here.

I hiked up Siyeh Pass on Wednesday, my day off this week, but stopped under the steep switchbacks because they were covered with snow. Something about 46 switchbacks up in the snow didn't sound appealing while I was still fighting off a chest cold. The flowers were incredible, though, with everything blooming right up to the glacier lilies at the snowline.

My first slide show was Tuesday night, and although plagued with technical problems all day that kept me from actually finishing creating the program in the afternoon, the show went very well. Only a dozen people were in attendance.

On my first boat trip and hike on St. Mary Lake and to St. Mary Falls, we saw a bald eagle soaring over the lake, a mule deer buck on the trail, and some visitors spotted a bear that we were very near to but could no longer see. It is unusual to find bears on that trail, so I did all the appropriate paperwork and even had a conversation with one of the bear rangers.

It is starting to get warmer now after snowing a little last week. The weather is in the 70s during the day, the mosquitoes are bearable, and the days are long.

Back to Business

I have spent (and will spend) most of this week sitting in training sessions that mostly recap things that I already know. The good news is that I do have access to my blog. Hooray!

What might be most interesting here are my first impressions as I arrived. Despite spending 3 summers here previously, every time I return, the mountains seem bigger than I remembered. The park smelled really nice that first hour or so after I arrived, but now my nose is used to the smell.

The wildflowers are very good this spring, many of them blooming several weeks ahead of schedule. Blue camas, larkspur, bistort, arrowleaf balsamroot, beargrass, arnica, paintbrush, and more are already out. I even found a calypso orchid, which I had never seen before.

One of the striking things upon my arrival is the familiarity of the birds I hear singing, and yet how I never hear those birds in Minnesota. Birds that I would be thrilled to see back home are common here; white-crowned sparrows, pine siskins, ruby-crowned kinglets, and so on.

We have a lot of new faces in St. Mary, with 6 interns doing interpretation. I was one of four when I was an SCA intern. I am revisiting my role as dorm RA, which basically means I get to turn the smoke alarms off when people have culinary disasters.

The road is not open yet, since there are sections where there is no road. We had to travel to West Glacier on Monday and Tuesday via Hwy 2, a two-hour journey each way. I am glad to be working at the visitor center today instead of sitting through another boring training about things I have already been indoctrinated into before. I will have to go to trainings at the Many Glacier Hotel's Lucerne Room tomorow and Friday.

Back to work! People coming in the door!

Ready for Launch

Sometime in the midst of getting my belongings in order to pack into the trunk of the Oldsmobile, I realized just how little stuff I actually needed to bring. It's especially noticeable since I took so many carloads of stuff from the apartment to the house when we moved, a seemingly endless shuttling of box after box. In packing for 3-4 months, I suddenly needed only a tiny fraction of that stuff.

I keep thinking I must be forgetting something, but I don't know what it might be.

Travel itinerary is as follows:
Leave Rochester in the early AM Thursday, June 7 via Hwy 52 to I-94.
Arrive Theodore Roosevelt National Park for camping the evening of June 7, commune with bison and wild horses.
Leave and drive via I-94, MT-S210, MT-13, MT-25, US-2, Starr School Road, Hwy 89 to St. Mary, MT