May the wind stop, right now!

Yesterday evening, obliviously relaxed, K and I hiked to a strategically chosen spot to place a wildlife camera. The air was warm, the leaves were brilliant, and the woods were quiet.K looked radiant in the sunlight. Sometimes, I stop and gaze at her in amazement - she is so beautiful to me.
A front blew in overnight, with wild winds and cooler air. While I prepared for our bike ride, the Duo snuggled, still blissfully asleep.
K and I rolled up high and saw nothing but beautiful blue skies in every direction and brilliant aspen leaves. The air was crisp and clear with tremendous gusts of wind hitting us periodically.
Near the start of our ride, I saw the first fresh sign of bear activity in at least a week. A stump was ripped apart last night, undoubtedly by a bear. I had K pose on it but she was nervous - I think that his scent lingered. In general, based on the waning signs of bear activity, I think that our bears are slowing down, not eating so much, and getting ready to den.
After our ride, I dropped K at home and pedaled out for a leisurely mountain bike ride. I started deep in forests with no views in any direction. After much tough climbing, I emerged onto a ridge where the winds buffeted me so hard that I kept swerving off the trail. I took a photo in my favorite direction, with the autumn colors in front of the Divide.
Then, I rode another 100 yards, and my entire world view changed.
Yes, that's a humongous plume of smoke. It appeared to be coming from where I lived, and I completely panicked. I was halfway through my ride, as far from home as I could be on this particular loop. I threw all my energy into pedaling, trying to get home as soon as possible. I believed that evacuations might have already begun. I could even hear sirens in the distance.

It turned out that our house was on a direct line between me and the fire but the fire was about three miles beyond our house, as the raven flies. All day, the winds have continued howling and the fire has spread to thousands of acres. So far, it's blowing away from us but we're still packing as if we're going to have to evacuate. Oh my, what a day - it started relaxed and now I'm scared. You never ever know what's going to happen next in life.

My thoughts are with those people and animals who are in the direct path of the ferocious inferno.

Spooky sunset, whammy tree, and dogs

Yesterday evening, we started our evening hike through a meadow with the warm breeze of summer softly whooshing past us. In the distance, we glimpsed the western sky and saw that the sunset would be special.
We hiked upward, toward a good viewpoint for the setting sun. The rays glowed through turbulent storms in the high mountains.
While the three dogs focused on the scents wafting in the wind, we humans gazed at the spooky clouds illuminated by the sun.

This morning, I knew that K's stomach was better so we headed out for a full mountain bike ride. I was testing out a new trail camera that took a nice photo of us on our way out of our clearing. Its shutter triggers so rapidly when anything moves that it misses nothing. I'm excited about this camera!
Alas, poor K *really* does not like her muzzle even though I padded it with blue foam where it had irritated her snout. I cajoled her into starting the ride, and gradually, as she ran, her enthusiasm grew. For those of you who missed previous posts, the muzzle is to prevent K from eating wild mushrooms, a favorite but very dangerous hobby of hers.
We rode through the cool darkness of a pine forest and emerged into radiant sunshine. K was mortified when I took her photo wearing the blue muzzle that everyone ridiculed previously.
So, I also took one with no muzzle. Much better!
Notice the hazy sky behind K. As we sat on this outcropping, the smell of smoke was unmistakable, being blown toward us from faraway in the west. Moreover, gunfire emanated from two different locations in the canyon behind K. It wasn't the most peaceful morning we've ever had out on the trails but we still had fun.

We had a good ride but K isn't as joyful as usual when she's wearing her muzzle. That lack of joy makes me sad. However, I'd be distraught if she was poisoned by mushrooms so the muzzle is the lesser of two evils.

After I left K at home to relax, I headed to a wildlife-rich area, where I never see another soul, for a ride. I found a dramatic bear tree that the black bears beheaded during mating season when they rubbed their backs on it. I've learned that some bear biologists call these small trees that get mangled by bears "whammy trees" - a funny and apropos name, in my opinion. I hope to train a trail camera on this one during next summer's bear mating season. I've read that generations of bears mark the same trees during mating seasons for decades. If you ever think about cutting down a tree like this because it's impinging on a trail - think twice - it could be a very important tree for the local ursine population.
I noticed that our elderberry trees have brilliant crimson patches taking over their leaves. These splashes of dazzling brightness lined the trail.
And, one of my favorite flowers, a late summer aster is beginning to wane. I adore its colors.
This afternoon, we've been lounging on the deck, enjoying the wonderful warmth. The dogs love basking in the sun but, by this late in the summer, only one corner of the deck gets sun during the afternoon.
The two younger dogs, our visitor and R, gazed at K, trying to figure out why she's the only one on a padded bed. It's funny - for how reserved and cautious K is - she's still the boss around here.

As their loyal servant, I went to find two more beds. They have me well trained!

Three dog weekend and deer video

Yesterday evening, we took a sunset hike. The setting sun revealed a dark silhouette of our nearby mountain range.
We were accompanied by THREE dogs, including our visiting Border Collie Mix.
She's staying with us for the weekend. She's a sweet rescue who loves to run with the boys in our pack. Although we have to be very careful because she guards all food from other dogs, we love having her with us!

This morning, K and I headed out for a mountain bike ride, a short one because K has had an upset tummy. Here, she explored an aspen grove with that nasty blue muzzle covering her snout. I padded it where it was hurting her nose so, although she still hates the muzzle, it isn't rubbing her nose raw. I think that K's fear issues, usually hidden well below the surface, make her dislike a muzzle much more than other dogs. R barely seems to notice his.
After our short ride, I headed out on my own, noticing the inexorable advance of autumn. I'm not ready for that transition so I focused on the flowers still blooming. A brown-eyed Susan glowed in an oasis of moist green growth within a pine forest.
And, gentians opened their flowers to soak up the sun's rays. These amazing flowers can open and close their blossoms very quickly depending on whether it's sunny or cloudy. That trick might explain why they thrive in the wildly vacillating autumn weather. It was literally freezing yesterday morning but the air warmed to 75°F this afternoon. We're all soaking up the warmth!
At the end of my ride, I discovered that a Mule Deer Duo visited one of my trail cameras posted deep in a pine forest. I've been curious about why the deer frequent this area. The ground is mostly a carpet of pine needles with little food for a deer. So, I checked the exact spots where I'd seen the deer nibbling in past videos, and I discovered that they're eating mushrooms. Just the bottom of the stalks remain, barely visible down in the earth. Maybe these deer are 'shroomers just like my dogs!

In the video, be sure to notice that the deer in the background is busy rubbing her head against a tree. Does anyone know if deer scent-mark trees this way? Or, does the deer just have an itch? Also, look at the size of their telescoping ears!

What I love about these videos, even of common animals like deer, is that I get to see the animals acting naturally (not fleeing from humans) and I get to see them very closeup. Look at the details of the deer ears that you can see in the video!



I've learned a lot about which animals use various trails through my trail cameras. I intended for this camera to capture images of animals walking along a well-packed animal trail that runs toward the camera along a contour of the slope. I'm discovering that deer rarely use the prominent trails, like the one in the video. Rather, the deer go straight up and down the hillside, using their own less obvious paths. In this case, I didn't even notice the deer path that crosses the well-packed trail when I chose my camera site. Now that I see the deer traffic on my camera, the deer path is obvious to me.

It's also interesting to know that a mountain lion killed a mule deer within 50 yards of this site in January. I'd love to get footage of a lion hunting here - I suspect that more dominant animals, like lions and bears, use the well-packed trail.

Learning about wildlife mainly involves learning to "see" the forest through fresh eyes. I miss so much (like the deer path in sight of my camera) because I don't always truly "see" my surroundings.

Sunset, bobcat, and sunrise

I hiked with the Duo yesterday evening, in the serene and soft moments just before the sun dipped below the mountains to our west.
Then, this morning, K and I started our mountain bike ride shortly before sunrise, reaching our favorite lookout point in the rosy hue of the first sun rays.
At the start of our ride, K snarled and growled with agitation as we departed from our clearing. Only later, I discovered that a bobcat visited the area under our birdfeeders last night. He managed to hide his face behind a fireweed plant but we can see the rest of him. I wonder if this is the same cat who visited us regularly last winter? Maybe I can tell if I do a side-by-side comparison of their leg stripes and tails.
Based on the stripes inside the front right leg, I think that our visitor is a different bobcat from the one who passed one of my cameras shortly before it was stolen.
Autumn is here. The temperature hovered at freezing when K and I started our ride, and crystalline frost covered green leaves of Golden Banner wildflowers.
The leaves that the sun had touched dripped with melted frost, like this aspen leaf whose gold is emerging.
After I dropped K at home, I accidentally rousted a hawk from the ground cover under a pine forest canopy. He tried again and again to take off but carried a heavy load in his talons. His expansive wings flapped powerfully but he couldn't get the lift that he needed to gain altitude. I quietly backed up, trying to undo my bumbling entry into the scene with no success. Eventually, he left his prey on the ground and flew up to a branch to watch me. I believe that he's a Northern Goshawk, a large raptor with a 21" body length and 41" wingspan.
I quickly investigated his prey, a rabbit whose front end had been picked clean but whose hind end remained, and departed. Like always, I felt mixed up - happy that the hawk had a full stomach but sad for the innocent rabbit.

Have a great weekend!

A high altitude journey

Yesterday, I woke up knowing that I had the good fortune of freedom to do whatever I wanted with my day. So, I thought to myself, "I get only one September 1, 2010, and what can do that will make it memorable?". After seeing the superb weather and no clouds on the Divide, I decided to climb a mountain that I'd never visited before.

The Duo and I set out with high spirits, first wending through a spruce forest and then emerging into the krummholz, the dwarfed forest that precedes treeline. The trail was almost completely deserted - we saw only two other people all day long.Very soon after starting the hike, we emerged onto the alpine tundra, a place not unlike the moon, except that lots of green plants grow on it. They were morphing to autumn gold and auburn, painting a glorious picture for me and the Duo.
The tundra is a vast treeless sea of rocks, grass, snowfields, and a few remaining, very hardy, wildflowers. These are Arctic Gentians, always the last wildflowers to bloom.
Marmots and pikas whistled and chirped from everywhere at once. These animals thrive in the short summers of the high mountains and hibernate for the majority of the year. While K has become bored with these taunting animals as she's become mature, R is still at the age where they obsess him. Here, I was trying to calm him down by having the Duo do a down-stay. With R, I've had to develop very specific criteria for what constitutes being "down" - my main criterion is that his elbows are on the ground. You can see here that they are. However, he's in danger of stretching his neck to giraffe-like proportions!
R drank in the scents of the high altitude wildlife.
At this point, the west wind buffeted us like an indomitable force. As it relentlessly pushed me backward, I began to realize that climbing this mountain presented a bigger challenge than I'd expected. It was so hard to walk into it, and it was COLD. I donned all my winter gear, probably not imaginable to many people in the Northern Hemisphere right now.

The dogs began to realize that their wind-driven ears would be akimbo in all my photos!
Below the final steep pitch the summit, we emerged onto a plateau with endless views to the west.
On the plateau, the wind nearly knocked me over. We didn't linger long. The summit beckoned us and K seemed to contemplate it.
R led the way up the field of scree and boulders toward our summit. It was only 500' above us but the climbing was on precarious terrain.
We finally emerged onto a broad summit. I thought that I was about to be blown to Kansas by the wind so I took few photos.
People had built numerous wind shelters out of the scree. We ducked down into a shelter and had a snack. I peeked over the top of the stone wall to take this photo.
After emerging from hiding, I spotted a glacier-fed aqua lake, with wind-whipped whitecaps, in the valley below, only visible from the tippy top of the summit.
We began to descend but K, in her cute style, hopped onto boulder seeming to beg me to take her photo. How could I resist?
On the way down, I began to realize exactly how tired I was. When I get truly exhausted, the neurological damage wreaked by my spine becomes more pronounced. Yesterday, I kept tripping on the rocky path because the muscles that pull my toes upward, helping them clear obstacles, weren't getting sufficiently strong nerve signals due to my spine problems. I had to descend very carefully and slowly to avoid falling. That aspect of the hike sobered me. I can push and push, trying to pretend that everything is normal, but it's not. I'm not as strong as I used to be. However, I refuse to give into it.

I pushed those thoughts from my mind as we had our last view before reentering the forest.
It was long hike - actually a journey of sorts - and I won't forget September 1, 2010!

Wordless Wednesday

Musings

No doubt, autumn is overtaking our world. This morning, I had my first sunrise breakfast since springtime. It's not that my breakfast has inched earlier - rather, sunrise is getting late.
As I drank my coffee with the sky afire, the coyote pack started howling. K ran to the deck railing in alarm. Our coyote pack currently sounds like it has 20 members howling and yipping together. But, I know that their voices are deceptive - I've seen three coyotes singing but they've sounded like at least a dozen. I hope that I get to see the pack sometime soon to get an idea of how big it is!
Then, K and I headed out for a ride with K in a close heel to prevent any coyote tricksters from luring her into a dangerous chase. A dog owner recently told me that she thought that we needed to "cull" the coyote pack. They'd tried to take one of her small dogs by using their patented technique of having one playful-looking coyote lure the dog into the woods where the rest of the coyote pack is waiting. While I certainly understood how upset and fearful she felt after nearly losing one of her dogs, I didn't agree with her "solution". I think that I talked her down to a more reasonable stance... but I'm shocked by how quickly humans turn to killing wildlife as a solution rather than learning to keep their dogs safe. Yes, I know that means that you can't safely "let your dogs out" to roam without supervision. But, that's a small price to pay for the diversity of wildlife that we have here.

This morning, despite my screaming spine, we headed up high to play in the brief flashes of sunshine through the clouds jetting overhead. K gave me a sly look.
We posed together at the top. I finally realized that K has NO motivation to look at a camera propped on a rock. That's why she always looks at me in these photos! My mouth is always open as I smile because I'm telling her to look at the camera. Maybe looking at the camera is a trick that I could teach her.
K has recently resumed an old game - she hides so that I'll call her. Because recalls are SO fun, she tries to force me to call her by disappearing into the brush. Her hiding place in the photo below was not one of her most challenging!
I try to find other ways to draw her out to avoid encouraging her hiding game. If I do a recall, it's the biggest reward that I could possibly give her for hiding. However, as I stand in the forest alone trying to cajole K out of hiding, I get visions of the photographs that I've captured of our mighty predators near our trails and give into the urge to call!

As we rode, we spotted a weathered butterfly on his last wings. I think that he was a Black Swallowtail.
I lifted the aging beauty onto a fading blossom before leaving him in peace. Most butterflies live such brief lives, weeks at most. Whenever I see one fluttering next to me on my bike, I think that they're so courageous, living so beautifully but so briefly.
I think that there's a lesson in a butterfly's life for me.