Rae Glacier

I had missed the hike after the previous one to clean the traps that we took down from Sibbald. It was quite a relief to take this grid down. I think it was the prettiest one there with its carpet of moss littered with fallen logs and its really old pine trees that creak rather disconcertingly (like they’re talking to each other like Ents), with hair-like lichens hanging from the lower branches. It was, however, a real pain to climb up to get to and to run from trap to trap, since it is rather steep and there are fallen logs everywhere. During the 3 weeks when there were mosquitoes, there was just a ridiculous amount of them. If you stopped for a moment on the off-chance that there was something in a trap, the mosquitoes would cover you like a blanket. I think Crisia even waved a vole at them accidentally to keep them out of her face. Furthermore, we rarely caught anything there. More often than not, it would be nothing or simply a chipmunk, which didn’t really matter in our population studies. I think there was only one vole there that we caught more than once. We usually consider having low trap success in the mornings to be a good thing on the long term grids since we would be done sooner; however, it often made it seem pointless to even wake up at 6 in the morning when you weren’t likely to catch anything.

Anyway, to bring myself away from my rant about Sibbald and back to the point, Crisia and I went on the hike the next day with the Alpine Ecology students to Rae Glacier. We passed a pretty blue lake and a campground and had lunch by a small waterfall past the tree line. Crisia and I spent the majority of the time in the back conversing with Brent, the other professor of the course, which led to my observation that he is an all-around cool guy. We stopped every once and a while so the students could tell us about their chosen plants. We went so slowly that we were passed twice by this large group of old people with hiking poles, once on their way up and once on their way down.

Kurt, the student who became more and more similar to a crazy mountain goat, was already way ahead before Brent, Crisia, and I climbed up after him. The rest of the class stayed at the base, and as we got higher and higher up, we could only see specks of them sliding down the glacier. This was one of the scariest things that I have ever done. The rocks of the pass up to Pocaterra ridge were a walk in the park compared to this. This was steeper, and the rocks came in varying layers above a base of solid ice. Being much less sure on my feet than the others ahead of me, I mostly took it very slowly until I caused the rocks to slide down underneath my feet, in which case, I scrambled up as fast as I could as if my life depended on it. I don’t think my life was in danger at any point, but I could have been seriously hurt if I had wiped up and slid down.

When we met Kurt at the top (or sort of top... we didn’t go all the way up), I was very relieved and quite impressed with myself. My knees were still aching from the previous hike, and I have never and probably will not ever consider myself to be a hardcore hiker. Yes, what we did on our grids on a daily basis was certainly more than most people do on their walk to the bus stop, but it hardly compared to a half day hike up a mountain. Here we took a few pictures of ourselves using the timed functions on our cameras. We also got to taste and take away in our water bottles some glacier water. This was the best water I’ve ever tasted. This could have been because it was cold and straight off a glacier and because I had just come to the top of strenuous hike, but you’d have to try it to understand.

The way down was much quicker. I actually found riding the rock slides down quite enjoyable rather than frightening since they were travelling in the direction I needed to go, and I didn’t need to fight against them like I did on the way up. Crisia and I took off without the class again so that the day wouldn’t be a complete waste work-wise. By the end of it, both of our knees were shot, especially Crisia’s (I think she pushed herself harder than she should have even if she is a much more experienced hiker than I am), and we had another hike the next day to look forward too. This would sadly be my last full day in Kananaskis.

Pocaterra Ridge

These next few posts will be about my last week in Kananaskis, which was obviously busy enough to keep me from writing to all (or perhaps just one or two) of you. There a few reasons this particular week was so busy: 1. It was my last week, and I needed to pack up four months of my life; 2. To be able to leave early, I had to take on some extra trap and trailer cleaning; and 3. Jack’s field course was taking place, and every day of the first week, he took them on a hike, and we were invited to come along. We were therefore allowed to drive to wherever they were going, so we took full advantage of the guilt-free hikes.

The first hike was to Pocaterra Ridge. We joined up with the class prior to this hike after taking care of our grids. As with probably most field courses, the hike was slow-going since we had many plants pointed out to us. One particular plant that caught my interest was alpine sorel. This plant, similar to its relatives in the east, wood sorel and yellow wood sorel (shamrock – nicknamed “yummies” in Plant Field), is edible and tastes kind of tangy, even lemony. Crisia and I kept picking these and eating them as we went.

We eventually came to a talus slope where, to my delight, we discovered pikas (These were taken at another time; I got one picture from this hike, but it's not as good. Also, for those who are interested in what a red-back vole looks like, here is a picture.). Pikas are little mouse-like rodents that are bigger than the mice we work with and make high-pitched squeaks as they run along the rocks, which they blend in very well with, often carrying grass in their mouths. I am pretty sure these are the animals upon which Pikachu of Pokémon, a Japanese children’s cartoon, videogame, and card game, is based.

When we came to the beginning of a pass, Jack let us run off to climb to the ridge on our own. Crisia and a student of the course, who also happens to be named Kurt, ran off and speedily clambered up all the rocks. Nikhil and I followed along more slowly behind them, nearly stepping on a few ptarmigans that were camouflaged against the rocks. Rocks are rather frightening things to climb since there is always the danger of them falling as you are climbing on them. One of the worst sounds you can hear on such a hike is the sound of a rock slide. You also don’t want to be directly behind the person who causes the rock slide.

At the top of the rocks, we met the ridge. If I thought climbing up the rocks was hard, climbing up the steep dirt slope of the ridge to get to the summit was even harder. I think Nikhil and I nearly gave up a few times and may have stopped if we didn’t know that Crisia was already up there and that there may be an easier way down. We did eventually get to the top; we were followed by a couple students from the course, one of whom was deathly afraid of heights and was “shaking and terrified” the entire time.

At the top, we couldn’t even see where Crisia and Kurt had gone. One of the students said that she saw Crisia head running down the other side of the ridge, so we decided to go that way. We bounded down as best we could without killing ourselves, but either way, it was really tough on the knees. We finally found Crisia and Kurt, along with Jack and some other students at the bottom of the ridge. It had turned out that Crisia had bounded down at almost full speed and had even flipped over. Since it was so steep, instead of wiping out, she landed on her feet.

At this point we decided that it would be best if we headed back more quickly without the class so that we could get some work done before going out to set our traps again. The way back seemed much harder than the way there even though it was mostly downhill. I guess going slowly makes the hike seem much easier. At one point, we found ourselves off the path, and Crisia ran right into a moose. It stood there long enough for her to take pictures before wandering off.

For those of you who didn’t notice the links to specific pictures, here is the album for the entire hike:

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Last Visit to Calgary

Hello! I know it’s been a ridiculously long time since I’ve written here. This is not because I have had nothing to say; it has more to do with the fact that I’ve been so busy, there’s been no time to write anything. That said, expect a few catch-up entries. Since I last wrote here, I spent my last week in Kananaskis, spent a couple weeks with some of you in Montreal, visited my friends Brandon and Sarah in Ottawa for a night, officially moved into my apartment in London, and officially started my life as a grad student at the University of Western Ontario. Because it would be insanity to attempt to fit all this into one post, I will attempt to break it up into several smaller, but probably still long, entries. This first one will be about my last week in Kananaskis.

This particular week began on a Friday, when Nikhil, Crisia, and I had to drive in to help pick up the students for our supervisor Jack’s field course. Jack had flown in the previous morning. Nikhil was supposed to pick him up while Crisia and I entertained 13-14 year old Girl Guides with live and origami mice. However, Jack and Nikhil ended up waiting for each other at opposite ends of terminal, so Jack rented a car and drove himself back, while Nikhil waited for a long time until he called the field station to find out that Jack had called and said that he was renting a car and driving back. Jack was given a Cadillac as a rental car, so he was quite happy, especially since he had something with which to make fun of Nikhil.

The first thing we had to do that day was pick up Brent, who was the other professor of the field course. He is a young professor from New Zealand, is very sarcastic, and is an all-around cool guy. We waited where Jack told us we should wait, which was where Nikhil should have gone the day before. Jack went to find Brent inside to make sure he knew where to go. However, a guy from Air Canada, whose English was not very good, told us that since we were not waiting for an Air Canada Flight, we would have to go somewhere else, so we let Crisia out to find Jack to tell him the change of plan and went to the WestJet terminal, where Nikhil had actually waited the day before.

As soon as we got there, we noticed a guy matching Brent’s description, standing by himself with his luggage. It turns out that Brent didn’t understand Jack’s instructions either, and we weren’t sure what exactly had happened to Jack, who was supposed to find him. I don’t think I ever found out since Tracy and I were unceremoniously dumped off to wait at the airport because the car would have been crowded otherwise. After maybe 45 minutes, we were picked up again by Crisia. Jack had rented another car and had gone back to the field station to await the van in order to pick up the second batch of students, while Nikhil went in the van with Brent to direct him back to the field station after they picked up the first batch of students.

This was all done by late morning, so this left us girls to do whatever we wanted to do before having to go back to set that evening. Our first stop was a Best Buy, so that I could pick up a case for my laptop. We took a wrong turn getting there and happened to find a sign for a used book sale. Being the nerds that we are, we became very excited and immediately followed the signs until we found the book sale. It was much bigger than we thought it would be, and we ended up staying there for 2 hours. Those of you who know me well enough will be surprised to know that I only came out with 3 books. Yes, 3 is a lot considering that I already have a stack of books that I own that I haven’t read, and I would be taking a plane back to Montreal in a week with much less room for all my stuff than is needed. However, 3 is not a lot considering that Crisia walked away with more than 10, and Tracy came out with a box full of books.

We did eventually find our way to the Best Buy, and I really like my laptop sleeve. What was interesting was that we had been to this Best Buy before but had never walked into the giant shoe store right next to it. I think the reason for this is that we are always with Nikhil and, therefore, feel obligated to not be the girls that we undoubtedly are. Nikhil made fun of us quite a bit when we got back.

The three of us ended up buying very similar shoes. Tracy’s and mine are identical except for the size, pattern, and colour. The most amusing part about all of this was that Tracy, the least girly of the three of us, had been going on about why anyone would want to buy these flat ballet-like shoes that appear to be everywhere. Since I actually wear shoes like this on occasion when I’m not in the forest, I explained to her that these shoes are useful when one wants to wear somewhat nice shoes but does not want the heel. Some of you may have seen the shoes I bought, which are green.

After our little shopping spree, we went for Vietnamese soup and bubble tea, and then did our practical shopping by stocking up on groceries. All in all, I had a lot of fun on our girls day out, which actually had never happened before this point, and was happy with my last day in Calgary before I had to come back for my flight.