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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