BCS - British Columbia South July 5, 2016

Today, we finished up BCS with great success.  We are working along a planned transect.  BCS refers to the the area where we collected today, which means British Columbia South.  This project consists of six collecting areas:  ABS (Alberta South), ABC (Alberta Central),  ABN (Alberta North), BCS (British Columbia South), BCC (British Columbia Central) and BCN (British Columbia North).   These areas are roughly two degrees latitude apart.

After some complications yesterday, we  returned to the ridge from Bullhead Mountain.  Boulders have successfully been found on bedrock that is above 850 meters.  That means it would be above the glacial melt lake and has not been submerged.

The free range horses were so curious.  On our descent they followed us.

We drove back up the Bullhead road through the gate to the pasture we had gone through on our first day in Hudson’s Hope.  We had our iPad along with maps downloaded from the Canadian Backroad Mapbooks.  When we arrived in the meadow, a beautiful herd of horses were grazing.  There is a small pond sheltered under trees.  At first we were walking on cow paths. 

We are hiking into the brush up to the ridge. We walked and walked with the lovely meadow and paths slowly giving way to thick brush and thicker brush. 
We even traipsed through stinging nettles.  Cow parsnip stood shoulder high.  Alders were thick.  Spruce were down and totally decaying with moss thickly covering the logs.  Further on we had to climb over huge dead spruce trees, trees fallen like pick-up sticks. 

We knew it was going to be quite a trek, but we were surprised.

Berto is taking the sample.  At each site, Heather took notes and photographs, including the GPS position, thickness of sample, elevation, position and sketch of boulder, and any special features.

We are in bear country and must be safe.

Shortly up we found our first boulder, a good sized one.  Anders and Heather began sampling and I headed off with Berto.  We climbed and groped our way through the undergrowth.  We saw a couple more and kept working our way through the brush hoping to reach the top of the ridge.  At the top the bedrock formed the ridge, weathering round and smooth, spreading out high over the valley and lake. We were at an elevation of 1060 meters and climbed to 1150 meters.   As we worked our way back down through the brush we found a couple more boulders, marking these with red tape so as to be able to find them again.  In the end we collected samples from 10 boulders.  I got my chance to collect a sample. 

I got my chance to collect a sample, removing  approximately 20 grams of rock 2 cm thick.

Walking down the truck was a wee bit easier but still incredibly difficult cutting through the thick brush.

Our picnic lunch with the horses after collecting that morning.  

We drove back to Fort St. John to catch the Alcan following the Peace River valley.  The fields are gorgeous with buckwheat nearly in bloom.  If I look closely I can just see a tinge of white atop the rich green, making the field look frosty.

We headed for Pink Mountain to camp and prospect for boulders.  We drove through heavy rain a good share of the way north.  We were up the turnoff road and then onto the road to the mountain and had managed to drive about about 6 km with 16 km to go when we hit washouts.  With speed and keeping to the high ground we made it through the first two with water flying over the doors.  At the third lake, Berto and Anders got out and walked into the water to measure the depth.  The water was up over their calves.

Anders is off in the distance around the bend checking the road.

Walking back through the flooded road from up the road, Anders slid and fell into the water, coming out covered in silt.  As he changed clothes, the conclusion was no go.  Later he realized he had lost his sunglasses in the fall.
 
 Frogs jumped in the marsh along the road as we maneuvered a turn around. 
On our way back to the Alcan rain fell hard again.  With the village of  Pink Mountain at mile 143 we headed  to Buckinghorse River at mile 175.   We camped along Buckinghorse River tonight.  The river is rushing full and brown with silt carried from the till in the mountains. It is over its bank.  We had a great morning with 10 specimens collected on the ridge.