Storm on the Mountain – BCC (July 6, 2016)

When we woke the river was no longer rushing and roaring.  With the rain yesterday we have changed our plans of working on Pink Mountain this morning. Our next option was to drive Buckinghorse Road.  Up on the ridge we found a series of roads through the forest to the pads of gas wells.  We had a good start and were out on the road at 8.  Shortly after we were on the ridge we saw a little black bear at the side of the road. 

Our first foray into the trees on the ridge was thick with alder.  Now alder grows out as a bush from the base.  The branches then grow eight to ten feet tall in a web.  These can interconnect.  So when you bend some one way the next are crisscrossing the opposite way, just as if woven in a web.  Furthermore the long branches are long enough you can’t push them out of the way.  One has to either or both step on some and lift the others, just as if unraveling a piece of fabric.  We walked around or rather thrashed our way slowly.  We found nothing.  Walked out to the road and then a little farther on tried again.  Nothing.  While in the forest we saw bear scat twice and several trees with bear claw scratches.

Carpets of bunch berry and my favorite Linneas or twin flower as called in North America, a treat to see.

Back in the car we drove down the road, looking for a spot where one can see through the trees, a spot where there had been a fire.  The next one was great.  Once through the alder and willow along the road, the trees were openly spaced.  We were in a fairy world.  The ground was thick with sphagnum moss, Linneas, bunch berry, pyrola, and false lily of the valley.  Our feet sunk a good six inches.  Our steps were silent and bouncy.  I expected any minute to see the forest family Elsa Beskow wrote about. After walking and walking, we found eventually two boulders.  Heather and I were working on the second boulder.  Anders was down the ridge looking for another.  Berto just returned with word that he had not found anything.  I was down near the ground when I saw a flash and wondered where the camera flash had come from, since I had the camera in my pocket.  Heather had been saying we should get off the ridge since we were hearing thunder.  Suddenly only a couple of seconds after the flash there was a huge clap of thunder.  We all fell to the ground and she shouted, “Get on your heels.  Keep your heels in contact.”  We scrambled up a bit and crouched with our heels on the ground.  Heather quickly finished her notes and we gathered all and scrambled up to the Expedition. 

Once inside rain fell. 

We continued down Buckinghorse Road back to the Alcan and back to Pink Mountain, a spot in the road with a gas station-liquor store, camp ground on one side and the Buffalo Inn and some prefabs for gas worker housing on the other.

Housing for gas workers at Pink Mountain

Got gas

and went to Buffalo Inn for Wi-Fi, lunch and to plan what to do.

While Berto got gas he talked to people in the store asking about what was happening on Pink Mountain.  He learned that a group of fourteen youth campers were be rescued off Pink Mountain because of washed out roads.  Remember how we had to turn around on our drive to Pink Mountain yesterday.  On another ridge to the east of the highway a party of campers on 4 wheelers were being helicoptered out because of the weather.  

Buffalo Inn was great.  It had a central hall like in a home.  To the left was the café and to the right a living area by a fire place and farther down the hall a pub.  In the center hall entrance they had two signs telling patrons to remove their muddy boots, actually all footwear.  They had racks for boots. 

As some might know, I am a 4-H leader.  Had to include this sign just above the muddy boots sign.

We walked into the dining room in our stocking feet.  We had poutine, great big pots of tea, amazing homemade French fries and burgers. After studying the map, the decision was made to return to the south end of Buckinghorse Road where we had seen a few boulders that had been bulldozed to the side.  

Back through the alder and willow into the fairyland.  We spread out and walked down the ridge and walked and walked, seeing nothing.    As I walked along I notice white flakes in the pockets of moss.  I was speculating on what little animal had eaten pine cones. But why were they so white? I continued some more and suddenly I realized this lace was actually hail.  All over in the pockets of moss were quarter inch pellets.  Finally, Anders spotted one.  That made three by four o’clock.  We kept looking and looking.  The erratic that Anders found was covered by six inches of  moss and lichen.  He actually saw it as he had climbed back up the slope.  So that was our new tactic to climb up the slope as we looked.  Another was spotted.  As samples were taken we kept looking.  The call went out when another boulder was found.  So six samples have  now been collected off Buckinghorse Ridge.  Good news for not being able to collect at the original site of Pink Mountain; a full day to collect the six.  BCC (British Columbia Central) is now finished.

With 60 samples we headed north on the Alcan to Fort Nelson for BCN  (British Columbia North).  From there we drove to Testa River Camp Site near the peaks Steamboat and Tepee.

Along the way we saw a little black bear on the road side.  The Testa River is roaring along.  The shore is bars of cobbles. The vast majority of rock material is locally derived from the local bedrock but we see many cobbles and boulders from the Canadian Shield.  So why do we see all these granitic boulders in the valley?  Initially there would have been more sandstone boulders, but they have eroded away with the stronger granite rocks remaining.

Tents are up and we are so fortunate to have a little wooden pavilion with a small box wood burning stove.  We are cooking on the picnic table in the pavilion.  Rain is pouring.  Deluges.  Around the picnic table with maps, we are making plans for tomorrow's collecting.

Along the Testa River.  The spots are the mist in the air.

4th of July in Hudson's Hope at 56 Degrees north

We are off the AlCan Highway in Hudson’s Hope on the Peace River, a lovely little town with a great history.  The Cree and Beaver peoples made a peace treaty in this area at Peace Point which gave the river its name.  Alexander Mackenzie traveled long the Peace River in his search of a route to the Pacific Ocean in 1793.  In 1805, Simon Frazer, a fur trader, established a fur trading post at this point, called “Rocky Mountain Portage House.”  In 1861 and 1862, there was a small gold rush in the area when gold was found on the gravel bars of the Peace River and its tributaries.  Coal mining began in 1903 and continued until after WW II when it became uneconomical with the lack of a train.  In 1903 the first sternwheeler made its first voyage up the Peace to Hudson’s Hope.  The last voyage by a sternwheeler was in 1930.

Interestingly, the Peace River is the only river to bridge the Rocky Mountains.  The Finley River and the Parsnip River flow together to form the Peace.  The Peace first flows west to east on its 1,293 kilometer journey. Then it flows north to Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River to empty into the Arctic Ocean.  So as I sit by Lake Williston, I am in the Arctic water shed. Jasper Park is also in the Arctic water shed.

In 1922, dinosaur prints were found along the shore of the Peace River.  Five species of herbivores and four species of carnivores were identified.  More than 100 trackways and 1700 footprints were counted.  Later a Plesiosaur was found in these Cretaceous beds (125 my).  In 1979, bird prints were found.  These are one of oldest records of birds.  Sadly, you won’t be able to visit these trackways.  Casts have been made of these tracks, but now they lie beneath water.  The Peace was dammed by the W.A.C. Benet Dam and the lake named, Dinosaur Lake.  The Benet Dam is the largest earthen structure on earth.  We drove across the dam and looked up the river with its magnificent walls.

The first Dew Berries seen on the trip

Our first boulder spotted

Today we headed up the road to Bull Head Mountain but took the Y road that soon was grass.  We crossed through a gate into a small pasture surrounded by trees.  The lane led up to a ridge.  We had had a little shower and the ruts were filled with water that showered the Expedition.  Four times Anders got out to direct Berto through the narrow trail around rocks and deep ruts.  Berto even had to drive over a log about six inches in diameter.  Cows grazing gathered to watch us.  The ruts were way too deep.  Carefully, waggled around backing up and out.  We had seen a possible boulder from the road.  So we stopped to check it out.

Eventually we could go no further.

This is bear country.  In town they had mentioned the number of bears seen and their activity.  So we armed ourselves with bear spray and got out the shot gun to have ready. 

As we walk into the trees, we call out “here bear,” clap and make a variety of calls. The boulder sat with prairie roses around and was a good 4-5 feet tall.  Great.  Berto and I headed up the ridge in the trees behind the boulder. 

We found two more uphill and before we left had five good boulders and had been welcomed by a heard of cows and calves all before noon.

Indian Pipes

After our picnic lunch along the Peace River at the local museum  in Hudson’s Bay we headed out along the south side of Peace and Lake Moberly to head up Moberly Mountain.  Roads were better and worse.  We finally made it to the top of the ridge.  We made several forays into the underbrush on top of the ridge.  Brush so thick that in places we absolutely could not walk.  Alder, spruce, and aspen grew thick with many downed huge trees uprooted.  The large root mats filled with soil from a distance looked like boulders from a distance. We were finding no boulders, but we found instead several trees with bark scraped off and scratches visible.  I saw an Indian pipe, a plant with no chlorophyll (I have only once before seen them in northern Wisconsin) and then a beautiful carpet of my favorite Linneas. Scrambling over brush and logs, Heather looked down as she stepped over a log.  There beside her foot was a bear print.  We saw three prints. 

She and I took pictures and expeditiously worked our way out of the brush and back to the Expedition.  Driving down the road we found a dead moose.  The legs had been removed but all the entrails and head remained.  The bedrock on Moberly Mountain was sandstone and thinly bedded sandy shale.  Along the road was a small quarry in the road cut.  We stopped to check for fossils and found a few.  Moberly Mountain produced no boulders but proved interesting.

Linneas

We are camped along the Williston Lake tonight near the Williston Resort, a beautiful log chalet, old fashioned style building.  We ate our burritos on our red and blue camp plates tonight.  Happy 4^th of July.