Family visits: West Wind Pass plus

My brother, his wife and her daughter from Toronto arrived this week for a short stay. As we are evil and cruel, we decided to drag their butts up my favourite short hike, West Wind Pass, on the hottest day of the year. We have been up there many times before, and the views were stellar, as always. Easy to see some other hikes we have done (check the links below).

Looking down towards snow capped Tent Ridge 

The crew makes it to the top 

Pigeon Mountain 

Lady Macdonald and the teahouse peaking over West Wind Ridge

I don't usually see much wildlife on this hike, and today was no exception. But there was a far too friendly Golden Mantled Ground Squirrel hanging out at the top.

Coming to visit 

KC, tempting 

Investigating my pack

My brother has always wanted to see a moose. There's a spot here where moose are common at sunrise and sunset (here's a hike where we saw them, for instance). So we went there after the hike, but saw nothing. Still, it was only 6:30 PM when we were there, and the sun sets here at 9:30 PM these days.

The mooseless Engadine marsh meadows

Last week, I saw 7 bears in one day. So on our second day with the family, after touring Banff townsite, we drove up to Peyto Summit where we were last week with Amy & Michael in the hopes of seeing some wildlife. It was a blistering 30° in Banff, 27° passing Lake Louise, but a really nice 22° up at Bow Summit. Peyto Lake was its spectacularly coloured self.

Looks fake

We saw a Clark's nutcracker playing good parent.

Good mother. Or father.

We stopped at Bow Lake to see the falls and the glaciers from a distance. Personally, I like Bow Lake better than Lake Louise, but then I see them all the time.

Heading to the lake

Looking south down Crowfoot Mountain 

Bow Glacier and falls

Alanna wanted to get her feet wet, so went for a walk in the lake.

Fording the (very cold) creek 

Standing in the lake

The area by Num-Ti-Jah Lodge and sections of the Bow Falls trail have bear warnings. The folks in the lodge told us a grizzly with 2 cubs charged two staff members the previous night, and another lone griz was hanging out in front of the lodge door the previous morning. But we saw nothing. 


We also stopped to look at the Crowfoot Glacier on the way back.

The Crowfoot, minus the feet

We saw no wildlife with them all day. We dropped them at Castle Junction (they were heading to Invermere) and headed down the 1A. And saw a huge bull elk...

Big dude. Fuzzy antlers.

...and a bear.

Fuzzy but true

Sorry that the picture isn't the best. When we see a bear, we don't get out of the car to get a better photo. The tourists do, however.

Tourists being stupid

Smart mice

We have a deer mouse infestation in our house.


We discovered this when our cat showed up in our bedroom one night with a mouse at 12:30 AM. He dropped it on the floor and played with it, batting it around and pouncing on it until KC finally grabbed the mouse in a plastic bag. The next night, same thing, except the cat showed up at 4:00 AM pleased as punch with his captured mouse. He played with the thing for 15 minutes (including a time when it ran behind a chest of drawers and he flushed it out) until finally the mouse hid under a pillow on the floor that Jello uses as a playground with his plastic toys. Jello couldn't get the injured mouse out of the pillow case, but I could.


Our next door neighbours laughed. They said the previous owners always had mouse problems, but they have never had any.


So we went to the hardware store and bought your basic mouse traps. I've used traps before and always found them effective. We bought 4, baited them with peanut butter, put them in the basement, and in the morning...


All the bait was gone. No mice captured.


So we tried again. Same result: bait gone. No trap sprung.


We went to the store and bought a different kind of snap trap. Now with 6 traps out... bait gone. No trap sprung.


We jammed nuts into the triggers. No luck. Nuts gone. No trap sprung.


In fact, for one of the conventional mouse traps, the mice had pushed it under a board so that it couldn't snap. The bait was gone, the trap was ready to spring - but the mice had prevented it. Smart mice, these.


We got glue traps. These are supposed to be pre-baited. We placed them beside the regular traps. In the morning, bait gone. No mouse in any trap. No evidence anyone came near the glue. Smart mice.


Last night, we decided to go the chemical route, putting out poison impregnated seed bait. It looks like some was taken.


The current score: mouse traps 0, mice 26 free meals. From this point onward, their free meals will be a lot more costly. 

The Best of the 2012 Hummingbirds (So Far)

This year, we have two kinds of hummingbirds, Rufous and Calliope. Our best guess is that we have (at least to this point) 3 male Rufous, 4 to 5 female Rufous, one male Calliope and at least 2 female Calliope.


The male rufous are the most dominant, defending our 3 feeders from 6 AM to 9 PM daily. Fights are common; one will come in and another will chase him away. You can hear their wings buzzing all the time. They also park in the trees next to the feeders, and they will sit for quite a while, dropping in for a feed from time to time. Typically, the birds aren't that active during the middle of the day. The girls are a lot quieter and generally only show up in the evenings. We see them -- boys and girls -- hunting for insects in the trees from time to time, too.


I've been working on taking as many photos of them as I can. Since I have posted none so far this year, I thought now was a good opportunity to put up some of the highlights from this year so far. In no particular order:

Rufous. Male.

Calliope. Male. Look carefully at the throat.

Calliope, male. Note the way the feathers sparkle purple in the light

Calliope, male, licking his lips

Calliope, female. They are very tiny

Coming in for a landing

Made it

Rufous. Female.

Karen set up her camera one day while we were sitting on the deck and took burst shots of the birds coming in to feed. She got some killer photos of the male Rufous hanging around.

Coming in... 

...hovering... 

...more hovering... 

...maneuvering for a landing... 

...still hanging out.

My buddy the Rufous

We have one very bold male who will hang out and feed patiently. We have a chicken male who will show up at the feeder, stick his nose in, stick his nose in another portion of the feeder, and never sit still.


Not a day goes by that I don't watch them, and when we come home, I look for them. Since I first saw them in Wyoming back in 2008, they have become my favourite birds.

Urban forestry

We didn't move to the mountains to cut grass. In my perfect world, I would have a front yard full of wildflowers over my septic field, and a forest in my back yard. And over time, this is what we will work on achieving.


The folks who came to look for my septic system demolished so much of my front yard that we decided to take advantage of it and start the transferal. Over the part of the lawn where the septic field is, we have to keep grass-ish kind of things, but were cleared to plant whatever we wanted in another section. To us, that means trees.


Step 1: Continue the wreckage


The first step was to advance the destruction caused by the backhoe. I rented a rototiller and over the space of 2 hrs, destroyed my shoulders, my wrists, my hands, and a good portion of the front lawn.

The tiller. The work.

This tiller was not really up to the job, pushed back into me when it hit a root or a rock, and made fumes that stank. But in the end, we got it done.


Step 2: Plant the stuff


We transplanted some baby trees from around our lot (including 3 small spruce and a scotch pine), plus picked up some bigger dudes (2 larch and a amur maple) and a couple of shrub/bushes (junipers and columbine) from the local garden centre, then covered it with mulch.

All planted. But we ran out of mulch

Step 3: Scatter the seeds


Turn up the soil and pretty much every seed in there -- from dandelions to thistles -- will germinate. So to beat them out, Karen scattered seeds. Lots of seeds. Eight packs of daisies and violets. And she only covered about half the space.


Step 4: Mount the sculpture


Finally, we took our giant, welded, junk metal sculptured hand (a very cool piece of art) and mounted it to the tree stump in the yard.

The hand stands

We have a lot that's one third of an acre in size. We have now got ~500 sq. ft landscaped. It's the small victories we have have to celebrate.

2 hikes, 7 bears, many pikas, one day

I reconnected with my friend Amy last week. You may recall me extolling her virtues (well, some of them) in an earlier post. She and her boyfriend Michael are spending their final summer in Banff, love to hike, but lack a vehicle. We love to hike but have a vehicle. So we offered to take them hiking with us.


I decided to start off fairly easily, with 2 shorter hikes in the north end of Banff Park (Bow Glacier Falls and Bow Summit Lookout), both of which I have done before and reported on (here, here and here). It did mean dragging them out of bed way too early (note to self: next time, a later pickup).


On our way up the Icefields Parkway, we saw our first bears of the day. First came a grizzly and a cub. Then came another grizzly. Then another grizzly. Each one came with a bear jam, and in one case, two tour busses pulled off to the side of the road. Fortunately, most folks were staying in their vehicles just watching and so all we saw were bears going about their business unperturbed in the roadside ditch, surrounded by cars -- somewhat like the last time I saw a bear up there.


We first stopped at Num-Ti-Jah Lodge for the Bow Glacier Falls hike. It was blue sky and still, making for very reflective photography.

Looking south along Crowfoot Mountain 

More reflections

Michael took a killer shot that is very difficult to tell the up from the down.

It is in fact upside down

They both enjoyed the raging creek in the slot canyon.

Amy & Michael

The falls were falling. The basin still has snow patches in it, though none are on the trail.

Lots of pouring water

From the point in the photo above, it's tough to make it to the base of the falls without getting your feet a little wet. There are several large waterfalls, and numerous streamlets to cross, some of which flow on the trail.


At the base of the falls, there was a hoary marmot basking in the sunshine...

Solar powered 

Nice front teeth

...and the ubiquitous golden mantled ground squirrels posing while begging.

Obviously fed. But not by me.

We also saw pikas, both closer to the lake near the start of the hike and up in the basin as well. I was really happy for this as I was hoping to show my favourite critter to Amy and Michael. However, I got no photos of them for two reasons: 1) they're too fast, and 2) around this point, my camera batteries died and I also found out my backups were dead too.


We were done at the falls far earlier than I expected, well before lunch. So we snacked, and then the crowds arrived. Up until that point, we were the only ones in the basin. But as we snacked at the foot of the falls, 6 people came into the basin. Then it was 8, then 10, then 12. On our way back to the parking lot, we ran across another marmot right on the trail, plus about 20 more people headed up to the falls.


We stopped for a picnic at Num-Ti-Jah, then drove the 10 min up the road to Bow Summit and the Peyto overlook. Where the crowds got really big, with the parking lot packed and several busses of Japanese tourists all milling around in their "Sunday go to meetin'" clothes (Why do the Japanese dress in suits and dresses to go out into the wilderness? High heels? Pantyhose? Suit jackets?). Fortunately, they go to Peyto Lake overlook then go home. We took the short walk up the fire road to the site of the former fire lookout. We had the hike to ourselves, 300 m from the busiest spot in the park.

My photo. Michael & Amy's camera

On our way up there, we saw two sets of wolverine tracks...

The slow walk tracks

...more marmots, including one running across a snowfield...

Way away, in the top centre

...and more pikas. This is another of Michael's photos.

My favourite dudes

On the way down, we stopped at an overlook for a good view of Peyto Lake...

That water colour is unreal

...and an opportunity for Michael to play mountain goat.

Looks more dangerous than it was

Michael and Amy seemed to like my selection of hikes.

Smiles at the end of a day

On our way home we saw 3 more bears. Michael got a photo of one (so did Karen but hers were blurry).

A moderately large grizzly

All three had bear jams, with over a dozen cars parked for the dude in the photo above. Thankfully, he was ~100 m off the road. The closest one to the road and people was a rather chubby looking black bear who was in the ditch, but his butt was almost on the road, and cars were parked within 30 ft. of him.


I don't often see a bear. Seeing 7 in one day was pretty cool. I was really surprised to see 7 bears in the space of just one 8 km section of highway. I was even more impressed that they were all just going about their business despite being the object of so many paparazzi.


It was also really cool hiking with my friends. Hopefully we can do it again soon. There are other places I would like to show them.


Current Trail Condition Report:


The current Banff Park trail report called the Bow Glacier Falls trail "Fair with muddy and wet sections" (it's been updated today to Fair with a bear warning. Surprise). No, it's actually in good shape. There's a spot near the end of the lake near the start where you have to cut through the forest on a rough path, but it is not muddy. As I mentioned, up in the upper basin near the falls, there is a lot of water that is all of 1" deep, all readily crossed using the bigger rocks to limit exposure. Amy and Michael hike in running shoes (or "trainers", as Amy calls them. She is, after all, British). Neither had problems.


Parks don't report conditions on the Bow Summit trail. The fire road is mostly still snow covered, but there are only 3 places where you have to walk on the snow, none very long. I did them easily without poles, but poles would help. There's a lot of water flowing out the basin area near the lookout, but it's easily crossed.