Low marine layer over town, gradually lifting through the day and breaking up a bit early in the evening before reforming again. Calm winds, temperatures in the 50s (but much warmer above the clouds).
There’s a high pressure ridge over the Gulf of Alaska which has resulted in an impressive marine layer stretching across the entire gull from Southeast to Kodiak.
Though uncertain last night, I felt more ambitious today after a night’s sleep and went up Bear Mountain with Connor.
We started out a little later than initially discussed, but were heading up the hill by 7:30
We were at least a couple hundred feet elevation up the hill when we came across a relatively fresh log with lots of wood dust on and around it. I saw holes from boring beetles, and a handful of the beetles responsible. There was also a weevil and another beetle that I didn’t recognize off the top of my head.
The log had clearly broken off, but as I looked for the remaining snag, I couldn’t see one.
This piqued my curiosity. I noticed what looked like a slide path and realized the log had had come from up the hill.
We tracked it back up and found where it had started. I’m not sure, but think it had come down at something like a couple hundred feet elevation.
Right below the source snag, was a spruce without damaged branches. This suggested to me the upper part of the tree fell, and was high enough to come down over the spruce. I suspect the top hit the ground, then broke part way, with the remainder (the middle portion of the tree) continuing over (basically a flip, with upper end now pointing uphill).
From there it careened down, caught the edge of a gully and then basically followed it down to its final resting place.
I wonder how fast it might have been travelling. I suspect frighteningly fast (if one had been there to see it), otherwise it would have hung up before running into the trees that stopped it.
Near the snag, we found smaller chunk of the tree with beetles, but the snag didn’t seem to have them. If it did, they certainly weren’t as obvious. This surprised me.
It was slow going up hill. I had a call, and Connor wasn’t feeling too spry. He had gone up Bear Mountain Saturday afternoon, and then played ultimate yesterday evening. He was also carrying my stuff, for a pack weight of over 40 pounds.
We made plenty of stops for observations – especially as we got further up.
We were in the clouds for at least couple of thousand feet. I suspect they were lifting as we walked through, which kept us in it longer.
A bit of snow was left in the forested sackung. With more further up, especially in open areas surrounded by trees. Under the trees, it was mostly gone.
We opted to follow trails up through finger of trees rather than cutting over to bowl (which still had much snow).
Instead of going over to the ridge line that goes up towards the summit as I always have previously, we went over and worked our way up the broad slope to the ridge line that parallels Silver Bay.
It was still early-ish spring up this high. We saw plenty of the earlier blooming flowers such as lupine. I didn’t notice any any narcissus anemones, which I often think of as alpine meadow plants. Perhaps this area was too dry.
A yellow draba was new for me. I’m pretty sure it’s Draba stenoloba, which hasn’t been reported for Baranof Island before.
At least a handful of Savannah Sparrows were singing. I think they prefer grassy areas. Much of the alpine here doesn’t have grass, but this slope on Bear Mountain does.
We finally came out of the clouds maybe 100-200 feet below the ridge line. Once in the sun, it felt much warmer.
When we got to the ridge line, it was noticeably cooler with wind coming off the snow on the other side.
I was happy to see a blue snow-melt pond. When people have asked me my favorite color, the color of these ponds is one that I mention.
I think the vole population must be reaching near a peak. The slope was riddled with vole works all the way up to and even along both sides of the ridge line. I couldn’t say whether they were also active under the snow on the north side, but they might have been. At the very least, there was a little latrine on small north-facing ledge above some runs right below the outcrop that had already melted out of the snow.
We also saw larger droppings that I suspect were mostly from goats. Goat and deer droppings look quite similar. I’m not sure it’s possible to distinguish them entirely by sight. In this case, there were enough that it implied the animals were hanging out, and this seems much more likely to be goat at this elevation.
We walked ridgeline towards the summit, without any intention of going that far. I poked around the outcrops and crevices, especially on the north (snowy) side of ridge line. I was interested in seeing what mosses or liverworts I might find.
Connor kept an eye out for Rock Ptarmigan, and spotted one on a rocky outcrop well below the summit.
He also saw a goat looking at us from summit ridge.
We could hear Gray-crowned Rosy-finches calling from further up the ridge. We were going to look for them, but Connor spotting a couple of Rock Ptarmigan at a more reachable location shifted our priorities.
We wore microspikes on the snow to get to other ridge. They turned out to helped a lot on the steep ground as well.
One of the Rock Ptarmigan kept was perched on a boulder. It kept an eye on me while I walked around it for better light.
Connor went after another that was further up the hill while I waited. He ultimately decided there wasn’t a good vantage point.
While checking it out, Connor spooked a deer. I got a brief look of bounding straight down the steep hill. Connor said it almost face planted at least once. It was impressive how much ground it could cover on such steep terrain.
While waiting for him, I flushed a pipit. I suspect it might have been on a nest, but I lost track of where it had flown up from, so wasn’t really able to sit and watch.
On the way down, I tried boot skiing. It’s been quite some years since I was up in the mountains early enough for it to be an option. I was initially hesitant, but then remembered why it was my preferred way to get down the hill.
It probably would have taken us the better part of an hour to walk back to where we would go back into the woods. Instead, we took around 20 minutes. It was also much easier on my legs.
Boot skiing down we entered back into the clouds. It immediately felt distinctly cooler.
Along the way we saw some deer tracks that Connor thought were from an animal we heard below us in the clouds while we were on our way up. After seeing the deer bound down the hill, and seeing these tracks, Connor decided it had been a deer. Earlier he hadn’t been sure.
We kept our microspikes on for hike down. It was much easier on the steep parts which allowed for much faster pace through woods. I ended up taking mine off when we were about half way down, though Connor wore his back down to the road.
We made it from tree line down in about an hour and a half.
We stopped back at the log with the boring beetles on the way down. I had had challenges catching beetles, but finally managed to get a couple this time.
I have ~3500 photos from the day. They’re mostly focus stack sequences which will require some processing. Unfortunately, my harddrive is full, so that’s complicating things for the moment.
I also have many collections, but was too tired and worked on photos instead, so I will need to start going through them tomorrow.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
