June 2015: Pete and Re-Peat. Animal watching at Camas Wildlife Management Area (Again)

This may be the lark I was talking about

I work in the theatre.  I do set design, lighting design and sometimes costume design,  Usually not all at once.  Currently I am designing lights for CATS so I don't have a lot of time for getting out and doing a lot of outdoorsy stuff.  But last Thursday I had a short break because it was a tech rehearsal for sound only and my stuff wasn't being looked at and I couldn't be in the theatre working whilst they were doing their stuff.  So I had about four hours to myself that I wasn't expecting.

I came home and announced to the Hot Chick that I was home for the evening but had to go back at about eleven pm for focusing and that I wanted to go out and do something with her.  She hadn't been expecting to see me for days (because that's the way technical theatre is) so she had already made plans.  I asked my boys if they wanted to do something, but they had already made plans too.  They know the drill when I'm working on a show.

So, on a lark, I decided to drive out to Camas Wildlife Management Area by myself and hang out with those friends.  I had already been to Camas WMA three times this season, but I believe that if a thing is worth doing it is worth overdoing.  I headed out to Hamer, Idaho which is where the Camas WMA is located.  It's about twenty minutes to the WMA from my home.  When I got to Camas, I turned the radio in my car off so as not to frighten the birds and I entered my own private Idaho.  From the time I entered Camas til the time I left, I didn't see another human being besides myself.

Camas WMA is a drive through wetlands.  I am not sure if they are natural wetlands or if they have been engineered.  If they are natural wetlands, there has been a little engineering done to them.  The road is on a dike between ponds and steppe.  At one time this was a ranch though.  That much I know.  It is possible that the ponds were put in a hundred years ago for watering livestock.  I have seen that at other WMA's.  Sand Creek WMA is a former ranch with ponds created for livestock a hundred years ago, for example.

If you follow the designated route at Camas, you get steppe on the right side of the car and wetlands on the left.  Basically that means you get waterfowl on the left and raptors on the right.  There's probably a political metaphor there, but I don't wish to explore that right now.

First animal I saw

Showy Milkweed lined the canal banks in the first section of the WMA

The first section of the drive was pretty uneventful.  It was pleasant but nothing really spectacular.  There were water birds on the ponds but they were far away and I don't have a big enough lens to get good shots of them.  Over the steppe there were lots of raptors flying.  Mostly hawks but I think I saw a peregrine falcon dart overhead.  Once again, I didn't have a big enough lens to get good shots of them.  I have a friend at the library who says when you see something you can't photograph you have to take a heart shot of it.  So I did that.

I did see three raptors fighting mid-air over a mouse, though.  That was cool.  I took some pics but the birds were too far away and my 250mm zoom was too small to capture them.  Don't get me wrong, I love my 250mm zoom lens.  It's awesome and I use it all the time.  Great lens.  To get some of the shots I wanted at Camas last Thursday, though I would have needed a 400mm or a 600mm lens.  At that point, though, I have to decide if I'm becoming a professional photographer or if I am content to stay an amateur photographer.  Professional photography sounds like a job to me.  Not sure if I want another one of those.  I like the one I've got.

Raptor in flight

The first big pond.  One of these days I'll learn the names of the ponds.  That would probably help

Coot

Don't remember what kind of duck or other waterbird this is

Raptors fighting over a kill.  This illustrates the limitations of my 250mm lens.  It's a cool shot, but I had to crop it a great deal to get this image

Third bird coming in for the prey

Pretty cool shot nevertheless

Then it started to get more interesting.  I rounded the bend and came across a couple of sandhill cranes.  I think cranes are elegant birds and I love to watch them.  Then I saw a porcupine right at the side of the road.  I hung out with him for awhile.  I put the zoom right at 250mm and got as close as I could without scaring him (or her as the case might have been, didn't get close enough to find out) and snapped a lot of pictures.  After awhile he became aware of me and I left.  I want to view the animals, I don't want to scare them.

Then came owl time.  I've always liked owls but hadn't seen very many of them in my life until I started hanging out at WMA's.  Turns out if you want to see owls you have to go to where they are.  They are mesmerizing.

At the last major pond, I saw black-necked stilts, which I had never seen before.  They were really interesting.  I think they fall under the category of wading birds.  They have black and white plumage with long, pink legs.  Great color combo for a designer.

On the way out of the WMA I saw a couple of whitetail deer and a great blue heron in the distance.  Still waiting for the iconic great blue heron picture.  I'll have to be satisfied with distance shots for awhile longer.

Sandhill cranes doing

what sandhill cranes do

The porcupine, trying to make a living

Minding his own business

At one point he shook himself out.  I wonder if he was getting his quills ready.  Dunno

Doing his thing

I think he became aware of me here

So I left and he left.  They can move quite fast

And he hid with his tail hanging out of the culvert.  I didn't stick around for any more shots of him.  I think I had worn out my welcome at this point.

Owl in flight

again

stop being so cool!

I liked the sun glowing through the feathers

here too

Just landed

Wait, more pictures of owls flying?

Enough already

Getting ridiculous

At last, an owl doing something else

Owls blink.  Didn't know that before this year

This guy was very patient.  Let me take a whole bunch of pictures without flying off

He did keep track of me though.

Black-necked stilts

Black-necked stilts

Black-necked stilts

Deer

Another one

Elegant movement

Great blue heron

As I drove home, I thought, "I'm alone, there are some dirt roads out here in the desert I haven't been on yet..."  You get the drill.

I found some really cool roads out in the lava flows.  Some of them weren't bad...  I didn't take a lot of photos out there because I was too busy navigating and making sure I could get out.  It was starting to get dark.  They are roads I will go on again.  Lots of places I want to see.  I'll walk out into the brush sometime to explore, but I'll make sure to have a rattlesnake stick with me.  Just saying.

There was a road the Hot Chick and I saw at Deer Park when we went out there during monsoon season and I wanted to see where it went.  We drove a quarter of a mile down it and saw a mini-van stuck up to it's axles in the mud.  We turned around and left.  Last Thursday I thought, "I'll bet that mud puddle has dried up..."

So I took that road.  So you know, it is not a road I'll take the Hot Chick on.  I liked it a lot, but she would not.  It would have been a lot better if I had been driving a Baja Bug or a sand rail instead of a mini-van.  That road was up and down with deep, extinct rivulets from monsoon season that I had to navigate around.  Big lava rocks in the road I had to go around or get out and move.  High points, low points, banked turns.  Baja Bug territory.  It was getting late and starting to get dark and I probably drove faster on this road than I should have.  Doesn't mean I wasn't having a very good time though.  I was.

I got out to the river and couldn't find the bridge out.  As I looked, I drove over an area that was loose pea gravel and I started to sink down to the axles in the mini-van.  I romped on the gas and drove out, so no harm, no foul.  As I drove out of that area, I could tell where the highway was, so at every junction in the road, I veered left toward the main road.  That's kind of how the roads go out in the desert.  They all end up somewhere.  Just point yourself in that direction and go.  I also stayed on roads that were more established and better traveled.

As I was trying to navigate through the gravel and through the lava rock steppe, I realized I hadn't turned the radio back on after I left Camas.  I did so and the first song I heard was Alice Cooper's, "Hey Stoopid!"  Fitting  'nuff said.

Golden hour light on the lava rock formation

I'll hike in here with a rattlesnake stick someday

This is why I live in Idaho!

In case you were wondering

June 2014: Glacier National Park Trip (Part II)

What the morning of the third day looked like from our campsite

(Continued from previous post)

Day 3:  Glacier National Park
This trip was bittersweet for me for many reasons.  One reason was that my second son had to work and was not able to be with us so I thought about him the whole time.  It was bitter because he wasn't able to be with us but sweet because he is taking his responsibility as a man seriously.  Another reason was that my oldest son had been gone for two years serving a mission for our church and had recently returned.  This trip was for him.  He had been gone for two years, then he was home for three weeks and now he is gone again to Philadelphia to work until school starts in the fall.  Parents can't keep them little forever.  There's a little pride in watching them grow up well but a little sadness too when they don't need you so much anymore.  Another reason was that my oldest daughter, her husband and their four boys couldn't be with us either.  On day two, I knew I might be in trouble as one of my bottom teeth started hurting.  By day three it was in full blown abscess.  Every thing of beauty I saw on that day was balanced by the pain of the tooth.  I alternated ibuprofen and acetaminophen throughout the day to try to dull the pain and I was able to function in that way. Like I said, bittersweet.

Day 3:  First Light
On day 2 we arrived late and found an open campsite in the Fish Creek Campground and camped.  When we awoke in the morning we discovered our campsite had been reserved for the next evening so we had to move.  We spent the morning locating a new campsite, moving, showering and getting ready for Glacier National Park.  It probably looked weird to the other campers to see a tent still set up, moving through the campground.  Each of us grabbed a corner and a pole and we moved the tent.  It was better than striking it and pitching it again.

After we had done all that, I took my daughter into West Glacier, just outside the park boundary for ice, wood and some tooth numbing agent.  On the way back to camp we saw some young bucks at the side of the road.  I think they were whitetail deer.  The younger boys decided climbing trees was the thing to do.  I guess that's what boys do.  I did.

First campsite in Fish Creek Campground

This creek was down an embankment behind our tent.  We missed the sound of running water in the next site.

Beargrass.  One of the most common wildflowers I saw in Glacier.

Heavy bark

A scab on a tree

This may be one of the many varieties of paintbrush in the west

And it's brothers

One buck

Two bucks

My son in a tree

and the other one in a tree

Colors and textures of nature

Day 3:  First Leg  All things McDonald
We camped at Fish Creek, which is a tributary to Lake McDonald, the first big lake you see in the park from the west entrance.  For the first part of the day we drove along the "Going to the Sun Road" which is a very famous road in Glacier National Park.  The first part of the road skirts along Lake McDonald and at the northeast end there is Lake McDonald Lodge.  The lodge is in a Swiss chalet style.  After that we hiked to McDonald Falls.  We saw several angles of the falls from both sides of the river.  I said river because that's what it looked like.  The real name is McDonald Creek.  We followed McDonald Creek to Avalanche Junction.

Lake McDonald
Lake McDonald is a glacial lake and the largest lake in Glacier National Park.  It is roughly ten miles long by one mile wide and 476 feet deep.  Since it is a glacial lake, I assume it is pretty cold.  All the water running into it was kind of green, but not a sickly green, more of an "I'm really cold" green.

Lake McDonald

Colorful pebbles that Lake McDonald is known for

More of Lake McDonald

Wild rose along the shores of Lake McDonald

Lake McDonald Lodge
Lake McDonald Lodge was built in 1913 in a time when railroaders were building destination resorts in scenic areas to attract rail customers.  There was no railroad here in Glacier but guests were transported to the site by steamboat from the Apgar Village.  I dunno, that sounds cooler to me than the railroad.  After the Going to the Sun Road was completed, guests started arriving at the lodge from the rear.  Now the old back door is the front door.  Still looks like a back door though.

It was done up in a Swiss Chalet style and has a rustic interior.  Charles M. Russell was a frequent visitor and left some permanent artwork which was destroyed in a flash flood in the sixties.  The interior is quite rustic and seems to be a little brother to the Old Faithful Inn.  The inn at Old Faithful is massive though and this one is small and quaint.

This is the view over the hotel

This guy was the sentry.  Keeping track of us the whole time

This guy didn't pay us any attention

Lake McDonald Lodge, back of the building, facing the street

Totem pole outside the lodge, even though the tribes in this area didn't make
totem poles

Interior of the lodge

Original rustic furniture

Golden eagle mount

Fireplace

My son in the lodge

Bighorn Sheep mount

Really cool, really old topographic map of the park.  Might be made of plaster

Stair detail

Exterior, walkway and stairs to the lake

Front of the building, facing the lake

Bridge over troubled waters

The fam

I like the light fixture.  That's an old pay phone

I believe this is a cinquefoil

A mountain from the parking lot at McDonald Lake Lodge

McDonald Falls Trail
As I said in the previous post, I'm a journey guy as much as I am a destination guy.  The trail to McDonald Falls was very pretty.  It was an easy hike, mostly level.  There were several people or groups of people that we encountered along the way but it was by no means a crowded hike.  From the parking lot to the falls may have been a mile, maybe less.  We made the whole loop, though so it ended up being up to two miles.  Pretty hike through shaded woods.  I commented to the Hot Chick (she's from Seattle) that it kind of felt like a rainforest.  In fact the whole time we were in Glacier it felt like a rainforest.  I'll try to keep the images to a minimum, though because there is a cooler hike coming.

Trailhead to McDonald Falls

Even the fungus is cool here

Like I said...

This boulder was left behind by the glacier that carved this valley

My boys on the glacial boulder

Alpine forget-me-nots.  One of the most common wildflowers I saw in Glacier.  I believe it was a bit early for wildflower watching.

The moss on the ground made the Hot Chick homesick for the Pacific Northwest

Starflower, I believe

Don't know this one

Another glacier boulder covered with moss

Solitude

Penstemon

One of the mountains on the other side of the river

Evidence that I was actually on this trip

Glacial carved mountains

The brink of McDonald Falls

My son wanted a picture of the trees growing from the rocks

McDonald Falls from the other side.

The road along McDonald Creek/river
The road continued along this river until we reached Avalanche Creek.  That was where the road was open to.  Beyond that it was closed.  All along the road there were places to turn off and look at river features. Mini-waterfalls and rapids  We stopped at several.  One of them had a footbridge across the river.  There were places where the glaciers had worn the ground down to the bedrock.  It was like a really cool geology textbook opened to the chapter on glaciers.  Everything I had ever studied was there and made absolute sense.

Waterfall along the road

Glacial scoured bedrock

More exposed bedrock

Another water feature

Moss on the bedrock

My son at the bridge

Wild white roses at yet another waterfall

There were areas like this everywhere.  I thought there were a lot of waterfalls in Yellowstone.  I was wrong.

The power of the water was thunderous

Beautiful waterfall.  The water is so green/blue

Closeup

I had thought I could finish this trip on one more blog post.  Turns out I was wrong.  This is not the stunning conclusion of our Glacier Trip.  That will be in part III