Chattermarks

“We need someone to plan the second portion of our three part Instructor Exchange with the graduate students and teaching apprentices from IslandWood and Wilderness Awareness School immediately after winter break.”

 Um, okay.

In less than two months, three novice event planners would host a group of 60 environmental educators at their secluded home in the mountains. What now? Dreams and plans, of course!

This meeting of the minds happened January 14th - 16th at the Environmental Learning Center tucked up in the splendor of the North Cascades National Park. We are lucky to have a landscape here along Diablo Lake that is quite beautiful and unique – our own special place we call home and love to share with others. This was the driving undercurrent behind what we hoped our weekend would be together.

Some friends from IslandWood and Wilderness Awareness School exchange exclamations during a breakout session. Photo by Jess Newley.

» Continue reading A Snowy Exchange with Environmental Educators

During my winter break back in the Midwest, I decided to visit a family place near a lake in northern Michigan for a few days for some “nature time.”  As much as I love seeing family and friends in the Chicago area, after a few days I start craving the abundant nature I have been spoiled by in the NorthCascades.  Fortunately, there is such a place that I grew up visiting every year, and only six hours away.

I arrived in northern Michigan late afternoon to a world coated by an inch of fluffy snow, which created a lovely winter wonderland.  My first step upon arrival is to always visit the lake to say hello and pay my respects.  The lake was not yet frozen, though there was a slushy ice ring around the shoreline, tinkling like little bells.  I took a short walk down the path along the lake and came across some tracks in the snow.  It was still lightly snowing, yet the tracks were distinct, so I knew they had to be relatively fresh.  As I bent down to examine them, I could not believe it—they were clearly bobcat tracks.  I had never seen bobcat tracks (or the real thing) here before, though perhaps I had not known what to look for in the past.

Back home at the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center, I had gone on a few tracking hikes in early December and had been ecstatic to find bobcat tracks several times.  However, even though this house in Michigan is in a semi-rural area, I did not expect to find tracks here.  There are certainly plenty of deer, some turkeys, a very occasional bald eagle, and a few beaver that make their home in these woods. But I had never thought of the fauna to include bobcats, which I have always wanted to see.

» Continue reading Tracking Bob

When I awoke the other morning to see a forest of snow-covered trees, I felt just as excited when I made the same discovery as a child in the winter season. A fresh layer of snow had fallen overnight, changing the already beautiful landscape of the North Cascades Environmental Learning Center into a wintery scene. It appeared to have only snowed an inch or two at the lower elevation, but I was just as happy as if it had snowed more.

The snow always lifts my spirits and I am compelled to get outside and play in the white stuff. Coincidentally, my fellow graduate students and I had previously arranged to spend the morning searching for animal signs and exploring our backyard near the Learning Center together before we departed for Thanksgiving break. With newly fallen snow, we were not sure if we would find many obvious signs of activity from our wildlife neighbors. We were fortunately proven wrong, and surprised at what we found.

» Continue reading Exploring Winter’s Arrival

North Cascades Highway is nearly open. The snowmobiles are put away, the traps are closed for the season and the wolverine crew has moved on to other endeavors. A few camera stations wait to be collected—hopefully holding a few late-season wolverine pictures on the memory cards. Yet there is one last aspect of the 2010 season that we all wait on.

Somewhere on a shelf in the office are vials with dates and GPS coordinates carefully recorded. Inside is blue desiccant and wolverine hair. In a drying box outside the office door is a collection of wolverine scat. This is the culmination of yet another aspect of the wolverine study in the North Cascades—following wolverine tracks to collect hair and scat.

To this end, members of the crew took several trips into the backcountry in search of the elusive wolverine. Multi-night trips. Backcountry skis and sunblock. Other people do this sort of thing for fun, but this was for science. Someone had to do it, right? In our defense, it is a bit of work. Heavy packs and cold nights. And a lot of GPS work. Everything had to be recorded—the exact route followed, any tracks encountered, and a plethora of details of weather and snow conditions. Not your usual backcountry trip in search of slopes of deep powder. A scientific expedition in search of wolverine tracks. But hopefully a few good turns in the process.

(Title) In search of wolverine tracks on the east side of the Pasayten Wilderness (Above) Brandon and Adam begin their search on the way to Sawtooth Crest

» Continue reading The magic of wolverine tracking

Puma, Mountain Lion, Cougar…..regardless of nomenclature this incredible animal is synonymous with elusive. Many could spend a lifetime in cougar habitat and never glimpse even a sign of its presence. So after my initial sighting of tracks earlier this year, following our first big snows of the season, I knew how fortunate I was to live in this amazing, wild place. Since that time I have had the privilege of tracking this animal on numerous occasions, noting that the cougar seems to travel in similar areas and patterns.

With the coming of spring, the snow around the Learning Center has changed into all forms of slush, perfect for tracking.  My most recent snowy adventure led to a fun and notable discovery, two sets of tracks heading in the same direction and at the same time. Has the spring brought about a mate for our solitary feline? Only time will tell.  And don’t worry, I’ll do my part and monitor our cougar neighbor as long as I can.

Winter may be time for hibernation, but spring is fast approaching, ready or not! Our field excursions have been hitting the trails the past few weekends and watching the signs and cycles of of change. Last weekend the Nooksack Snowshoe excursion went to the riverbed again. No hoar crystals anymore, but there was plenty to see. We checked out elk tracks, followed a female coyote preparing for pups and traced a set a of striped skunk tracks directly to the source! (“Whoa, everybody take a step back, there she is!”)

» Continue reading Gettin’ out on the flats…

I’ve recently taken up a new hobby, I like to call it twig tracking.
I started twig tracking to feel more connected, to feel at home in all seasons. Twig tracking is just a fancy name for native plant identification through the cold winter months. It sounds a lot more exciting if you call it twig tracking.

» Continue reading Twig tracking

The recent temperature inversion set has had a noticeable effect in the cities, with cold freezing fog, but up in the mountains that same phenomena has been creating sunny skies and melt-freeze sun crusts on the snow. On Saturday morning we headed up the North Fork of the Nooksack River to check out what kinds of goings-on happen in the winter. It was pretty cold, and the snow was very crusty.

An elk track in the crust on the riverbed

» Continue reading Tracking through crystals