I wake up a little later and hear rain hitting my tent. :(
At 5:30, I'm laying in my tent watching the raindrops run down the rain cover on my tent.
I can't tell when people are up so about 7:30, I decide to venture out and find everyone (but me) is in the kitchen - oops!
Around 9:30 we take off in a light drizzle. It's a little foggy at the lower levels but at the higher levels well, I can't see the mountains. The plan is to reach the orange hill to the east and the one to the west. Basically a loop from orange hill, around the back of camp to the other orange hills and back to camp.
We start out heading east down toward the smaller orange hill.
As we head towards the hill, there is a herd of caribou in the way.
We slowly approach and as they notice us, they start to move and we stop. I sit on the ground to watch. I'm expecting them to run - like the ones last night - but something really cool happens. Even with a light wind blowing our scent in their direction, they start slowly approaching us. Just trying to figure out what we around; very curious.
They get pretty close before they move off to the south, thru the trees,
across the creek, and over to the ridge.
Fantastic!!! (One of many herds of caribou today.)
Continuing on, I see this cool fuzzy plant (Wooly Lousewort). The "wool" helps insulate the plant from the cold weather/wind prior to bloom. Cool adaptation!
In about 3/4 mile, we reach that red hill and climb to the top. It's mostly red clay/dirt with small rocks. Very interesting but why is it red - is it iron??? Why did it even form?
There are some new flowers on this red hill - tiny alpine-sized Forget-me-knots.
We then head south toward a tower of rocks.
Then is west behind our camp towards the other red hills. Of course, we have to cross the creek (easy enough) and there's a bit of snow to go over as well. But the good thing is that the fog is starting to clear.
We climb to the top of the first red hill.
There's caribou over there!
And then we head up the next red peak which is even higher - pretty awesome!
Crossing the ridge, we get buzzed by a Jaeger protecting his/her nearby nest.
That's the end of my day as I head back to camp.
Later in the day, I go to investigate this bird behind camp (by the river). He gets very upset when anyone goes back there and gets too close to what has to be a nest.
I don't have to go far and I see him perched on a branch. It's a Shrike. (He's a predator.) Since I've heard stories of it puffing up when calling, I have to satisfy my curiosity and get a bit closer. Sure enough, the alarm calls start, his feathers puff, and his tail feathers flare in and out. Pretty cool! But I've bothered him enough, time to move on.
We got a ground squirrel running around camp tonight for the first time.
After supper, we all take off for a hike east down the north ridge (last night we went west on the same ridge). It's still cloudy but warming. And the good news, the sun is trying to come out.
We meet our local American Golden Plover again.
From the ridge, we are seeing lots of caribou especially down in the valley on the other side. We continue east up a scree hill and watch continuing to watch the caribou.
From there, a couple of folks continue up some rounded hills, the rest of us head back to camp. Unfortunately, we head through a tussock. Very hard walking over those mounds. But once we make it back to that red hill from this morning, it's easy walking back to camp.
Awesome day!!
