Thanks to Cicero, I think (Nov.22 2008) that this might be a Cladonia borealis.
Early in the morning we set of to check the rabbit snares. No luck again. When you've been following my blog, you know we set the last snares at the Birch tree forest.
Will be continued..
Here i am. Well it does take 5o min to get to that spot, so when we find lots of fresh rabbit trails in the forest, but no rabbit in the snare. They are laughing at us!
From that spot we take the compass and go cross country towards 'maria mountain'.
The forest is open and easy to get through. Amids the poplar are big burned trees from a fire long time ago, we use them to align ourselves. They are straight black stems, with here and there brown/orange colors showing.
Underneath the mountain is 'moose trail'. we follow it north, as to go straight up the mountain on this side, is too steep with the snow on it. At the end of 'moose trail', (well i am sure the Moose itself does continue). But we take a man made trail up the side hill and leave it when we are on the North side of the mountain. I have never climbed up it this way, and wonder how thick the forest will be. Ah yes there are Alders, they can halter one, but here they are not too thick. We weave our way up, using the compass again to go South, as we can't see the mountain from being in the forest. A beautiful forest it is ; scattered big Birch Trees, scattered Boulders.
And while scrambling up Jose finds the bright red lichen. According to the literature, the bellidiflora grows on decaying conifers, as we didn't check what it is growing on, i have to find it again and give it a closer look(what's new).
The views are beautiful, even on this cloudy day, the mountains appear and disappear and only straight up is a little bit of blue sky.
Close to the top, we encounter a rock face, we love it, but go around it to get on top.
Ah what revelation! to reach the top, even the sun decides to peak through the clouds. We build a fire on the rocky top and have lunch.
It is interesting with the changing cloud coverage, how it changes the color of the white snow.
When are toes are frozen (we are still in hiking boots opposed to winter boots).
we descend on the South face. At places sliding down on my bum, i like it this way, but should bring a pad as i do rip my pants today.
Back close to the forest, lower down, we follow a lynx trail(at least that's what i think it is) It goes exactly in the direction we want to go, sometimes it takes short cuts where we take the trail. In front of "moose skull lake' it goes straight to the lake. Jose wasn't to keen on crossing ice again , but the Lynx entices her.
Coming through the swamp is another wonderful story, I was never there this time of year, a frozen little creek meanders through it. When you look, it could be that the water level was once higher, and we find an 'island' which closely resembles the swans nest we found the day before. Abandoned as the water receded.
We cross the lake safely!
Close to home we reset the snares we brought back with us from earlier today.
And that's where i am off right now!
No comments:
Post a Comment