Yesterday i finally did a big outing again. An adventure of kind, pioneering a route to a no name lake. We called it Wildside Lake, we got there following Sunset ridge, and climbing over Happy hill. Ahh we forgot to name the lovely creek.
I left the house at 8.30 am, at daybreak. My friend had the canoe already packed, and i am sure by 9 o'clock we were in the water. Takhini river. from Mendenhall landing we paddled upstream. The river high, but hugging the western shore we made good progress, a few kilometers in we ferried across and pulled the canoe on shore. My friend had explored this route before, but had not made it as far as the lake.
The dark spruce forest , mossy floor is open enough to hike through, we come out by the creek on the south side, and see there is a big high clay bank typical of the landscape here, on the northwest side of the creek. It doesn't look like it is very long. But we do decide to climb up it, to walk on top of ridge is always easier then navigating close to a wild creek. It was a good choice and on the way back we named it sunset hill, as we made it back on it just in time for sunset, probably around 6 pm.
to be continued
Sunset ridge slowly turns into forest floor. In this spruce forest we had started seeing some pine trees, Pinus latifolia, and later some giant aspen (Populus tremuloides) . we follow the animal trail that came from the ridge. Suddenly we start seeing a lot of fallen trees we have to climb over, mostly poplars (the aspen) Big trees, and as we come closer to the creek, we will see they have been fallen by beaver, a little beaver dam but these beaver certainly use big trees for their winter food supply.
We follow the beaver ponds in the creek, but as we have to cross the creek again eventually, we use an opportunity when one presents it self, where the creek is nice and deep but not very wide.
( Are beaver ponds 'in' a creek, it does not seem the right preposition. ??)
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