Northern Comandra

I have added on the right column here beside these posts, at the bottom, my berry blog.
But i want to post this berry here first. I love the name and i like it that it's a member of the Sandalwood family.
It is a very common berry here and edible, but i wouldn't recommend it. But heck we all have a different palate, although i have never come across someone eating it.

It is called Geocaulon lividum.
Geocaulon probably meaning something like stem from the earth.
Makes sense, that's how they look, they are individual stems with leaves, tiny quite lovely flowers and now berries.
But lividum means lead color or pale. hmmm that might refer to the flowers, because as you see it here, it is far from pale. In the winter the berry stayes on the stem and is more red. I need many more photos of all its different looks.
But then everyone in the Yukon knows it anyway, right?

So much for the walk i went on; The weather still hot, but very windy. I walk on sandals and only wearing a little sun-dress. I tell you that hardly ever happens.
My legs a little scratched and after finding blueberries, the mosquitoes find me.(ah that's why i mostly dress different.)
Right by these Comandras are Blueberries and Crow berries. Which both are very good to eat! Not my favorite blueberry though, and the crow berry, i always say; tastes like apple.

This is at Moose-skull lake and i decide to go swim. Not my favorite swimming hole :) The water a pleasant temperature, but i don't care for the mud, the water being so shallow, you can imagine.

Looking at the photo, it might remind you of fall, well i tell you, because of the heat and dry weather, it definitely starts to change color here, The fire weed that never came to bloom turning the forest floor, bright yellow and some bright red.

Nevertheless I LOVE THE HEAT.

Jacob's-ladder

Polemonium acutiflorum (July 27 in a mountain meadow)
Just wishing i was there laying in the cool grass, beside the stream.

Yezzz! It is hot, the high today I think 34 C (90+ F) So hot i didn't make any pictures. I actually did do a lot of other things, but nothing to exciting.

When going for a swim in my regular spot on the Takhini river, i hear some splashing beside me. Another human being, wow! It is Bruno from Switzerland. Quite the adventurist. I got his web-site and it turns out he has a very different photo of the King's Throne, where i was swimming yesterday. Have a look if you want.

http://www.brunoaugsburger.com

Well the linking doesn't work. But if you want to cool of a bit, go to his site and
go to white blood steps, 2nd photo.

Yeah, he was such a nice guy, having tried to climb one of my dream mountains, Arch mountain at the south end of Kusawa,(he didn't succeed, nobody yet did)
and the swimming and such. I didn't see him but he was swimming in Kusawa Lake when Tilly and i did, I'll try to link that. Not working, see June 2nd, more cooling off photos.

And following the link it doesn't show us swimming. I see why :)

And now i did put the web-site, i was talking about in the first place, at my 'delights', just click on Bruno.

Kathleen lake

Yesterday my birthday.(49)
And a day it was, a birthday my favorite way.
It was hot! 30 degrees C (almost 90 F) and i got to swim (Yukon plunge).
As you who know Kathleen Lake, right under the King's Throne, (you just see his seat, at the top edge of the photo.
(and i got 3 birthday cakes! and mail/email/phone calls, thanks!!!)

My lovely Virginia, takes me for a drive to Dalton Post, on the Haines road.
On the Alaska highway we drive towards the Kluane Range, who's mountains i saw yesterday from 90 km distance. Here in Haines Junction they tower right above the town.

The Haines road is lined all the way, with fields of Fireweed. And Dezadeash lake deep blue. The mountains gorgeous, higher and closer by. Somewhere we take a dirt road steep down into the valley.
To come out by the two rivers meeting. Virginia catches that fish that got away and i do lots of sketching.
And we enjoy the heat! on the way back we have to stop at Kathleen lake for a dip. The water close to the shore is relatively warm.

Thanks for another good one, blessed that i am now almost half way.:)

Moose

It is always a treat to see moose. They are hunted here, and they know. So i am not saying where i saw these two :) What i will say; they are way up high, above the treeline, probably at 4500 feet. In between two mountain peaks, at the head waters of a fairly big, unnamed creek.

I was standing on one peak, and as soon as mom spotted me, she moved towards the other mountain, higher yet. I think i am getting better at spotting them too, I think. Because i don't know how many i passed without seeing them. These two, as you see from the photo, quite far away from me. I saw them as spots, that didn't seem quite right, as being an attached part of the landscape, only with binoculars i see what they are.

Ahhhh, finally i spend a day up there again. On my own, which i do love, i can go exactly on my own speed, wander a little bit here or there, stop where ever i feel like it, etc.

I did see some other animals, a porcupine, that really i almost stepped on. It froze, i suppose doing so in order for me not to see it. It's house, high up the mountain in a kind of rock cave. The top of the mountain is an endless expanse of easy walking terrain, scraped smoothly by the glacier, covered with little plants. All of them in seed now. But then there is these holes of scrambled rock here and there. part of 'veins' that come down the mountain, water flowing often deep down, towards, a place like where the moose where. Sometimes the water backs up a little and creates a lovely green meadow. And that's where there are still flowers blooming. Purple larkspur, monkshood, tall jacobsladder, yellows of potentillas and buttercups, and some tiny saxifragas. And lots of wormwood, and here and there a snack for me; sorels, with beautiful red scapes.

The landscape is also scattered with big boulders. Also part of the work of the glacier., riding on top of the ice and left there when it all melted, loooong time ago.

It's a big world out there, very wide, for six hours i hiked around on top. It's not everybody's place, in a way it is very desolate. The views incredible, i saw several big lakes in the distance. And the edge of the St. Elias range, at least 120 km away.

It took me 3 hours to get up there and three hours to get back, with lots more good stories. For one the blueberries! Right at the treeline. The humongous spruce trees a little lower, with here and there pockets of flowers, the yellow arnicas for example. Happy to have some openings with big slaps of bedrock. And....then i descended yet again in the alders.(Mary what do call it again?) On the way up i had skipped them somehow.

The way i walk, i try to look for a line, and follow that, today looking at the sun (it was hot!) But i never quite know what i encounter. On the way back i ended up in tangled forest for at least 3 quarters of an hour. (a good lesson for life in general, because i don't despair, go slow and steady, and really it is beautiful, and quite varied.) After thinking (third time actually) that i should now come out by the meadow i aimed for, suddenly i see a big! familier Pine. Ahhh, good to see this old friend. And knowing that indeed i did stay right on course. Soon there's the meadow, another hour and i am at my bicycle!

June Shewan

IN LOVING MEMORY OFBorn June 16 1971 Whitehorse Yukon
Died July 10 2009 Winnipeg Manitoba

Hi there

go with the flow

If i don't have enough to do....
I am going to use my flickr account again.
The reason being i want to be more organized in this computer life of mine.

When i am out there, in the wilderness, i tell you there is never such issue.
All is what is is, Beautifully.

Even the rest of my life is OK, there is always more to do, but i feel i did the essentials and when i didn't do them yet, i will be doing them shortly.
It is only this computer life, where i feel it's beyond me. My storage space recently always flashing up as too full. Alexander says i need a real computer and high-speed Internet, but to me that is not the answer. Somehow i have to.....
hmmm do i start sounding like a control-freak?
I tell you, in the wilderness that is neither an issue. Maybe out there all i have to do is look after myself, really.
Anyway....i will put less photos here, put them instead on a flickr account i have.
I don't know if it makes sense to you, but it does to me.
To find my account: click on 'je zon' under 'delights' on the right hand side of this page.
For today i'll make a link here. je zon

today's happinesses