Friday, January 13, 2012

Back to the Dempster 2011 – Part 10

This would be the 23rd day of August.  We woke up to rain, but it stopped shortly after getting up.  We had decided that now we were here, we would just stay put for the day and enjoy – by the way, this time of year we encountered no bugs of any sort.

in the morning 

I mean who wouldn’t want to just soak in scenery like this!

The Dempster highway in the distance

there is a very easy trail that winds around in the area behind the campground and that is where I headed – that is the Dempster Highway there, cutting across the landscape..

Mountain Harebell

One of the first finds was this Mountain Harebell.  I’d only ever seen these little flowers once, years before, when we hiked up into the alpine meadows at Mt. Edith Cavell in Jasper National Park.

Size demonstration

The pen is for size comparison.

Mushrooms, lichen, and foliage

and there is the usual tapestry of plant life on the ground…a couple of types of fungi, lichen, bog cranberry, Bear Berry, Crow Berry and on and on its goes…

more detailed look

Here is a close up of Crowberry….you can see where it got it’s name…the berries are black as crows..

Pink Twin Flowers

a branch of the trail goes along side the Klondike River…it is more forested here…there were Twin Flowers still in flower – these are a spring flower down home.

Gem-studded Puffball

These are ‘Gem-studded Puffballs’ – I think the ones back at Kiniskan might have been the same type since my book says they turn brown with age.

Bear Berry with berry

Bear Berry – complete with ‘berry’

The new visitors center

We wandered over to the new Visitor’s Center…we’ll explore this completely ‘off the grid’ and very green building more on our return…

North Klondike River

In the afternoon Ernie went on an interpretive walk with one of the park rangers …there are walks daily at Tombstone, also all sorts of other activities..  This is the Klondike River

an old hitch in the bush

think Ernie was most impressed with this old hitch that was laying in the bush…a relic of by gone days.

Song Sparrow - Aleutian variety

While Ernie was on his walk I amused myself with looking for birds…here a Song Sparrow – this is the Aleutian variety..

Song Sparrow - Aleutian

there is another look..

Juvenile White Crowned Sparrow

lots of White Crowned Sparrows – this one a juvenile..

Wilson's Warbler

Warblers, including Wilson’s

Orange crowned Warbler

and Orange Crowned…also Yellow-rumps but didn’t get a picture worth keeping of them..

Shantz in the bushes 

Shantz had been left behind too so pouted under the bushes…

Fireweed with bees

Bees were busy in the Fireweed

Relaxing

back from the walk…

relaxing in the campsite

we made April come out for a while too…

Canon part 1 367

While Ernie took Shantz for her evening walk, I did the dishes.  This pot was a bit much so I put it out for Shantz to do a prelim clean up….she never got a chance….the Gray Jays descended

Now there are two

there was nothing left by the time Shantz got back…

Evening

and thus ended another day in paradise. 

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