Back to the Dempster 2011 – Part 14 a

This would be one of the better days of our trip…but before we start on it, I’m just going to pop back to the day before….it seems when I was organizing photos…I didn’t do a very good job and I want to show a few things I missed…

We’ll start with this one back at the Arctic Circle…just because…

Then I want to show this…this is the Blackstone River and Elephant Rock is in this picture…you can see how easy it is to miss!

now we have zoomed in on the rock formation (this was 20x optical zoom)

and for an even closer look…Ernie was using a Nikon with a 36x optical zoom…

This is another of Ernie’s pictures…  So, back to the day at hand…we woke up and got ready to leave.  Just as we were about to pull out, a pick up truck pulled in and parked right across our campsite drive…we wondered what on earth was going on – had a slight guilt as we hadn’t paid either night we’d stayed at Engineer Creek Campground, and neither had anyone else, because there were no self register envelopes left…but no, the person asked us which way we were headed and when we said, ‘back to Tombstone’ she said that there were a Grizzly sow and cub feeding right at the side of the road just down from the campground, the way we were headed.  We thanked her for the heads up ….

and sure enough…there they were..mom on the left…  Since you don’t get to be this close to Grizzly’s very often…the rest of this post is going to be pictures of these two…

here is a closer picture of the cub…these are taken from inside the truck…

Mom moved off here and this demonstrates how they just blend in with the habitat…

Really, would you know she was there if you hadn’t watched her walk there?

the cub continued to feed quite close to the truck…

Mom settled up on the hillside and proceeded to have a good scratch..

the cub is now getting a little too close!

Mom is keeping a very close eye on the situation….and these things, for all their size, can move very fast…

Mom decides that enough is enough and she starts up the hillside…

and junior decides he better follow mom.  This made for a great start to the day…which we’ll continue next post…

Back to the Dempster 2011 – Part 13

Today would be the day we would travel as far north as we intended to go this trip…

We got up to sunshine….and Shantz alerted us to what Ernie is photographing…

a Grizzly bear out on the tundra beside where we were camped….how close had it been to us?  Not sure i want to know!

there was one other sign of life before we left – a young White Crowned Sparrow…

We got packed up and pulled out and headed north…hadn’t gone very far when another Grizzly was spotted up on the hillside….

We are now heading towards the Richardson Mountains…

Pulled over at the side of the road…we’d seen lots of birds flying up out of the tundra in this area…

a Richardson, or Arctic Ground Squirrel co-operated for a picture….

alas the birds did not….obviously they were grouping ready to migrate and were very ‘spooky’.  The scenery stayed still – very ‘golden’ and very different looking than in the spring or early summer.

further along we pulled into another large parking area where another ground squirrel was even more co-operative.

Won’t hurt to throw in another picture – this particular type of ground squirrel is only found in these northern climes.

and here is another look at the golden and red tundra…

Finally one of those elusive birds – an American Pipit I think….I really don’t know what else was there

and now the Yukon/N.W.T. border – this would be our turn around point this trip.  After coming all this way we probably should have continued on but the dog was still having eye issues….

at this point there were numbers of persons out picking berries.  The entire First Nations people from Fort McPherson had taken the day off to pick cloud berries.  The women were picking and the men were patrolling with rifles….the reason – Grizzlies…like I’ve said many times, Grizzlies can appear out of now where on the tundra.  Also, Caribou had started moving through this area and the grizzlies follow the caribou.

So at 11:30 am on August 25 (gee 5 months exactly from today), we turned around and started the long trek back towards home.  This is Wright Pass….just opposite the parking area at the border…

there is the highway….

that hill out on the tundra is a ‘Pingo’ a structure formed by ice heaving up…

We hadn’t gone very far when movement on the tundra caught my eye – a Wolf!  It was far off and moving quickly but did manage to get a picture of it…only the second time I’ve ever seen a wolf in the wild and the first time up here along the Dempster.

and now, back at the Arctic Circle….we’ll be back – one way or another!

a few more shots are called for….

August 25, 2011 at the Arctic Circle.

and now back at Ogilvie Ridge…we’ll be down there in those mountains soon…

and into the Ogilvie's – notice the aspens have changed colour in just the last day…

a stop at the Blackstone River….

and there, notice the rock formation – we missed this our first trip, and on our trip north – if it hadn’t been for having lunch at Eagle Plains with our 14 time visitors from California…we might never have noticed ‘Elephant’ or as I prefer “mammoth’ rock….

some of the other rock formations along the highway are harder to miss…

a different perspective….

ended the day back at Engineer’s Creek Territorial Campground….oh yuck!  We have to get in that?

Now, even though we have started back, there is still a very long way to go…with lots left to see…tomorrow we’ll be traveling back to Tombstone….

Back to the Dempster 2011 – Part 12b

In real time it is such a miserable cold, wet day that escaping back to the tundra is welcome!

We left the Arctic circle and continued on, heading to a spot where we had stayed on our previous trip.  This is the view from the camping spot which is really just the remains of a gravel pit, it is well off the highway but with the highway visible so you don’t feel completely isolated.

set up now and enjoying the view…there is the Dempster in the distance…

In the evening Ernie walked along the highway and took this shot looking back at the camping site – I would never attempt this as we’d seen first hand, the previous trip, how a Grizzly Bear can just appear out of no where ….Ernie and Shantz made it without incidence this time…

I stayed much closer to the campsite, with one eye on the surroundings at all times – and will now post a bunch of pictures of the vegetation on the tundra as this is one of the things I find so fascinating…the variety of plant life….  This is Potentilla and you find this hardy shrub all over the place…even up here north of 60…

a profusion of colour…there is Bear Berry, Blue Berry, Cloud Berry, Cranberry, Labrador Tea etc. etc. etc.

another shot…that is Cloud Berry in the lower right hand corner…

this is looking directly down on the tapestry….

a more distant shot of the general terrain…

Ernie took this picture which shows the profusion of Blue Berries – of course it is this wealth of berries that draws the bears…that and the Caribou that we had heard were near the Yukon/N.W.T. border which wasn’t all that far off.  Two legged hunters were also attracted to the area, in fact we had a visit from a couple of hunters who thought we were friends they were going to met up with…

I’m going to continue on with foliage pictures – after all this is what we travelled all this way to see and may very well never see again…  The bright red is the Bear Berry, the green is the Bog or Creeping Cranberry…

more Bear Berry…also some spent Fireweed.

Bear Berry and Cranberry…

Crow Berry, Blue Berry, and a Cloudberry leaf right in the middle…

Something had been digging here….good reason to be concerned and keeping an ‘eye open’…

There were Mushrooms here too, although not in the numbers there had been in the southern part of Yukon…

and here is a final shot of the colourful tundra.  The next day we would reach the most northern point of this particular trip, and start the return journey…