Sunday, October 3 - Columbia Falls, MT
Sunday morning we woke with the sun, enjoying coffee and a chilly morning on Heather and Derek’s back porch as the sun came up over the mountains.
Mike at sunrise, pre-coffee
Telemetry Flight
At 7:30, Heather’s supervisor Tim came to get me - I had a special invitation to go with him on a telemetry flight, which is basically a flight over northern Montana looking for bears and listening for signals. The goal of this particular flight was to “get a visual” on Mallory, a collared grizzly who had two cubs. Mallory’s collar was scheduled to fall off on October 5, and the organization wanted to know if her cubs were still following her or if they’d gone off on their own. Since her signal was soon going to be lost this was the only time to find her. There were other bears whose location Tim wanted to pinpoint, though “getting a visual” wasn’t as important as just knowing whereabouts they were.
We drove to meet Dave, the pilot with whom Tim has worked for almost twenty years. He’s hilarious and full of stories - especially about my sister who “lost her breakfast” on the last telemetry flight. You see, the plane is very small. And when they get a bear’s signal Dave expertly navigates the plane around and around and around the signal area so the biologists can try for visual spotting. And by “around and around”, I mean tilting the plane on its right wing and spinning in tight spirals 5 or 10 times. I can see how Heather might have gotten sick - this spinning and spiraling does funny things to your head and sense of vertigo.
Our little plane
Dave and Tim
Lovely Montana
Here, we were circling a batch of woods over a collar signal. Note that one part of the woods are in focus and the rest is blurry; we were turning in circles on one wing.
Me, the uber-bear-spotter (or space-taker-upper)
We briefly stopped at the Kalispell airport to fuel up
Dave the pilot and Heidi
I’m proud to say that our flight was successful. First, I didn't puke. Second, we got a visual on Mallory and her cubs. (Well, Tim and Dave saw the cubs. I saw Mallory, and only after Tim pointed out her exact location three times before I finally spotted her brown fur) Afterwards we went looking for Osa, Houdini, Mark, and a few other grizzlies whose name I’ve since forgotten.
You’ll be interested to know that Bob the Bear managed to get out of his collar. We picked up his signal in the area we released him yesterday but it was sending a “mortality signal” - which either means he dropped the collar or his heart was no longer beating. In the case of Bob it’s more likely that it dropped. We’re going to blame that one on Derek since he’s the one who put it on.
*ETA* Heather says they picked up his signal again and he's on the move. Collar still on!
Glacier National Park
We spent the afternoon in Glacier National Park, driving up the partially-open Going to the Sun Highway and taking pictures on scenic views.
Lake MacDonald
Skipping rocks
We hiked up to Avalanche Lake on a lovely trail along a babbling brook and some gorgeous scenery. Part of this hike included a snowberry war - something that was foreign to me and Mike until they began to sneakily throw little pellets of white at us. This prompted all sorts of hilarious sneak-attacks, including Mike sweetly cuddling up to me… only to throw some berries down my shirt. And Derek trying to lure me in with, “Look Heidi! Bear tracks!” But I was wise to their ways. It made for an enjoyable beginning to the hike; especially since I could barely walk I was laughing so hard.
Bullets Snowberries
Snowberry War Plotting
For our spontaneous weekend-long photography class, Derek lugged his tripod up the trail so we could take some “silky water” pictures. You’ve seen these pictures before; when the water looks like it’s soft and flowing but the surroundings look the same. This is achieved through a longer exposure time - allowing the shutter to stay open for the water and thus “capture” the movement of the water. It’s difficult to do this without a tripod because our hands/bodies can’t stand still enough without causing a blurry motion. I’ve never tried a tripod before but now I understand the value.
Silky water
For comparison, here's one of Derek's shots
Trees
Mike on the path
The hike up was about 30-45 minutes, full of bear stories and laughter and the occasional complaint.
Derek: “How much loooooonnnnnger?”
Heather: “When we see the deciduous trees.”
5 minutes later…
Mike: “Are these the delicious trees we’re supposed to be looking for?”
Hah. Deciduous is a new naturalist word for me. It means “falling off at maturity or tending to fall off and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe.” These were the trees at the top of the hike, close to the lake. The sun was much brighter there.
When we did get to the beautiful Avalanche Lake we hiked for a while longer until we found spot “clear of humans”. There was a lovely log for us to share as we drank our Moose Drool beer while taking loads of hilarious pics. At one point we were laughing so hard that some hikers passing started to laugh loudly and fakely - letting us know (passive aggressively) we were disturbing the peace of Avalanche Lake. Good thing there was a lot of lake to go around.
More sister shots. Derek wants to make a calendar of us.
Mike, mugging for the camera
Binocular eyes
Me, toying with the tripod
Close-up of the waterfalls
It's true. You don't.
Another attempt at "silky water"
My pic
Derek's pic
Dinner
For dinner we splurged and went to a restaurant called - I think - Three Forks. I can’t find a link to it but it was delicious. We started with elk meatballs, and Heather and I had the salmon special, Derek the eggplant pasta, and Mike the bison short ribs. So fabulous and our bottle of pinot noir went perfectly.
The rest of the night was spent packing - as Mike and I sadly had to leave the next morning on a 7:20 flight. Why do these lovely, wonderful weekends have to go so quickly? Why can’t they, the puppies, the bears, and the nature last forever?