Standup Paddleboarding the Great Bear Rainforest

"Whoah! What was that?" Derek Nixon yells, as the telltale pfffft of air blasting from nostrils sounds from somewhere disconcertingly close to us. The rest of our group has stroked ahead to the sheltered waters of a nearby cove, leaving Nixon and me behind on our standup paddleboards, alone on open ocean. We turn toward the noise and see a large brown whiskered head sticking up from the water's surface, maybe 50 feet away. Another pops up beside it.

Steller sea lions. Big ones.

The pair size us up through inscrutable black eyes for a moment before sinking back into the sea.

We pull our paddles from the water and wait for the heads to reappear. Our 14-foot-long boards suddenly seem very small—the only thing between us and the 1,000-foot-deep ocean and the creatures that live in it. The surface is still. The windless air smells of wrack and saltwater. In the distance, a raven cackles; it could be laughing at us, or maybe just warning us to stay away from sea mammals with large brown whiskered heads.

It's the second day of our paddleboard journey into the Great Bear Rainforest, a place that lends itself to magical thinking, and already I'm starting to get the sense that the animals are trying to tell us things.

Yellowstone's Lamar Valley

My recent weekend in Cooke City allowed me a bit of time to explore the Lamar Valley, famous for its wolves and other charismatic megafauna. I headed out at sunrise one morning to see what there was to see. No wolves, but I did see the wolf watchers.

Every morning they gather to, you guessed it, watch the wolves. Using antennas and radio telemetry to locate the collared canids, a core group of wolf enthusiasts spend their mornings (and maybe their afternoons and evenings, I don't actually know how long they stick around...) checking out the pack. I hung around for about an hour, but the wolves never showed themselves.

North Fork vacation

Spent a few days in the North Fork valley recently. The North Fork of the Flathead River, that is. But in Montana most people just call it the North Fork. My last couple posts celebrated the northern half of the valley, which lies in Canada and is simply called the Flathead.
But this post is about the Montana side of the valley where my family has a rustic cabin. I spend as much time up there as I possibly can. Would live up there if I could, but kids need school, I guess.
So I was up there with the family for a few days. Chopped wood, skied every day, and spent evenings reading books and gazing into the fireplace. I love chopping wood...

Flathead Grizzlies

Continuing my celebration of British Columbia's Flathead Valley, I'm posting some images from a trip I took there two summers ago with my father and our friend Ron. My story from that trip can be checked out here. An excerpt to accompany the images follows...

The Flathead: a celebration

British Columbia's Flathead Valley is a special place. In fact, it might be my favorite special place on Earth. The last undeveloped and uninhabited valley in southern Canada, it's one of the wildest of our remaining wildernesses. An international border bisects the valley, and its southern half lies in Montana where my family has a small cabin. The North Fork of the Flathead River flows through the valley bottom and forms the western boundary of Glacier National Park. (It's also a river I had the pleasure of fording a few days ago on a ski trip into the park, but that's a story for future entry.)

For now, it's enough to know that the Canadian Flathead is a stomping ground for grizzly bears, wolves, wolverines, mountain lions, and every kind of toothy creature that lived there when Columbus landed. But for years this sprawling nursery for everything wild has been under threat. Turns out it's rich in more than animal life and soaring mountains. First there were proposed coal mines, then coalbed methane, then gold mines. Things didn't look good.

I started heading up to the Flathead for adventures — and for stories that could help inspire people to demand its protection. Then, just yesterday, out of the blue, the B.C. government announced that they've decided not to allow mining or energy development in the valley.

To say that I'm jumping out of my underwear with excitement is an understatement. I'm rocketing out of my underwear until it's just a speck far, far below me and I realize, wow, it's really cold up here with no underwear, but I'm so excited it doesn't matter, so I just keep rocketing and rocketing.

In other words, I'm excited.

Where the Wild Things Are, Part Two

On our third day in the wild, we awake early and gather water from an opening where Kintla Creek spills into Kintla Lake. Our goal for the day is several miles deeper into the park: Upper Kintla Lake.

There isn’t enough snow to ski, so we strap skis to packs and hike. No matter how deep the snow in the surrounding area, a strange snow shadow in this valley perennially limits depths to a few inches. It’s this consistent lack of snow that attracts deer, lots and lots of deer. This veritable venison buffet keeps the wolves here all winter and also explains the grizzlies — no need to hibernate when you can chase wolves off their kills and score free feasts all winter long.

Where the Wild Things Are, revisited

I'll be in the backcountry of Glacier National Park for the next four days, for we're taking a break from our normally scheduled programming to revisit the story of my trip into Glacier last winter. I'm heading into this same area again this year, with a few new twists. I'll post more about this year's trip when I'm back in civilization, but for now check out the story and photos below (note: this originally ran on Karhu's blog here).

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We set out for a remote corner of Glacier National Park on a sunny late winter morning, GPS and camera in hand, ready to record all of the wild and strange things we could find. Ben and I met here a few winters back working on a forest carnivore study; we spent that winter skiing and tracking together, and no place we explored harbored more odd and grisly findings than the area around Kintla Lake. When the opportunity came to ski back in and survey the area for park biologists, we jumped at the chance. Our friend Travis came along (who’s worked as a fire lookout in a tower on one of the peaks in the background — the same tower as Ed Abbey) and we set out for four days in the wilds to see what we could see.

Gulls!

How great would it be if you could be a gull for a day? Soaring over the ocean through crystal air. Tucking your wings and diving with speed and grace toward the beach. Snagging bits of sandwich from the hands of unsuspecting children and tourists. Well, I already do that last one, but it'd be a lot easier if I was gull.

These are the final shots from Florida. After this we return to our regularly scheduled programming of wild ramblings and mountain adventure...