Aug 2008
Sunflowers
08/29/08 08:19
The wife planted sunflowers along the edge of the vegetable garden. Some are 15 feet high. The goldfinches, which are in the molt and very scruffy, are loving it.
Hwa story
08/29/08 08:09
Still no sign of Hwa. My story is here.
Having talked more to searchers, it appears he was a very meticulous man. He made lists and checked them twice. But Glacier is full of rotten rock. Those mountains may look strong, but they are famous for crumbling in your hand. A simple slip is all it takes, especially when you're alone.
Having talked more to searchers, it appears he was a very meticulous man. He made lists and checked them twice. But Glacier is full of rotten rock. Those mountains may look strong, but they are famous for crumbling in your hand. A simple slip is all it takes, especially when you're alone.
A popular picture
08/27/08 06:36
This photo has proven extremely popular this summer. If you'd like a print, an 8 by 12 is just $25 postpaid. Send a check or money order to our address. Or order via credit card, here.
Missing hiker
08/27/08 06:17
Still no sign of missing hiker. The odds of finding him as time goes on grow less and less. My initial story about him will appear in tomorrow's edition of the Hungry Horse News. I read several of his posts online. Hwa sounded like a passionate hiker with a real love for the outdoors. The search for him has been scaled back, and will effectively end next Tuesday (a week from today).
The otter family
08/25/08 08:18
A man is missing...
08/22/08 06:27
A 27-year old man has come up missing, likely in Glacier. They found his car in the Logan Pass parking lot. Let's hope he just left the Park without telling anyone. There's two people that I know that were presumably lost in Glacier and never found in the 10 years I've covered the Park: Larry Kimble (I may have the spelling wrong on his last name.) And Patrick Whalen. Kimble's truck was found near the Rocky Point Trailhead, but he wasn't. Whalen's camp was found on the Park's East side between Two Med and Cut Bank. But he was never found, either. Let's hope this latest case is just one of someone not checking in...
Here's a couple links to stories...
Missoulian
The short version on HHN Web site.
Pika poop and a serenade of vomit sounds...
08/20/08 12:32
This summer I’ve volunteered for a couple of projects in the Park. One is the citizen science loon survey and the other is the pika, goat, and Clark’s nutcracker surveys. The idea is to get baseline data on all the species and then, later on, see how the critters are doing 5, 10, 15 years down the line.
I volunteered not so much because I have a driving interest for science, but because I have one goal in life and now it is fulfilled: I’ve found and collected pika poop in the wild.
That’s right, pika poop.
For those of you unfamiliar with Glacier National Park’s small, fuzzy, charismatic, creatures the pika is a high country critter related to the rabbit. It lives primarily in big piles of rocks in the mountains and it makes a sound that sounds like this: Eeeeep!
The pika doesn’t tolerate heat very well and there’s some concern that global warming could harm this little creature.
And so as volunteers, we’ve been asked to not only find and count pikas, but to gather their poop for scientific analysis. Pika poop looks like a b.b., though it doesn’t taste anything like one (That’s a joke. I kid you, honest. I have only tasted rabbit poop, and that’s a story for another day).
So on Saturday I took the long hot hike up to Triple Divide Pass to look for pikas and goats and Clark’s nutcrackers and if a loon happened to fly over, well, I’d make a note of that, too.
(I spent the night in the Cut Bank campground to save a little time and I’m not so sure that was a good idea. I mean, I expected a good night’s sleep, but there was this guy in camp who, for whatever reason, was making noises like he was throwing up — loud throwup noises that rang through the campground. It was awful. I happened to get up to go to the bathroom and I walked by the guy’s site and he had this huge campfire going and he started making these throwup sounds and then he saw me and said “I thought you were a grizzle bear.”
(“No,” I said. “I am not a grizzle bear.”
(And so the guy stopped making the noises and I managed to fall back asleep at least for a few hours. But sheesh, a grizzle bear? Only I would have such bad luck.)
But I digress…
When I got almost to the pass I heard and saw a pika living in a place I wouldn’t expect a pika to live in. For one, most pikas live in what’s known as talus slopes — big piles of rock deposited on the sides of mountains as the mountain falls apart. But this pika was living in more what I would consider cliffs than piles of rock.
At any rate, it gave out a few Eeeeps! then disappeared and that’s when I saw it, tucked in a crevice in the rock.
Pika poop!
I quickly picked up a little, put it in my little brown envelope, which is especially made for pika poop, then and was on my merry way.
This science stuff, it’s fun. But grown men trying to scare off grizzle bears, well, them I can do without.
Magazines mailed
08/19/08 07:41
The Summer 2 issue was set to be mailed today. It's running about a week late and we apologize. We think you'll enjoy the issue, however. The above picture, taken in Glacier, is part of the spread. I've never seen the flowers bloom that intensely in the 11 summers I've been here. I believe the flower is nine-leaved desert parsley.
Off to press
08/07/08 07:48
The Summer Two issue is off to press, will be proofed and printed next week and should be in mailboxes in 10 days or so (provided there's no huge snafus). In this preview, we left in the crop and registration marks. That's what it looks like before it hits the press.
In this issue we:
A) Have a memorable grizzly encounter we like to call "King of the Road."
B) Tell you why we hiked 12 miles in our underwear.
C) Share a few lines of poetry (and no, we're not taking poetry submissions)
D) We leave Glacier for the Great White North of Canada to look at coal and coal bed methane threats in the Flathead, and why it's so important to the Park.
Sometimes you get lucky
08/01/08 21:48
Humped into a Glacier Park lake yesterday evening because I needed a shot of it for a piece on bull trout. This pair of loons did a big circle in the bay and ended up right in front of me. I never moved. They also had a fledgling with them who wasn't nearly as intrepid — he stayed in the middle of the lake.