Gray Jays hike every Wednesday, or almost every Wednesday depending on schedules and travels. Fall is a favorite time, the heat of summer is gone, rain quiets the dust, and then there are the colors - golden larch and aspen, reds and orange of dying leaves. But first a feast of the northwest – Huckleberries - grazing the hillsides along the trail, trying to leave enough for the bears, purple fingers picking, eating, keeping a few in a used sandwich bag for morning cereal (more eaten than into the bag). Purple is the first color of fall: purple gentian, purple asters, and purple huckleberries. Berries, after the first freeze in September, turn shriveled into huckle-raisins, potent as whiskey. We have seen robins in flocks so drunk on fermented berries their flight makes no sense: loops, dives, circles. Robins are usually very determined in flight, straight and low to the ground, close to meadows, hunting solo for worms in green lawns. These flyer's were above timberline, skimming over boulders, cruising the ridgelines, hundreds of them, playing as they migrated south - purple guano stains on the rocks proof of their diet.
Maple Pass is a favorite destination, and this fall it was more spectacular then ever. Caryl, Roxie, Chris, and I, determined to hike even though it was cloudy, cold, and snow was on the pass. It was the first snow of the season. The dusting turned to inches on Washington Pass, no other cars had ventured into the Rainy Pass parking area. The trail was covered with a couple inches of white. Yippee, first tracks!
And tracks we saw - tiny tracks of squirrels, grouse, ravens, gray jays, snowshoe hare, pica, tiny mice and/or voles. The forest trail was dark and cold, no sun reaches the trail this early in the day - we continue up, wishing for gators safely home in storage, but hiking boots are waterproof and will have to do.
The trail soon crosses a boulder field that opens to the ridge above. A lone hawk circles, red-tail hunting for pica, but the pica are tucked safely under rocks with haystacks ready, food for the winter, protected from the heavy snows, avalanches, and long days under the snow pack. Pica are of the rabbit family, about the size of a chipmunk, they are very prolific, but not paternal, young are on their own to survive, instinct its only guide, they do not hibernate like squirrels. Poor little picas… food for hawks, owls, weasels, martens, fishers, bears - entertainment for hikers venturing across their homeland, listening for their cheeps and whistles.
Rounding the corner on a narrow section of trail unusual tracks catch our eye. Flower guides were still in our packs, tracking guides at home with our winter gear, our brains try to recall… Caryl was the first to mention Fisher, tracks toes first at the bottom of a tree, wide strides with 2x2 and 2x3 spacing. But then again it could have been a marten, same family, same tracks, only smaller. Either are rare, but marten more likely, smaller track, the abundance of pica food, and martens can hunt under the snow. Photos documented the tracks for identification later, we’ll never know for sure.
The past couple of weeks we had heard reports of two bears grazing above Lake Anne toward Heather Pass. We keep alert, watching for sign, scanning the open slopes for movement, but see nothing. The clouds were drifting in and out, patches of blue allowing sunrays to bounce off cliffs and ridge tops. Formations of rock appeared, then went into seclusion as the clouds played. Against the monochrome of the shadowed light it was a photographers dream. There were no bad photos that day. It just kept getting better - every bend in the trail, every overlook brought us to a halt, gazing, forgetting about wet feet, cold hands, temperature dropping, and the wind that was picking up… ok, that one got our attention.
Our usual time of reflection, sketching, journaling and painting - this day spent huddled behind a rock on the pass, was shorter than we would have liked. A few last sun breaks light up Corteo and Black Peak, clouds drifted our view shut, and the sky grew dark. More snow was on the way. Vistas would have to wait for next spring. It was time to go down the way we came, an uneventful brisk wet walk, ending a perfect day.
