On Thursday, the 7th of June, I decided it was time for a small road trip. Well, actually, I decided on the 6th, and implemented the decision on the 7th. My goal for the trip was to get out to Manning Park, and in particular, to find and photograph some Hoary Marmots.

Marmots, for those not familiar with them, are big squirrels. Most people here in North America use the term "squirrel" to refer to tree squirrels, like the Eastern Grey Squirrel or the Red Squirrel...the kinds of critters you find in city parks. Scientists use the term "squirrel" to refer to a wider variety of creatures, which includes flying squirrels, chipmunks, marmots (including the woodchuck), ground squirrels, prarie dogs, and several other types of squirrels that we don't get in North America. In fact, North America seems fairly squirrel-poor.

Offsetting the general squirrel-poorness of North America is the marmot-richness of the Pacific Northwest. There are 6 species of marmots in North America, and we get 4 of them in British Columbia. The other two are relatively nearby, in Washington State and Alaska.

If you can't already tell, I'm a big fan of squirrels, and it shouldn't be surprising that I planned a trip around a squirrel. So with the Hoary Marmot as motivation, I set out driving east. I didn't really stop for any photos until I got around Hope, a couple of hours' drive from home. There I encountered the lovely forested Cascade Mountains, which provided a nice setting for a raptor floating above.

Once I was out of my car to take photos, I could tell that the raptor in question (the dark speck in the middle of the sky in the above photo) was a Turkey Vulture. He took his time flying past me, but never really descended any. Turkey Vultures can be recognized by their size and the angle at which they hold their wings.

But the mountains and trees were the stars of the show for now, and I made several stops to take photos of them from different angles. The overcast day made the colors really stand out.

I got better critter shots later in the day, so I'm omitting the critters from the slide. If you really need a critter fix right now, just scroll on down the page.

After leaving the slide, the highway goes past a few little ponds on the side of the road, and in one of those, I found a drake Barrow's Goldeneye.

He was paddling fairly rapidly, and the wind was pushing him along a bit, too.

Manning Park is only 26 kilometers east of Hope, so I was soon at its western gate. About ten minutes later, I spotted a Red-tailed Hawk flying overhead.

It was June, after all. June and snow are not supposed to go together.

After a few moments, the hamster in my mind got running fast enough to turn a few cranks, and I realized that June and high mountains and snow do go together. After all, I had prepared for cold conditions by bringing my winter jacket and gloves with me; snow was only a little more wintry than what I had anticipated.

There was a consequence of the snow that was beyond what I had anticipated, though. I was planning on driving up to Blackwall Peak, and thence to look for marmots. The road up to the peak starts across the highway from the Manning Park Lodge, and when I reached this point, the road up the mountain was obviously closed and barricaded. Somewhere up the mountain, there was too much snow on the road.

This put a huge dent in my plans. I stopped at the lodge to take a rest and consider my options. This brightened my outlook considerably, as there were critters at the lodge. Squirrels, even. The squirrels here are Columbian Ground Squirrels, a very attractive rufous, yellow, and grey species. They had taken up residence under the lawn inbetween the lodge and the highway, and there were squirrel-holes everywhere there. The squirrels here were relatively bold, conditioned by years of tourists giving them handouts.

Naturally, I took photos. It was hard to be disappointed at missing one squirrel when you've got another very cute one staring you in the face.

I'm not quite sure why they're called nutcrackers. One day I'll have to figure that out.

It was about five o'clock, and I hadn't eaten since noon or so. So after about ten minutes outside, I went into the store by the lodge to see if there was anything decent to eat there. I didn't feel like wasting sunlight (photography time) by going to the restaurant. I decided on some trail mix.

Trail mix is highly caloric and I had more than I really needed after a day of driving, so I contributed the extra to the local ecosystem. In other words, I used it to lure the critters in for close-up shots. Here's a ground squirrel enjoying a dried cranberry.

After sharing tea and cookies for a while, I decided that I'd better move along to scout for other subjects and locations while it was still light. My plan was to drive on to the next town (Princeton) to spend the night, and return to the park tomorrow for my main shoot.

Being as the road across the highway was closed, that left me with the road on the same side of the highway as the lodge. So down this road I went. I'd never been down this way before, so the locations were all new to me. Not even five minutes in, I came upon a small talus (broken rock) slope to my right. Seeing talus always makes me think of pikas, so I looked up at it and by some miracle immediately saw a pika. Pikas are often hidden, and when they're not, they're hard to pick out of a landscape, so this was unusual.

Naturally I hauled out my gear and went to work with the little guy. This is where I first saw him. He looks like he stands out, but that's because the camera is isolating a very small chunk of the slope.

Well, maybe he was eating a leaf.

This fellow was certainly aware of my presence, and was curious enough about me that he took time out from his eating to scamper a little ways down the rock face closer to me to get a good look.

He's still got a bit of food hanging out of his mouth...I don't think he had any floss with him.

Anyhow, he watched me for a little while, and satisfied that I wasn't an immediate danger, he went back to his favorite activity.

I took that photo at about 6:30 on an east-facing slope; although the sky was still bright, the sun had set on this area quite a while ago. I was getting tired, and the pika was getting farther away, so I decided to go back to my car and head to Princeton for the night.

On the way back to the car, I stopped to try to get macro shots of some flowers, with no good results. I was trying out a lens that screws into the far end of my long telephoto. The equipment worked okay, but there just wasn't enough light to get the shots I wanted.

So I drove back to the highway, with a stop by the lodge, and then headed eastward. As I drove, I saw three or four Mule Deer at different points, on or beside the road. Here's one that was off the road on my left; I was able to just stop the car, power down the window, and shoot from the driver's seat.

I was happy to get a mom-and-child shot of the horses. Those are always nice.

I was about to move on when I happened to glance at the field on the right side of the road. There was another mom-and-child situation, but this one involved animals that were a bit less domesticated. I took a bunch of handheld shots, but was worried that the shutter times were getting too long, so I hauled my tripod out of the trunk and took more. That was a good thing, as the first shots were sort of blurry. Here's a couple of the later shots.

I also thought that it was cool that even the young'uns had the little black blob at the bottom of their tail, which is one of the marks that distinguishes Mule Deer from White-tailed Deer.

After a few minutes, the deer moved on, and I made it to Princeton soon afterwards. My only remaining adventure for the day was trying to get dinner at 9pm. Eventually I found a pub that was open, and where everything was normal and good until I ordered my food.

Then Karaoke Night started.

So I suffered country-and-western Karaoke through an interminable wait for my food. It would've been tolerable except for the off-tempo schmaltzy synthesizer music, the drunk off-tempo singers, the ridiculous volume, the slow service, and the mediocre burger. (And naturally, they had turned the lights down when the karaoke commenced, so I wasn't even able to read the book I had brought along.)

So, please remind me to make sure I already have food next time I arrive late in a small town. Or at least remind me that there are fates worse than being hungry for one night.

Quite fond of the little deer,
Tom