Wooly Lousewort is HERE! (Report 4)

How am I to write a blog?  The weeks fly and I can’t remember what happened yesterday.  With my biking to work and hiking and dog walking, at night I make supper at 11 pm., read a chapter, pull the blackout curtains and fall straight to sleep.  April to October is my time for activity, not rumination.  Now is the time for me to live without thinking.  I’m content with what I have right now:  physical activity out of doors, meaningful tasks and friends everyday for a little conversation. Still I’ll try to dreg something up for this blog.

I started the week with a solo hike up to Marion Falls, the result of a landslide that came down 2,000 feet of mountain and blocked Marion Creek.  As in Denali the BLM corridor along the Dalton Highway has no “official” or maintained trails but occasionally one can find a muddy boot path going back to a specific destination.  The hike to the falls and back would have been two hours but the early flowers are now blooming so it took me much longer; there were cottongrass, heather, bog rosemary, and windflower.  This trip I also “caught” a rainbow. 

Unlike Denali, we have active gold mines throughout the corridor so I stumbled across the dirt road that allows miners to take heavy equipment to and from the mines up Marion Creek.  Miners won’t say how much gold they are bringing out but some of them must be pretty successful to own all that equipment.

The next day I hiked up the hill to the SE of camp which is the equivalent of 1500 feet on the Stairmaster.  It’s straight up through willows and alder over bog and moss and rock. Being on a mountain makes me feel powerful!   On top of the ridge I found wooly lousewort, alpine azalea and mountain avens in bloom.



Glasses to give you an idea of scale.

Returning home, I took a sponge bath and had supper with Linda and Ray at their travel trailer at Marion Campground where they are the hosts.  With their generous meal, the good company of their four dachshunds and a game of Mexican train, I felt nurtured and complete.

Annie and I had a morning off together so we drove down to Grayling Lake.  I planned to wait around for her to catch her first fish so I could take her photo but, since she caught her first grayling in 15 seconds, it was a short plan.  We were there less than two hours and she caught over twenty-five grayling.  Apparently they make good eating if cooked and devoured immediately. She threw all hers back.  Karen told her she needed to “stop playing with her food”.   After I snapped a photo, I walked the shore of the lake where four wigeons were swimming behind a tundra swan, apparently hoping for her to churn up some goodies.  I also found a shrub new to me called leatherleaf which has heather-like belled flowers.  So I was happy to “catch” the widgeons and the leatherleaf.

Our community recently welcomed two new members on the same day:  Christie, a First Alaskans intern, nursing student, Yupik native and Princess of Smiles, plus Chinook, a retired lead Denali sled dog.  Christie brings youthful enthusiasm, intelligence and energy to our group and Chinook brings me a canine companion to walk and hug.

This is the first time I’ve worked for the Federal government.  Karen manages a core of twelve folks, most of them “expenses paid” volunteers like myself.  People come back year after year not only for the job and the community but training and opportunities in the parks and refuges. In addition to us, K. has to deal with researchers, educators, Bureau of Land Management folk, NPS folk, and Fish and Wildlife people.  The Interagency is truly a cooperative effort but somewhat of a bureaucratic nightmare.  The people in the next cabin over might have different rules than we have in our cabin.  And each agency has its own lead person.  Even compared to public schools, the government has a HUGE amount of “Thou Shalt Not” rules.  Being new, I don’t know which ones I can bend, which ones I can break and which ones are inviolate.  It’s uncomfortable being this good.

Happy Get Outside Week!



Koyokuk River Valley, Marion Camp in Center between tree and pond