Golden-mantled ground squirrels and landslides!!

Today’s blog catching up on the last day or so is being written as we are midway through a very long journey. A journey we really did not expect to take, nor want to take! More on that in a moment.

Yesterday morning was very quiet on the bear front, the morning was cold but this soon turned to warm sunny bright skies and not the best for bear viewing or photography so we turned our attention to the smaller critters as we keen to photograph some Golden mantled ground squirrels. So we headed to an area not to far from Medicine Lake where we were told there was some great places to photograph them in a shady rocky area.

Sure enough this proved to be a great location. Not even 10 minutes had passed after setting up our gear that the cute little critters arrived ready for a photo shoot. There were Golden Mantled ground squirrels everywhere. As it was near a picnic area they were incredibly habituated to humans. No doubt used to being fed by picnickers. In fact they were so habituated that after about 1.5hours of photographing them they had become completely relaxed with us and started crawling all over us and all over the cameras! They were particulary fascinated with the big lenses and kept taking a peak down them and at one point jumping up onto the tripod and running up and down the lens.

The cheeky little blighters were so adorably cute. Pretty much posing on every rock. We were having lots of fun photographing them and it turned into quite a very comical shoot. So much so that we had not even realised until we looked at our watches that we had been with them for 4 hours. As well as the squirrels we had a visit from 2 Pikas and a Marmot, however they were not quite so obliging on the photography front.

It was time to venture off and look for bears again, soon coming across a black bear, but where there were too many cars and the bear was busy grazing so we continued on. Then again we found the same black bear sow and 2 cubs who we had seen on a few occasions, Fortunately with just a few cars present. We managed to get a few shots here, albeit shooting in very difficult light conditions and left them after around 25 minutes to take the 75 minute journey back to Tete Juane Cache where we had one last night (just as well as by now the commute into Jasper was getting a little tiring). We have no idea so far how many miles we have driven on this trip but it must be substantial as we are having to refuel the car daily since the start of the trip!

On our return, just 15 minutes away from our accommodation we passed a fresh landslide, that blocked the hard shoulder and part of the main carriageway. It was marked with cones so we knew it was on the ‘radar’ of the local highways agency. We scooted around it and not for one moment did it pass through our minds that this geological event was going to alter the next day’s plans quite as much as it did!

So this brings us up to today, Sunday 8th June and also Andy’s 40th birthday and it has really not panned out quite as we hoped. We packed the car with our gear and started our usual early morning commute to Jasper NP. Just 15 minutes into the journey we approached the area of the landslide, but where this time we were stopped by the highways agency and advised that there had been a further landslide overnight in the same location and that now it covered the entire road and as the mountain was clearly unstable they were forced to close the highway. This came as a bit of a frustration, but there is not much you can do if the mountain wants to move!

The forewomen at the stop area advised they did not yet know a time for reopening and that ‘Geotech’ (Local Geology company) were hiking up to investigate. Apparently the suspected cause at this point was a lake higher up that had started ‘leaking’ creating instability on the mountain side. With the water seeping between the rock and the soil and thus creating a lubricant causing the soil to landslide. At the very earliest she advised the road would not reopen until midday (and at this point it was 6:15am BC time) but in truth she suspected it would likely be much later and that the road may not even open today or even tomorrow.

So we had to make an alternative plan as tonight we had accommodation booked in Hinton, 45 minutes north east of Jasper town and did not want to miss any bear time! We knew we had a to make a fairly substantial diversion but we had not realised until discussing the options with the highway people how substantial this was. We were told the only other quickest way to get to Jasper/Hinton area was to take a diversion of 1091km, and no that’s not a typo! Unfortunately there were some rather large mountains in the way! So what is normally a 100km drive to Jasper had increased 11 fold to over 1000km.

We sat and discussed the alternatives and came to the conclusion that sitting and waiting for the road to open could be a fruitless task as it may not open today or even tomorrow if the geologists deemed the area unsafe. Plus they had a huge area to clear and at this stage and apparently rocks could still be heard falling. If this was the case we would still be forced to make the 1091km journey the next day. So we cut our loses, accepted the fact that were were going to lose a bear day and started the 10-12 hour journey. Which would take us south via Kamloops and then East past Glacier NP to lake Louise and finally North toward Jasper and then another 75km to Hinton.

So as I write this we are 7 hours into what feels like a rather tortuous journey and needing a much needed rest stop. Of all the days it had to happen it had to be poor Andy’s 40th birthday. A birthday that he had hoped to have spent with the bears. We feel like we have driven the entire state of BC, going down the mountains, through lush green valleys and now finally tracking back up into the mountains. We hope that we still have the energy when we get in to Jasper (hopefully with an ETA by 6pm) to go find Andy some bears for his 40th!

So next time we complain about a 30 minute diversion in the UK we will certainly think ourselves lucky and we hope that for some reason this whole unfortunate event is ‘meant to be’. Perhaps a bizarre twist of fate that has yet to reveal itself!!