Extreme Fisheries Biology

This week fall weather set in up at Quartz Lake. The wind started blowing, whipping up canoe capsizing waves on the lake. So for several days we huddled in the cabin around Bruce (our woodstove). Finally, we had a day we were able to get out. The wind had (sort-of not really) died down but we needed to get out of the cabin and get our gear out of the stream. So we started paddling, and got sketched out by the waves about a third of the way up the lake. We beached the canoe and started bushwhacking along shore, which proved to be quite slow and ineffective. So we got back in the canoe, ignoring the possibility of worsening weather, and made it to the head of the lake and Quartz Creek. The creek was 5 degrees Celsius and all the overhanging branches were covered with icicles. And it snowed on us too. On October 11th.


So we completed our redd surveys, pulled gear, and didn't see any fish in the creek. Unlike us, the fish were smart enough to get out of that creek once the it got so cold...
We made it up to Cerulean Lake, where all the waterfalls were lovely and frozen, and bushwhacked down the game trail one last time.


The next day we packed out our gear, and my pack was stuffed to the gills (see, it's taller than me!) and had all sorts of stuff that wouldn't fit inside strapped to the sides. Normal people carry tents and sleeping bags when they go hiking... field studies always seem to involve carrying absurd things like rebar, plastic pants, car batteries, metal stakes...

And now we are done with the bull trout. I'll be travelling a bit, to Oregon and then New Hampshire, and hopefully finding another job at some point.

Baby Bull Trout!

The bull trout are moving up the creek and spawning (there are two trout in each picture). Pairs use their tails to push around gravel and make redds, small pits that they lay their eggs in. In the pictures, you can see the cleaner gravel that the fish have just moved. And next spring small baby bull trout fry will come out of the gravel.

Backpack Trip

I had a chance to backpack in glacier finally (not counting packing food into Quartz Lake each week). The trip started out with me not getting on the trail till 6pm, on account of needing to bike 20 miles on dirt roads to drop my car at one trailhead and my bike at another. So by the time I hiked the 7 miles to my first campground, it was dark, and raining. Starting hikes at 6 is clearly a bad idea. Then, my stove didn't work, and I had to (sort of) cook my dinner on the coals of another camper's dying fire.

The next day, I was hiking alone when I see a party below me at Brown Pass waving. So I waved back. And then realized that they weren't getting my attention to say "hello", but to say "can you see the big grizzly bear on the trail ahead of you?"
But these interesting situations aside, it was a lovely trip, I got to camp in an amazing hanging glacial valley with views of this mountain, thunderbird peak, and met some nice hikers with a backpacking oven that made blueberry muffins on trail.

And I carried my sweater vest almost 30 miles so that I could wear it on sweater vest friday, while crossing Boulder Pass.

And of course, on the way out I stopped at Polebridge to get cookies. Just look at this sign they have... "slow down, people breathing?" it might as well say "notice: hippie commune ahead"

Polebridge has many stray dogs running around that try to steal your sandwiches. This sad one has three legs.