Sparrowhawk Tarns, July 17/09

[Lori S.]

Our very late spring meant only the earliest plants were in bloom up at Sparrowhawk in Kananaskis Prov. Park, one of our favourite hikes... thousands of them, actually, but not the more varied and colourful floral show that comes later... so this brief account will be more scenery than plants!    
1) It's a relatively short and pleasant hike through the lodgepole pine forest (so many trails are endless slogs through the trees), as the trail occasionally meets the rushing snowmelt creek that originates up at our destination...
2) Along the trail, (a bad fuzzy pic of) Clematis occidentalis var. grosseserrata...
3) Not one of the showy orchids by any means, northern twayblade, Listera borealis... not much in bloom in the forest understory yet.
4) The route ahead...
5, 6) Back into the forest with side channels to the creek cutting through the forest duff and moss (and both looking very cool and inviting on the way down on a hot day!)
7) The real start of things, the "rock wall" (a bouldery terminal moraine, possibly, but I need to do some investigation)... the best blooms were in this lower area, with Aquilegia flavescens, Saxifraga bronchialis and many others in fresh new  bloom... I actually didn't blow a lot of pixels here (as I should have, as it turned out!  ) because I thought I'd pause for photos on the way down...
8 ) Aquilegia flavescens
9) Hoary marmot, in their rocky abode where we see them every time... (This is a hugely zoomed picture; we figure the critters out there deserve their privacy, and we never try to approach them... even the little, harmless ones, LOL!)
10) Onwards and upwards...

[Lori S.]

11)... to the first tarn...
12) Cassiope tetragona, in bloom at the lower levels.
13) Saxifraga occidentalis
14) And yet onwards...
15) Arabis lyallii.
16) All the usual suspects... the tail-end of bloom on Saxifraga oppositifolia...
17) Kruppelholz alpine firs
18) Salix spp.
19) Snowmelt stream cutting through the turf... this will soon be a sea of Saxifraga lyallii blossoms.
20) More gray-crowned rosy finches...

[Paul T]

Great stuff, Lori!!

[cohan]

looks like a nice hike
we had another whirlwind trip to the mountains on wednesday, but didnt really get above the treeline, just near the Columbia Icefield, which is actually below the treeline..but still saw some nice stuff..
funny you mention the endless slogs through trees--i was noticing that many of the places i've seen that feature trails--not to mention all of the campgrounds and picnic areas--are low down in the forests..

i'm wondering if the twayblade could be what i saw in bud in may at hector lake, will have to check it out more closely...it had blackish buds...

i shot a couple of ericaceae this time, which i still have to id...this Cassiope looks like a likely candidate for one..

[Lori S.]

21, 22) Meadow dappled with Ranunculus eschscholtzii and Claytonia lanceolata...
23) Claytonia megarrhiza, at home in scree slopes.
24) Terrific fossils all through this area... tabulate corals here.
25) And also "trace fossils"... the patterns left by invertebrates burrowing through what was once carbonate sand & mud on the sea floor.
26) Smelowskia calycina, an early bloomer.
27) Destination ahead...
28) Whether the flowers are at their peak or not, I find this place completely fascinating!
29) More of those puzzling alpine potentillas...
30) My favourite tarn (which sounds silly but I love the looks of the sharp-angled side and the fractures in the rock)... many were still snowbound.

[Lori S.]

Oops, sorry!  I said this would be short, didn't I?

31) The snow - which there was a lot of - makes for easy travel... just stay away from the rocks to avoid a bootful!
32) And the last tarn by the big scree fan...
33) Erigeron aureus
34) After a pleasant ramble, we're heading down.... here's the place where the water runs off the edge of the world...
35) Homeward bound...

And then, shortly after, as we were approaching the rock wall where most of the bloom was, I found my memory card was full, arggh!  (I gather I have inadvertently changed some setting on my camera such that I was getting unusually HUGE picture files!)  Oh well, we'll be back!

[cohan]

its still short so far
i can see why you like the place.... i love elemental landscapes of rock and water as well--and since i live in a landscape formed (at base) by glaciation, its interesting to me to see places where that process is more recent or ongoing..

[Lori S.]

Thanks, Paul!
I wish I could suggest some really good hikes further north for you, Cohan, but we don't get too much north of Lake Louise.  (Stuart used to do some backpacking in Jasper, but it tended to be monumental death marches... not the sorts of day hikes we enjoy now.)  If you ever have more time and can drive farther south, there are some good shorter hikes that get you to the alpine zone - I mentioned some back in the first thread I posted on hikes (see "Travel/Places to Visit" section).

The drive to Canmore through the prairies and foothills was very floriferous... lots of Geranium viscosissimum, astragalus and cow parsnip in the ditches and pastures, followed by oxytropis (including O. splendens) and blue tufts of Campanula rotundifolia, then lupins and paintbrush along the road cuts through Canmore and upward.

[Maggi Young]

"Sparrowhawk Tarns" : the name is as colourful as the trip! Thanks. Lori!

[Lori S.]

Thanks, Maggi.  Yes, certainly colourfully if somewhat oddly named, since our sparrow hawk (or kestrel, Falco sparverius) is actually a bird of the open prairies... ??

funny you mention the endless slogs through trees--i was noticing that many of the places i've seen that feature trails--not to mention all of the campgrounds and picnic areas--are low down in the forests..

Cohan, yes... because in our parks there are no roads into the alpine zone.  (The easiest route for the roads was through the river valleys and passes.)  It does help to preserve the wilderness, such as it is... and it's not such a bad thing to have to "earn" the experience of the high areas with a bit of exertion.  
A lot of the trails were not "designed"/planned for hiking; most are old horse-packing trails, and I guess the horses didn't complain if you drove them up hill after hill only to pointlessly descend the other side!  (Another reason why the river crossings at the main trails are often rather treacherous... apparently, you can drive a horse pretty well anywhere!)

[Kristl Walek]

as always, Lori, your posts are a joy...and hurray to nearly-inaccessible-by-vehicle wild spaces!!!

[cohan]

I wish I could suggest some really good hikes further north for you, Cohan, but we don't get too much north of Lake Louise.  (Stuart used to do some backpacking in Jasper, but it tended to be monumental death marches... not the sorts of day hikes we enjoy now.)  If you ever have more time and can drive farther south, there are some good shorter hikes that get you to the alpine zone - I mentioned some back in the first thread I posted on hikes (see "Travel/Places to Visit" section).

The drive to Canmore through the prairies and foothills was very floriferous... lots of Geranium viscosissimum, astragalus and cow parsnip in the ditches and pastures, followed by oxytropis (including O. splendens) and blue tufts of Campanula rotundifolia, then lupins and paintbrush along the road cuts through Canmore and upward.

i came across a listing of hikes accessible from goldeye centre, i think it is, which is not far from nordegg, and some it sounds, go pretty high,  although thats not the highest area yet, and really varied from short to long etc; i think the listing was from a book, which i will have to look for...this is relatively close to home, by canadian standards..lol

as far as that goes, once we are into the mountains, lake louise is closer than jasper--the road starts out going west, but does quite a bit of dipping south--look at this page--the blue line is my route (after driving 30km west to the town where i work) the part where it turns north again is toward Columbia Icefield...

i know the really high spots will have to be for days when there is more time--most likely it means an overnight stay somewhere, which just hasnt been practical for various reasons..BUT i cant say i'm really unhappy with the range of areas we HAVE  been able to get to just racing through...lol; this latest trip was around/over 500km and we made prob around a half dozen stops of varying lengths, and were home in just under 12 hours from departure time..not at all the same experience as a real leave the car and get out there all day hike, but still managed to see lots of great plants in a wide range of habitats

[Ragged Robin]

Lori, your photos tell a great story of your hike and the mountain shots and tarns are hauntingly wild and beautiful - they look very deep too, with a blackness.  I agree it always heightens the experience to earn it through effort and of course we have had no effort at all in gaining an insight through your efforts just finger scrolling down and clicking the mouse 

I do hope you can show us more photos of your hikes soon Lori (It's awful when you see something exceptional and your card is full or your batteries are flat just at that crucial moment!)

[ruweiss]

Lori,what a pleasure to look at the pictures of this beautiful hike.
Many thanks for it.

[Lori S.]

Thanks, all!
It looks like you intended to attach a map, Cohan, but it didn't come through... ?