White on Green

Last March I started off the hiking season by grabbing my fishing pole and heading up to Eagle Lakes on Aurora Ridge above Lake crescent. I had never been up on the ridge before and I figured it would be nice to get out on a lesser traveled trail. The trail head is a little over 2 miles up the Sol Duc River Road towards the hot springs. There’s a little pull-out with enough room for about 5 or 6 cars, but you will probably never see that many cars parked there at a time.

The trail starts off gradually climbing through a scrubby deciduous forest dominated by alder trees, salmon berries, sword ferns and an occasional stream crossing the old abandoned road that is the trail. Shortly though, around a mile from the parking lot, it turns up the hill and turns almost immediately into a nice open old-growth fir forest.

The trail is never very steep, but it steadily climbs up and up the ridge. The weather was clear and cool that day which made the going easy and comfortable. About 4 miles into the hike, there was snow starting to cover the trail. It was spotty and thin, with the new growth poking through. I love the contrast of green on white out in the mountains, it feels so fresh and clean.

Tracks

Almost simultaneously with the snow covering the trail, I noticed some tracks on the rail going the same direction as I was. They were large. They were from a cat, and the stride was long. My first thought was cougar, but the tracks were at least a day old and I know tracks get larger in appearance as they melt. They could have been bobcat as well, but I figured the stride was to large. Either way, I knew it was safe enough to continue. I was sort of hoping, though, to catch a glimpse of it just to verify what it was for my own personal knowledge.

I followed the tracks for probably 2 miles up the trail. The snow was getting deeper and deeper, but the cat knows the way so I kept following him. Eventually I came to a little sign pointing north to Eagle Lakes. The tracks continued on up the main trail and I could tell where the spur trail was as it disappeared into the forest towards Eagle Lakes, so I followed it into the woods.

It wasn’t 100 yards from the sign where all sign of the trail disappeared. I knew the lakes were pretty much straight downhill from my current location, but I wasn’t sure of the exact heading. I didn’t have my maps on me and the tree cover was way to dense for a GPS signal. I performed a cursory radial grid search to see if I could pick up where the trail was. I swept from the last known point I knew the trail was and gradually worked my way outward, sweeping back and forth in the snow.  I knew that no matter where I went I could follow my tracks back, but I just didn’t feel like killing myself with exertion today. After about 30 or 45 minutes of searching, I gave up and began my trip home.

The hike back down the hill was uneventful until about 1/2 mile from the car. I was walking down the trail when about 50 yards ahead of me a rabbit bolted out of the woods and ran down the road. I thought that was pretty cool. Seconds after, a large black and brown predator jumped out onto the road and was running after it. It wasn’t a bear, it was furry, about the size of a bobcat and had a long furry tail, about 3/4 the length of its’ body. My camera was handy, but I wasn’t able to get a picture of it at that time. So I turned it on and sneaked down the road to see if I could get a peek. The whole situation was actually kind of disconcerting: I have lived in the Pacific northwest my entire life, but have never seen anything like that out in the wild. It was small enough to not be much of a threat, but it was the unknown that had me wondering.

I wasn’t really expecting to see it again, but I about 50 feet past where they came running out of the woods, here comes the predator, running up the road right towards me. I was barely able to get a picture of it before he saw me and ran off into the brush.

At the exact moment he jumped off the road, not even 20 feet behind me the rabbit bolted out of the brush, onto the road and back up the way we came. I almost broke my neck spinning around it startled me so badly.

Fisher

After getting home and investigating it some, I discovered that this critter is a fisher. The National Park has begun re-introducing them into the park in the past couple years. Apparently, there was quite a population of fishers in the past, but got eradicated almost a hundred years ago. I contacted the park and they were pretty excited that I got the picture. They asked if they could use it in their presentations and I, of course, said yes. I’m not sure if they really are using it, or how they are, but I think it’s pretty cool.

One day, I’ll return to Aurora Ridge and actually make it to Eagle Lakes. They may be small and mostly insignificant, but I have to make it now that I’ve been blocked from making it once.