Moments in Montana: Surveys in the Rockies
You’d think being at the border of Glacier National Park there would be nothing but pristine habitats, wildflowers, and serene hikes with occasional wildlife sightings. Unfortunately this was not always the case during my work trip up towards the upper edge of the Helena Lewis and Clark national forest near Marais pass.
While the scenery was beautiful and we did manage to find one of our rare plants, sadly the majority of the areas we surveyed were not the lush wetland or prairie habitats that we expected but instead were the sad remains of whatever were left after being severely trampled by cattle grazing.
In the national forests across America landowners and ranchers can get permits to graze cattle on land allotments for a fraction of the cost it keeps to maintain those lands. Often the animals do more harm than good and can decimate entire populations and habitats through grazing and stomping on the orchids, ferns, and other plants we are trying to protect. Streams dry up or get contaminated, weeds are brought in, and the uncommon plants that are sensitive to disturbance just can’t take it.
A lot of the areas we looked at this week had evidence of invasive weeds, brought in from cows or humans, including Canada thistle (cirsium arvense) and spotted knapweed (centaurea maculosa).
The highway was off to the side of most of our survey polygons and there was a surprising amount of private land that made it difficult to access our points.
We did see some cool new plants including sagittaria, sium suave, ranunculus aquatilis, listera borealis and the strawberries ( fragaria sp.), grouseberries (vaccinium scoparium), huckleberries (vaccinium membranaceum) and service berries (amelanchier alnifolia) were ripe so we got some free snacks on the trail.
We also encountered a lot of wildlife including multiple frogs, various bird species like warblers, sand hill cranes (which sacred the living daylights out of me when they flew off), grouse, red tailed hawks, owls, and more. We also ran into several herds of cows, saw lots of moose, elk and bear signs but none in the flesh, and one of my coworkers saw a wolf!
Other highlights included hanging out with my coworkers at camp making delicious food (we got into groups of two to cook for everyone each night) and playing cards before calling it a night. Our meals were all vegan and included tofu pad Thai with a mango slaw and cornbread, chili with bread and vegan chocolate pudding for dessert, and vegetable chickpea korma over rice with a (slightly underdone — my bad) skillet cookie for dessert.
I learned two new games including hearts and president, which we played using my tree playing cards (each card had a different tree drawing including the scientific and common name) and I was happy that my coworkers were the first people to play with the cards who were actually interested in the trees as well!
On the not-great side of things we were eaten alive by mosquitos and blood-thirsty flies which came in an assortment of shapes and colorings because apparently the killer mosquitoes were not enough. I was subject to over forty bites during the trip and my shoulders and ankles were a patchwork of bumps and blood from the foul beasts.
I’ll include some photos below of the plants and the hikes from our trip, along with an image of the moment to Theodore Roosevelt outside of the summit campground where we stayed at sunset.
Hopefully our next adventures will be less buggy and a little more quiet, but the bushwhacking wasn’t as terrible this time thanks to the surplus of cow paths so you win some you loose some.
Whoo that was a lot of photos and I’m running low on energy so the descriptions are going to be brief but going top left across and down we have:
Antenaria (pussy toes)
Unit 14
Botrcyhium multifidum
Aspen grove
Marais pass and Teddy Rosevelt Monument at sunset
Fun mushroom
Spirea splendens
Corallorhiza maculata
Bumble bee on a Pedicularis plant
Pinus contorta canopy
Listera borealis
Unit 8
“The Baker” holding a bur reed
Sparganium angustifolium
Unit 24
Sium suave
Ranuculus aquatilus
Saggitaria latifolia
Unit 10
Populus tremuloides canopy
Unit 24 pond
Unit 24 ridgeline view
Fun trees
Pine cones
Figuring out directions
Smoky ridge views over to summit mountain
Tracks!
Wild fruit snacks aka strawberries and grouse berries
“The Baker” contemplating life
Vaccinium scoparium
Veratrum viride
Mango Thai salad
Tofu pad Thai
Hiking trail aka a cow path
Moss and lichens!
Botrychium virginianum
Mountain views
Mimulus lewisii
Anticlea
Whew. Hope you enjoyed this little update about what I’ve been doing at work lately, hopefully the weather drops below 90˚F this week (though I doubt it) and if the weather gods are listening some rain would be nice to help with the fires and clear up the smoke that is currently blanketing town and blocking out the views of the mountains. I hope you all stay cool and keep looking at plants :)
Comments