The Badshot Range

Anne, Ned, James, Olliver and I spent four days in the Badshot Range to celebrate Anne's birthday and BC day. The area is located about 100 km south-east of Revelstoke, near Trout Lake.

Sunset from the Galena Bay ferry. We had a 3-ferry wait in both directions. August long-weekend is not the time to be in a hurry if you're taking this route. It was worth the wait for the hike and to be out of Revy for the Kokannee challenge.

Gas pump at Trout Lake

The Badshot range is an old mining area, which is why there was a road right up into the alpine. We found this collection of bore cores (made up technical term) on our first day out.

Subalpine daisy with friend

There were loads of colourful wildflowers out, which kept me and my macro lens happy. I've never seen so many shades of paintbrush before.

Silky phacelia (not lousewort!)

The area was surrounded by impressive rock faces - chossy rock, but impressive views.

We saw lots of cool and varied rocks all weekend, I guess that's what made it a good mining area.

James and Ollie on the Razor's Edge.

We found several dragonflies, some ants and other insects way up high on a glacier. I guess they got caught in a weird wind pattern.

A truffula tree.

Palmate coltsfoot

I assumed this was an elk print at first, but after seeing a couple of mountain caribou on our last day out I'm guessing this is caribou.

Views of the Bugaboos!

Preparing for attack

the lovely Anne

Fragile fern (I think - I can never remember alpine ferns)

James, his trusty stick and Lake Creek Lake

A mountain caribou track!!

We had great wildlife karma on this trip. James and I saw two wolves on the drive down, we had an owl circle over our heads the first night out and four mountain goats entertained us at our second campsite for about an hour. On our last morning Ned and I noticed a 'deer' on the ridge. I thought it looked a bit funny for a deer, but decided it definitely wasn't an elk.

It's both embarrassing and sad that I didn't properly identify it as a mountain caribou. Embarrassing because I teach kids about mountain caribou and sad because it just didn't cross my mind that it could be a caribou because there are so few of them out there. Anne got a much closer look and saw TWO caribou from about 15 metres away. She even heard their hooves clicking. A great birthday gift for Anne! We followed the tracks for a couple of hours that morning.

Some flower that I can't identify - an evening primrose? Let me know if you can i.d. this for me!

Nothing like a wet, coastal bushwack to make me feel at home.

Cold beers at the car. Four very happy hikers.