Now I just need to add some text...

...and more...

...this last Sunday I hiked up Belleview again with some folks, and this time summited.  The snow had melted amazingly fast in the interim.

Talus slope

Mount Avery and other peaks in the distance

One of the Maroon Bells is the freaky triangular peak in the back right; I wanna climb it...

Clouds and mountains as seen from the summit of Belleview, at 12,473ft.

The group

About to traverse under the dangerous cornice, in order to glissade down the bowl

The cornice

Going under the cornice; what looks like stars is the snow melting off the cornice and dripping down like a curtain of rain

Recent mountain happenings...

We hiked up Bellvue last Sunday.  Things have been too busy since then to write about it or any other recent happenings.  Lots of science work now that the Enquist lab 'macrobus' (actually not a bus but a Suburban, and the 'macro' stand for macroecology) has arrived, along with Ben and Lindsey, two of Dr. Enquist's graduate students.

The Bellvue hike was pretty fantastic.  The road up to the easier approach route was closed, so we had to take the steep way.  It was WAY steeper than the photos do justice.

Beginning of route

View from higher up

Snow melt streams on Mt. Baldy, opposite Bellvue

Tarns at the base of Bellvue

View of East River Valley, location of Gothic

Once we hit the snowfields, we had to use our simple crampons and kick-step our way up.  Coming down, I fell once, having to use my ice-ax.

Beginning of snowfields

Close-up of snowfield

About to move from scree to snowfields

Thank goodness for ice-axes

Trudging through the kick-steps

The beauty of ice

Porcupine days...and fox appetites...

We have been continuing plot preparation and survey work. Day before yesterday we marked out Christine's low elevation randomized plots, and yesterday we collected plant cover and height data from the three long-term study sites we had previously set up.

The highlight of the week has been porcupines. The first night we arrived a porcupine woke us up at some god-awful hour by chewing on our cabin. The cabin is made out of such thin, uninsulated stuff that the whole edifice acted like a resonator. It sounded as if someone were using a giant, amplified wood rasp on our cabin. Which, of course, was more or less what is was: the giant, amplified incisors of a porcupine.

I hadn't realized that they are such wood-eaters; they're basically terrestrially-inclined spiny beavers. And they have a penchant for pressed fiberboard and plywood, it seems. Thus, when we went hiking back up to the plug, to play in the snow before it all melts (it's going fast), we found a porcupine eating the 'Narrow Windy Road' sign. You know, the tilted yellow square variety, the ones usually made of metal? Only, for some reason (maybe due to the cost of replacing avalanche damaged signs) this one was made of some kind of hard pressed fiberboard.

We had noticed the sign while hiking up the first time, looking very ragged and chewed, although still hung upright, and Christine had mentioned that it was almost certainly porcupine damage. But I hadn't thought much of it; I certainly hadn't expected to meet a porcupine eating it. But there he was. I heard him before I saw him, and my brain couldn't figure the sound out. "Is that a bird's unusual mating call?" was my first thought. And then I saw the little bugger, chewing away.

First I just took lots of photos, then Christine reminded me, HEY!, your new camera takes video! So, I got some video too. Pretty funny and strange.

* * *

We decided to check out Skyland, the closest bouldering area. As we walked out the door we heard marmots making warning calls. That's when we saw the fox with a marmot. I grabbed my camera and got some video.  It was pretty strange watching it finish the kill.  The marmots live all over RMBL, including under (and sometimes in) many of the cabins.

There is long running research on the marmots and other rodents here, so folks get pretty attached sometimes.  The video will go to the marmot lab, as it will allow them to identify which marmot it took, and because a fox taking an adult marmot is very rare (they usually only eat the pups).

Now in Rumbling RMBL

I arrived here in Gothic, Colorado, last Sunday afternoon. Christine and I left from Tucson Saturday and drove up just past the state line.  Saturday night we camped on the West Fork of the Delores River. When we woke up in the morning the aspens were especially beautiful, with light and shade playing on their leaves. Here in Gothic many of the aspen stands are just beginning to leaf out.

Aspens catching the morning sun

Entering Colorado's high mountain country

San Juan Mountains

Gothic, CO = old mining town, now the headquarters of RMBL. RMBL = Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory = home of loud, silly, funny overgrown rodents known as marmots, as well as porcupines that for some reason like to chew on cabins in the middle of the night.  (A porcupine chewing on your cabin is, by the way, extremely loud and very obnoxious in the wee hours.)

RMBL (aka Gothic) town: this is the view from my cabin

Also, RMBL is a research station full of scientists (biologists for the most part) who are researching Colorado's alpine environment. One of these researchers was kind enough to hire me as a not-too-horribly-underpaid research assistant, so here I am.

Moonlight exposure (30sec. @ 800 ISO, F4.5)

The research station was founded in 1928, making it a contender for longest running research station in an alpine environment. It also makes it quite interestingly antiquated in terms of facilities. The small cabin I'm living is from '65, and is about as funkily rustic and uninsulated as one could hope.

Thaw is coming a bit late, so the mountains are still covered with gorgeous snow: carunculated in places, smooth and featureless in others, or clawed and scrabbled by late avalanches. Cornices are still built up on the ridges, like frozen white waves. I am told that when they fall off Gothic Mountain, they are louder than thunder here in RMBL 'town', right in the shadow of the mountain.

Christine shows off the cabin: Ender's Annex

After getting set up in the cabin, we hiked around the area for a few hours.  Judd Falls, about a 10 minute hike away, gave a good opportunity to play with long exposures of water.

Upper Judd Falls, 2sec., ISO 100, F36

There were lots of glacier lilies on the trail.  They are the first plant to flower, and all parts of the plant are edible.  Quite tasty really, and an important forage food for bears (as well as biologists).

Glacier lily, Erythronium grandiflorum, yellow-pollen phenotype

Glacier lily, Erythronium grandiflorum, red-pollen phenotype

The sun sets behind Gothic Mountain quite early, around 6pm, but twilight lasts until past 9 o'clock, which has been confusing my sleep patterns.  However, that is a small price to pay for such amazing views.

Gothic Mountain from trail above RMBL town

Yesterday we hiked up the road to the 'plug': a huge mass of snow stopping up a nearby pass.  We hiked up in the snow to play with our new gear: ice axes and simple crampons.  The plug gave me a good opportunity to practice emergency self-arrests with the ax.  Also, it was simply a lot of fun to slide down.

Me and Christine on our way to the 'plug' at Schofield Pass, Mount Baldy in the background

Me walking across the plug

To practice self-arrest, going backwards down the slope

Arrested (almost)

Today we worked on putting in plots for the long term study of respiration and photosynthesis via measurement of biological gas fluxes at my boss's various research sites in the vicinity (i.e. approx. 20 mile radius). Fun but tiring work, especially pounding in the PVC soil collars for getting the control measure for soil respiration.

Goodness, do I look silly...

This person, however, looks way cooler...