British Columbia Day Trip 01-27-12

One of the benefits of living where I do is my proximity to British Columbia. It takes me about five minutes to get there.

Friday I was suffering a little cabin fever so I decided to drive up to BC to see what I might see. One thing for certain, the Kootenay Rockies were looking awesomely beautiful. I stopped by the Kootenay River near Kikomun Provincial Park. If you are in to camping this is a great little park. I've not ever seen it crowded in ten years and unless it's a national holiday I practically have the place to myself. The park is closed for the winter so I just drove on down to the river. At this point the river is frozen and covered with snow so not much to see except for breathtaking vistas of the Kootenay Rockies.

From there I headed up to the Bull River, the Rocky Mountain Big Horn Sheep Project and the Kootenay Trout Hatchery. I stopped first at the Project which is right on the Bull River. The Bull was frozen over as well and there wasn't a sheep in sight.

Just across the road is the Kootenay Trout Hatchery. I love this place. It's open year round although it's a bit quiet at this time of year.

What keeps me coming back are the grounds which are really beautiful. Just to the west of the hatchery building is a small creek which is home to a number of birds, primarily mallard ducks. I'd not been to the hatchery at this time of year and was surprised and amazed at the number of mallards present. I'll bet there was half a thousand. I thought ducks flew south for the winter. Obviously, some of these had but this was as far south as they cared to go.

These are very wild and wary birds. The instant they got wind of me some started to take to the air. As soon as I started shooting the rest rose up in squadrons. I was using my Nikon D300 and whilst many positive things can be said about it shutter noise isn't one of them. The thing sounds like a gatling gun as it fires off 6 frames per second.

As I was leaving the hatchery what did I spy in the road ahead? The whole bloody flock of big horn sheep including the rams which, despite having hiked the project 50 times I had never laid eyes on. The rams were looking in very good condition. But, the one thing I noticed was that there were not very many lambs given the number of ewes. I have no idea what is normal but it did strike me as odd.

Below are some photos of the things that I saw on my trip to BC.

Snow covered Kootenay Rockies with the snow covered Kootenay River in the Foreground

Mallards taking flight at the trout hatchery

Below is one of my favorite photographs taken of a trout at the Kootenay Trout Hatchery

Big Horn ram

Big Horn rams

©Kinsey Barnard

British Columbia - Elk, Bull, & Kootenay Rivers

Well, I sad sacked around here all morning yesterday until my mom relented and drove us to British Columbia. The idea was to go to a place where the Bull River runs through the Rocky Mountain Sheep Project. We've been trying all year to hit the Bull just right. At a certain time, following the spring runoff, the river turns this amazing turquoise color. We've tried three times this year and struck out. It has been so dry, the river is but a trickle of its full flowing self. There will be no color anytime this year.

Mom was so disappointed because she wanted me to be able to show it to you. It really is something to see, this ribbon of amazing color flowing through the gorge. The only thing I can show you is a sliver that was captured in this photo of Canadian honkers . The photo was taken this past March and the water color isn't half its potential. Oh, well, she'll try again next year.

Speaking of dry, the Elk River which flows down from Fernie is but a shadow of its earlier self as is the Kootenay. We had the best snow pack, in the Rockies, we've had in the past fives years but the moisture this summer hasn't been "spit", as my mom likes to say.

Failing in our river mission we set out to see if we could find the big horns. Struck out there too. There's a pretty good sized herd in this project but we couldn't find the blasted things. We saw a few whitetail but nothing to make a photograph. I don't really care cuz I'm out on the trail and that's my major joy. Mom was pretty frustrated though. Poor mom. Anyone who thinks this nature photography is easy, is mistaken. Mother Nature isn't always co-operative. We drive and hike, miles and miles and often mom doesn't get a thing. These are not such good days for me either cuz mom then has a BADD (Barnard Bad Attitude Day) when she can't make photographs. To make her even happier, this day, I picked up a kajillion tiny burs. In a Husky coat this isn't funny. I get away with very little misbehaving on days like these. :)

Since we were not far, mom decided to drive over to Cranbrook. Cranbrook is a lot like Kalispell in that in the past five years it has grown by leaps and bounds. The great thing for Cranbrookians is that one would have to crawl into a hole not to have a stunning view of the Rockies.

We went over to Elizabeth Lake on the west side of town thinking maybe mom could get a photo of some waterfowl. Struck out there too. Only thing we saw were a few coots. With that mom threw up her hands and said "We're going home!".

So, once again, Mother Nature had reminded us She is not to be taken for granted. She will only reveal Her mystery and beauty in Her own good time. And, it isn't for free. You have to work for it!

But, Mother isn't without a heart for she gave us a beautiful sunset to soothe our weary souls.

Until next time.........

©Kinsey Barnard