Bear Valley

It was a mystical morning, gilded with an ethereal fog, lit vaguely from above by early morning's first attempts at daylight, and accompanied by a delicate and heavily layered orchestra of exotic sounds.  There were birds of more species than I can name, including the Nighthawk, Sandhill Crane, and some impossibly clear song sounding like a mythic melody played on an instrument blown of the purest glass.  Threaded into that soundtrack was the occasional burst of elk noises, cows grunting and calling to each other as they grazed along in the dewy grass.

We are still holed up at Dagger Falls, but headed out early to Bear Valley, only a few miles away, to try to film some elk and their calves cavorting in the wide meadows.  We had barely begun looking when we ran across three bull elk, bunched at the edge of the fog bank, surprised at our sudden arrival.  They trotted off into the fog and wildflowers, relaxing once they had put a few hundred yards between us and them, and obliged our lenses by looking regal and statuesque through the morning vapor.  While Isaac filmed, I walked around in a musical stupor, the stereo microphone leading me into pockets of lush sounds, which I recorded with reckless abandon.  

We then moved on, filming a few wide shots of opaque fog laying heavy over the meandering Bear Valley Creek as the sun barely squinted over the nearest ridge, creating something I had never seen before this particular morning: a fogbow.  No color, just a gauzy arc springing lightly from the moist earth and hanging over our heads wherever we moved.  

Hearing the elk noises, we attempted to find their origins in the fog, but true to the magic of the morning, wherever we moved, the noise would sound elsewhere.  We slushed through marshy areas up to our knees in water, and eventually came up against the river, too deep to cross.  We did eventually spot the elk, grazing on the other side a quarter mile away.  Redwing Blackbirds ended up taking the limelight as they cruised and swooped over our heads in the new light, singing and playing for the camera with flashes of red on jetblack wings.

Though we found no cavorting elk calves, only browsing elk cows munching the juicy grasses, it was such a mystic morning it didn't seem to matter.

          

Dagger Falls

Happy 4th of July!

We are celebrating the day by watching salmon exploding up waterfalls, firecrackers of miraculous strength.  The heavens are applauding with rumbles of thunder, purring appreciatively around the clouds.  We made it to Dagger Falls (just above the Boundary Creek put-in on the Middle Fork, where we began our river trip back on June 1), and have been watching the Salmon make their amazing struggle to reach their spawning beds, still long miles up the river.  [Historically 2,000,000 Salmon made the over 900 mile journey back to the Salmon River system in Idaho, and today only about 10,000 return.]  Dagger Falls is a relatively narrow stretch of the river, where the canyon walls push the water over a series of large ledges and through chutes.  Rocky spikes stick up out of the churning water like the teeth of a huge dragon mouth, gaping at the top of the falls.

It seems the fish make their biggest push in the late afternoon and early evening hours, which is fairly ideal for filming.  You only have to watch for a few moments before seeing a huge, dark and glistening body come torpedoing out of the boiling water, hurling itself at a wall of foaming water.  A few make it in one airborne surge, only to land in a boiling pool that is just a turbulent lay-over between levels.  Some hit the rushing water somewhere in mid-falls and struggle valiantly for a few moments (you can see them hanging on underneath the veil of water), squirming ferociously to hold their ground, which they can for what seems an impossible amount of time, before tiring and flushing backwards into the churning pool below.  And some (Isaac and I have been imagining this group to be younger, less experience, fish) corkscrew out of the water like torpedos gone haywire, only to flair majestically, high above the pool for long seconds before crashing down, usually downstream of where they left the water on their helter-skelter trajectory.  

For a few hours it seems that fish are everywhere, being tossed haphazardly around in the turbulence.  Aside from the actual leapers, you can see fish bodies hurtling through the foaming water, fins flailing here, a tail flipping around there... I can't imagine what it must be like to be in that pool as a fish.  They must not be able to see a thing, and look like they are simply getting smashed around, crashing into each other and the unforgiving rock walls, unable to rest in water that refuses to remain still.  Perhaps the holding pools have some deeper areas where they can dive down near the bottom and get a bit of rest between leaps, but I sure doubt it.  It would be so interesting to see for a moment, down through the thick water to the bottom of the river, suspending all the fish for a single moment in time, to understand how it all works.  

We saw a couple unlucky fish leap and miss, landing on sharp and jagged rocks, flipping and bouncing head over tail, barrel rolling eventually back to water.  I could imagine these fish, dazed and seeing stars, slipping limply back over the falls they had just fought so hard to conquer, and finally coming to rest down stream a mile or so, on some sandy-bottomed limpid pool, wondering what the heck just happened.

While watching the fish, we also found a family of Dippers nesting precariously just above the very top falls.  Dippers (American Dipper, also known as the Water Ouzel), are an extremely interesting and endearing bird.  They spend their entire lives along rushing mountain streams, hunting water bugs and insects from off rocks and underwater in the streambeds.  They have the ability to walk and even "fly" underwater, clinging to the rocky bottom with their tiny feet.  They can navigate (and even prefer) the turbulent waters of rapids, and make their nests directly above the rushing waters.  Their nests are these round orbs made of mud and moss, with the entrance pointed straight down towards the water, a few feet off its churning surface.  When their young fledge, I can only imagine them shooting out these precarious holes, seeing a few frantic moments of spinning daylight, and then plummeting into the frothing waters to careen downstream, bobbing and spluttering their way to some rock or snag, whatever they can grab onto to drag themselves, bedraggled and half drowned, out of the water.

We found our family of Dippers valiantly feeding their hungry young, racing up and down the river, snagging bugs from the water and stuffing them into the gaping beak that would stick out the bottom of the nest whenever it heard the chirp of the incoming food-laden parent, and sometimes even when it didn't, just hanging its big pink mouth out the chute, clinging to the inside of the nest presumably by its toes as it swings upside down waiting for something to fly by and zip into its hungry mouth.

Just yesterday morning, I sat for a couple hours by the side of the river above the falls, waiting for the Dippers to fly by so I could record their feeding calls.  I never saw hide or hair of a Dipper, but had a peaceful morning anyway, leaning against a rock reading a good book ("Into Thick Air", Jim Malusa: I recommend it highly), with my finger poised over the record button of the sound-deck incase I heard the call.  Later that afternoon we found out why there were no Dippers upriver that morning.  We found the entire family, including newly fledged baby, below the falls.  The baby was perched on the edge of a river rock, looking fluffed and cold (to me) as it stood first on one leg, and then the other, dipping all the while (Dippers "dip" almost constantly, which is a bobbling up and down motion which nobody seems to know the purpose of.  There are many theories of course, the one I like best being that they "dip" as some weird sort of way to stay sane and oriented in their extremely turbulent world of rushing, tumbling, never still white water).  It's parents continued to feed it diligently all afternoon, and it would make these tiny, pitiful hopping flights from rock to rock, moving ever so slightly downstream, stretching its wings and learning how to fly.  

There was an interesting and intense little interlude as afternoon moved into evening, when a mother otter and her cub appeared right next to the Dipper's rock, and eyed the tasty morsel skeptically for long moments, as the parent Dippers screamed angry warnings.  The baby stopped dipping and froze, wide-eyed and stunned (yes, anthropomorphizing shamelessly) as it watched the otter mama watching it.  Nothing ever came of it, but we did get some great otter footage as mom and pup played like only otters can, lolling on sunny rocks, spinning through golden sunlight-flecked water, fished in the rapids, and nursing.  The evening ended with some kind of insect hatch high above the molten river, sparkling like fairy-dust in the last burnished light of the long day, spinning lazy and hypnotic and mystical before the sun sank behind the peaks to the west, leaving us happily packing up camera gear and feeling like we'd had a productive day.

Better than any fireworks I've ever seen...  

            

The irony of wildlife filming

After hiking around for days trying to catch up with the wolves Isaac and Gabe had been filming when they were out, we finally had to come to the realization that without a stroke of near miraculous luck, we were not going to find these wolves again.  This country is so huge and wild and difficult to get around in when you only have two legs at your disposal (how many times have I wished for four legs to climb these hills, after watching wolves or elk or bighorns getting around with seeming ease...).  We found no new wolf sign, only a few older scats and tracks that had been left before the last of the rains, so we had to be content with simply seeing new country.

We found a new favorite spot when we hiked up to Cougar Point and spent two nights camped on top of the world, with a breathtaking 360 degree view of endless mountains decked out in an amazingly brilliant emerald green (after all the rain early on).  The slopes were absolutely popping with wildflowers: Arrowleaf Balsamroot, Indian Paintbrush, Ground Phlox, Blue Penstoman and the most abundant Lupine either one of us have ever seen.  Lupine seems to really like relatively newly burned areas, and as were bowled over by the scent as we hiked through endless meadows filled with nothing but vibrant Lupine and velvety black burned tree skeletons.  Really amazing color combination.

One evening we were up on Cougar Point, where there used to be a fire Lookout but it burned about 20 years ago.  We were filming big wide scenics as the sun sank low and golden over the mountains.  Isaac had just set up a time-lapse involving an artistically shaped burned tree snag backlit with the falling sun.  Somewhere right about in the middle of the twenty-minute time-lapse, a pair of cavorting bluebirds swooped into frame and decided that very tree snag was the place to hang out for a while.  I was watching with binoculars and got the most amazing show as they perched on the branches, fluttering and playing and completely backlit with molten sunset dripping from their wings.  I kept "oooing" and "ahhhing" as if I were watching a fireworks display, as Isaac sat beside me behind the camera cursing those very same bluebirds as they ruined his time-lapse.  But that is the story of wildlife filming.  It is so rare to have the right gear at the right moment.  With the right lens (not the one we had at that moment), and shot in slow motion (not a time-lapse), that bluebird moment would have been gorgeous.  But I enjoyed the show anyhow...

           

The first two weeks

 It is a little difficult to write about Isaac and Gabe's first couple weeks out filming as I wasn't even there, but I will do my best to sum it up from the little snippets that they told me later.  Imagine, if you can, two brothers cooped up for two weeks in a blind barely big enough for one person and a camera, in endless cold rain, sitting on mini camp stools that are barely big enough to balance one butt cheek on, picking the seeds off bagels one at a time to make the food last longer... and you can begin to get an idea of what they experienced.  Apparently every time they tried to get out of the blind to go searching for other things to film, or to simply stretch their legs, the wolves were onto them.  Never able to go anywhere undetected, or without stumbling accidentally across a pack member returning to the rendezvous site on the trail.  We know this area from other years filming these very same wolves, and are usually able to get around undetected, at least for a while.  And yet this year it seemed they were always underfoot, always just downwind, or popping up over a near ridge or just down the trail.  Eventually the pack split, whether it was because they ran into Isaac and Gabe one too many times or not it is hard to say.  There were several factors involved, including the fact that the day before the pack split, a couple new wolves ("intruders", we began calling them) showed up in the original pack's area, sniffing around and acting like they owned the place.  A few minor skirmishes ensued, always just out of sight, which could have had a lot to do with why they moved.  Impossible to say really.  

Back to Isaac and Gabe.  Imagine also their first night, after hiking for ten hours up trails that hadn't been maintained in a while, carrying packs that weighed eighty-plus pounds, finally getting to where they had planned to camp for the night, setting up the tent in rain that was just beginning to fall, falling tired into sleeping bags, and then Gabe in an accidental and joking flourish (again, remember I wasn't there, and have at this point only heard one side of the story), sticking his knife right through the top of our brand new, donated, tent.  Lucky for him (for them, really) the knife only went through the tent, and not the fly as well.  A good start to two weeks spent crammed together in very tight spaces.

But they returned seemingly unscathed, battle wounds nothing more than a possibly broken toe (Gabe's, from a too-fast trip down a too-rocky trail, with too-open shoes) and a possible bruised ego (Isaac's, from realizing that his body is not as young and strong as it used to be and having to give much more of the weight to his younger, stronger brother who is thankfully able to haul an unbelievable amount of weight).  

Finally an update

Hello again, I realize it has been over a month since I last wrote.  I was afraid that starting a blog would be difficult for this reason... 

Where to begin?  From the beginning, I guess.  So last I wrote, we were packing to go out and test gear before floating the river on June 1st.  We did go out, and a variety of things happened.  We ran into snow, more than we expected and sooner.  The road we took to get us into the wilderness was blown out.  Our trucks transmission boiled over and began spewing fluid long before the pass we were attempting to get over.  And my body decided that it would be a good time to not work so well, in the form of joint related difficulties.  So, once back home and packing for the river trip, we made a new plan.

We would float the Middle Fork of the Salmon River as planned, but instead of Isaac and I getting dropped off to hike into the wilderness a few days later, Isaac and his brother Gabe would be dropped off, and I would continue on down the river to fly out a few miles farther down on the mail plane, back to McCall where I would spend a couple weeks trying to figure out health issues.  

To make a long story short, all went smoothly.  The river was great: big, frothy, and exciting, Isaac and Gabe got dropped off at Cougar Creek to hike eight miles basically straight up with extremely heavy packs, filled with camera gear and food for two weeks, and I got dropped off at The Flying B ranch, a bit farther downstream to fly out on the mail plane the next morning.  

But that was all over a month ago now... time flies.  Gabe had to be back in town to begin summer work on June 15, so basically it was a changing of the guards.  I had been feeling really good, and felt ready to brave the Idaho hills by the time they returned to civilization, and after a few days of re-packing, re-supplying, and re-configuring, we were off again.  

For those of you who want to check out a map, we have been hanging out in the area of Loon Creek, Little Loon Creek, and Castle Fork Creek, and here are some names of places we hiked around to: Cougar Point, the Fur Farm, Blue Lake, Loon Creek Lookout, Falconberry Ranch, Indian Springs.  This is in the Southwest portion of the River of No Return Wilderness.    

We are writing now from Stanley, a tiny town in central Idaho where we have come out to check in and re-supply.  Things are going well, although we are definitely getting a bit of a reality check.  It is just plain difficult to get very far in this wilderness, on foot, hauling film gear.  On the map, our mileage looks downright meager, but in reality, our legs are telling us they have been long and hard-fought miles.  The mountains here are steep.  There is no such thing as flat ground.  And the gear is HEAVY.  

The reality of spending a full year, completely submersed in the wilderness with nothing more than a few re-supplies is fading.  It would be one thing if we were just backpacking around.  But when you add the filming aspect, not just hauling gear, but charging giant energy-hungry batteries, downloading footage onto hard drives, collecting sound, and keeping ourselves healthy and happy, it all becomes a little unrealistic.  

This last stint, we hiked in with all the gear we could carry (which wasn't everything), covered as much ground as we could (which was a lot, but mostly without camera gear) and saw everything we could (which ended up being a lot of fun).  So, as I said before, the plan is every changing.  We will do our best to follow our original plan, but we are trying to also be flexible and smart.