Got my goat on Ptarmigan Ridge

Oh yeah! See those fluffy things that look like clumps on that snow field (and above)? Well, if you enlarge that picture, you will see that they are bonafide MOUNTAIN GOATS! Although my Senior Trailblazers group takes binoculars every week, on this week's hike on Ptarmigan Ridge we were able to see four of them. And they are my first!! So, I'm calling this hike the one where I got my goat(s).

Twelve Seniors Trailblazers set out from the Senior Center on a beautiful day, although we were in heavy fog until somewhere around 10:00am. Once the sun came out in earnest, we saw nary a cloud anywhere, all day long. Temperature was perfect as we headed up to Artist Point to start our hike to Ptarmigan Ridge.

We had a few scary snow fields to cross, and since everyone was very careful and we helped each other, we were successful in navigating the crossings. Here you see Dan heading back across the snow to help Amy, since it was very steep and you just didn't want to fall. That said, though, our views on Ptarmigan Ridge were nothing short of spectacular.

As we were getting ready to stop for lunch, you can see the glorious Shuksan Mountain lighting up the landscape. We also had marvelous views of Mt. Baker almost the whole hike. Last year when we headed up this trail, it was cold, blowing so hard the rain was hitting us sideways, and there was no view. This hike today was the exact opposite: sunny, warm, light breeze, and absolutely breathtaking views.

The fall colors were enough to take your breath away all by themselves, and I thought this picture also shows you, who were unfortunate not be out there with us today, the amount of snow still left over from last year. In another week or two, it is possible that all of this will be covered with fresh snow, and we will be so happy that we were able to be there today. The parking lot at Artist Point was so full of cars it looked like a summer weekend, not a Thursday on the last day of September!

Here's Peggy finishing the last of her water at the end of the day, with the parking lot in sight. That signage tells you that she is standing at the junction of two trailheads, and we were all a little reluctant to head back down to sea level, after having spent the day here, hiking eight or so miles in the brilliant sunshine at the end of September. It was just a wonderful day.
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One good tern deserves another

This summer Bellingham was inundated with Caspian Terns, the largest species of tern (link takes you to the Wikipedia site about them). Since I have become a birder myself, I joined the Whatcom County birders listserv a while back and regularly receive emails of sightings people have of various birds. The Caspian Terns that came to Bellingham this year are far in excess of the 2009 numbers, partly because of the collapse of their breeding grounds at the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge near Sequim. Bald eagles and coyotes had been decimating the colony there, so the terns abandoned the site.

Joe Meche is President of the North Cascades Audubon Society and is a frequent correspondent to the listserv. The pictures I've got here are taken by him and shared through email. He put that first picture on to show that many of the birds have as many as three bands on them. He and 20 local volunteers captured, banded and released 252 Caspian Tern chicks on July 30. I have taken much of the information in this post from his newsletter article on Whatcom Watch Online: (To Everything Tern, Tern, Tern: Bellingham's Caspian Tern Summer). If you enlarge that picture, you can see the Bellingham bands (I think they are the cool orange ones). From that article linked above:

Some of the bands we read as we scanned the colony told us that birds were here from Dungeness and some from as far away as East Sand Island on the Columbia River, the Tri-cities area, southern Oregon, and the San Francisco Bay area. A real highlight for Ladd came when she spotted a bird that she had helped to band as a chick in early spring near Pasco! No one really knows how the word was spread among the birds about Bellingham, but they kept coming! One bird that was in the colony was banded on East Sand Island in 2001!

It is fascinating to speculate on how the birds let each other know where the happening place is to be found each summer. Before the summer was over, the colony here in Bellingham had become the second largest on the Pacific Coast. And this particular area they chose is scheduled for development by the City of Bellingham. Here's another Joe Meche picture:

These birds are ground nesters, and it's amazing to me that they are able to find their own chicks again after flying out to the bay for fish. Caspian Terns fly over the water and dive-bomb right into the water. The fish don't have a chance. I enjoyed learning all about these birds during the summer, and I just this week received a picture of a Caspian Tern giving a farewell salute (also taken by Joe).

This magnificent bird looks to me like he's saying goodbye as he migrates to South America or wherever it is they finally end up for the winter months. I love the aerodynamic look of him as he tucks his legs into his body and allows those mighty wings to do their thing. The birders are calling this the Bellingham Summer of the Caspian Terns, since at least 700-1,000 new chicks flew off to parts unknown, born and bred right here in my own home town. More than 250 banded youngsters will tell us how many of them will return here next summer.
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What are ya gonna do?

Taken from Huffington Post

It's sure not easy explaining to little ones about the death of a loved family member. I was both amused and bemused when I read this letter from Heather to her grandfather, who had obviously passed away recently. It also gave me something to think about. As this post title says, "what are ya gonna do" to explain to Heather where Grampa Larry is right now?

Or maybe Heather knows something I don't know. It seems very interesting to me to consider that the younger we are, the more we might know about the way things really are. My own thoughts about death are tangled up with fear and loss, so in many ways I think I don't have a clue. I also wonder what kind of holidays they have up there. And I wonder if I would be proud to have a grave with my name on it!

Maybe it's wishful thinking to consider the answers to these questions, but I kind of like the feeling I get when I get into Heather's mindset. It's a whole lot more fun and optimistic than my usual feelings about those family and friends who have passed on. Who knows? Maybe Heather is an enlightened being who has come to Earth to give me answers. I hope you enjoy her letter as much as I have.
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Hannegan, Take Two

The Senior Trailblazers were scheduled to drive 75 miles south to hike up Rainbow Ridge, but the weather was very iffy, so we decided instead to attempt another assault on Hannegan Pass. While I was away last month on the East Coast, the Trailblazers headed up toward the pass during another questionable weather event (Geezerhiker wrote about it here), who described a very wet hike, with actual soaking rain that caused them to turn around and head back down before reaching the pass.

Today's forecast was not much better, but at least we would not be driving 75 miles to hike in the rain, so off we went up the Mt. Baker Highway. Only nine hardy souls showed up for this one, definitely a much lower number than usual. But we hike, rain or shine, on Thursday. The picture above shows that although it did rain on and off, it was quite beautiful with the fall colors and the view of the valley. After a short while, though, we had to stop and don our rain gear.

Al, our leader (also known as GeezerHiker), broke out a new rain poncho that assured us nobody would ever mistake us for a bear (it's that season again). The skies spit on us now and then, but as we headed up the 2,000 feet of elevation again, incredibly the sun broke out to cheer our spirits.

As you can see, the flowers of the fireweed are long gone, but the husks were in the sunshine while the background was in shadow, and I thought this picture showed the beauty of our surroundings quite well. The trail was very wet, much more so than it was last year (when I thought I would expire from heat stroke), and those few sun breaks were all we had for the entire day.

On the trail, I asked those ahead of me to stop so I could get a picture. Dan, in the middle here, is famous for all the pictures I've taken of him over the summer. That's Al behind him and Peggy on the right. With only nine of us, we set a pretty good pace and actually made it all the way to the pass. This is the view we had:

In other words, nothing. No view. And the wind blew from this direction, making us, the wet and tired hikers, quite cold and uncomfortable in no time. Fortunately, everyone on the hike today had rain gear and cold weather gear. We threw on our warm clothes, including gloves, stamped and huffed for a very few minutes after eating our lunch before heading back down the trail. By the time we reached our cars, we were all warm and toasty from the exertion and ready to call it a day. Eight miles and then some, 2,000 feet up and down, and every kind of weather except warm and dry. In other words, a really good day with my buddies, average age of those on today's hike: around 70. Not bad. I've got a few years left, I'd say.
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Reduced bus service

I ride the bus almost every day and, partly because of the ongoing recession, our bus service here in Bellingham has been drastically cut back. My route to the gym every day, #10, has been eliminated. Another route has also been eliminated (the #9 to the hospital), and to cover an area that would have gone completely without service (mine), the routes for the #3 and #4 have been altered to include my section of town. Instead of catching the bus at the end of the apartment complex driveway, I have a five-minute walk about a block away.

I can deal with it just fine, except that before I was able to catch a bus every 30 minutes, and now it's only every hour, and Sunday service across the entire county has been eliminated.  I have a car and can drive if I have to, but what about those who were using the bus to get to work on Sundays, or church? They are now out of luck.

There was a public hearing about the cuts to bus service, and one way or the other the county was going to have to reduce service by about 14%, and cutting one full day of service was the best way to go, since fewer bus drivers and other staff would have to be laid off and everything can be closed for the day. Now they are looking at eliminating transfers, which means every time someone gets on the bus it will cost them $1, even if they are transferring to another route to get across town.

For me, as a senior, I only pay $35 for a quarterly pass that I can use for unlimited rides from the Canadian border all the way down to Mt. Vernon. But for those who use the bus to get to work and are not yet 65, they pay double that amount for a quarterly pass. At the bus stop this morning, I talked with a woman who uses the bus to get across town. She will still pay a $1 each for two buses to get to work, because her husband picks her up at the end of the day and works out to be cheaper than spending $70 for a quarterly pass, or $25 for a monthly pass.

The hard part, to me, is that whenever there are cuts to be made, the reductions in service hit the people who are least able to afford them. The gap between rich and poor grows wider, and more and more cars are forced onto the road, whether or not someone wants to use the bus. It's a vicious cycle, don't you think?
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City of subdued excitement

For some unknown reason (at least I haven't been able to find out why), Bellingham, Washington is known as the "city of subdued excitement." And now, there's a viral video on YouTube that is all about my new home town:


I listened to it a couple of times, the beat is rather catchy, and I've been to all the places shown in the video. The phrase about "Subdued Excitement" adorns several walls around the city. Maybe now that this video has gone viral, somebody will be able to tell me the answer to that mystery.

My favorite weatherman, Cliff Mass, just put up an interesting post on his blog about all the rainy weather we've been having. Apparently, this is just not normal weather around here. Not having many fall periods to compare this to, I wondered how it stacks up to previous years, and Cliff gives an interesting statistic on that post:

For the calendar day yesterday Seattle set a new daily [rainfall] record (.78 inches) ...old record .57 inches in 1983. Want even more? So far this month (ending midnight) SeaTac has received 3.74 inches, which IS THE WETTEST 18 days on record for September at that location.

Okay. I guess I can look forward to more of the same. It's raining hard right now. Whatever happens this fall and winter, I'm pretty happy with the place where I've decided to spend my golden years. And speaking of golden, the colors in the foliage around here are beginning their annual display! Wow, that was fast: last time I looked I was taking pictures of the spring flowers, and now we are preparing for short days and long nights.
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Two years, three hikes

Today I went with sixteen Senior Trailblazers up to Herman Saddle for the third time. It was almost exactly two years go that I began my hikes with this group by going on this particular hike. Last year's hike was sunny at the end of August, almost exactly the opposite of my first time out with the Seniors, when it was cold, rainy, snowy, and very windy the whole day. Today was an in-between day: mostly clouds with some sun, but with limited views of our beautiful mountains in residence.

I was enchanted by the clouds, and I snapped this picture to capture the incredible variety in the clouds, and I got this shot of our sun surrounded by those four pink spots. It was just by chance that I took this, but I had to share it with you, as it seems almost magical to me.

We trudged up to the saddle, where we had to cross snow, and then we headed down to Iceberg Lake for our lunch stop. The weather was cool but we didn't have any rain, and when the sun came out in force, we took clothes off; when it retreated behind the clouds, we grabbed our jackets. One of those kinds of days.

As you can see, when we stopped for lunch we all put on more clothes and didn't stay for a long time, as we had a party to attend at the end of the day: Amy (who was at home preparing our party, with the assistance of Dorothy and Gina, the wives of two of our favorite hikers) wanted to have a celebration for Frank, who will be turning 80 in a couple of weeks. Before we headed to our cars, I got this spectacular picture of one of my favorite mountains, Shuksan:

The clouds always add something that cannot be duplicated in any other moment, to me. I just love the sky, the clouds, and the mountain showing me what I get to enjoy when I go on these hikes: nature in all its glory and majesty. This moment is unique and captured here for you to join with me in the ooohs and aaaahs this mountain deserves.

This is the cake that we shared with Frank on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Many of our spouses came to the party to celebrate with us. Frank and his wife Marjan are hiking, kayaking, biking and just generally staying incredibly active here in the Pacific Northwest. Can you believe that in two weeks he will be 80 and she is in her mid-70s? They are an inspiration to all of us!

I hope in seven years when I am as old as Marjan, or in another thirteen years when I am as old as Frank, that I will still be hiking in the beautiful Pacific Northwest and sharing my life with you, my dear readers, as an inspiration to you! Is this cool or what?
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