The restoration crew’s sixth and final hitch for the season got off to an unusual start. We met at Granite Peak RV park (granite pit, if you prefer the groovy slang), where Malcolm and Logan had been staying between hitches. Malcolm had noticed several Cyphocleonus achates (“Cyphos”), an important knapweed biocontrol species that acts as a root weevil crawling on their tent, so we were there to collect them. The day heated up quickly, which was good for promoting bug activity but rough for us searching for the bugs with no shade. Nonetheless, we enjoyed our time reunited as a full crew for the final time this season, and there was plenty of laughter as we sifted through the piles of buggy knapweed-detritus we collected in sweep nets.
A knapweed root weevil, Cyphocleonus achates.
The plants unearthed all sorts of fun surprises, including jumping spiders, inch worms, honeybees, one of the largest arachnids I’ve ever seen (a cat faced orb weaver), and a strange mystery larva pulsating in a fascinating pattern. Luckily, there was an abundant population of the biocontrol as well, and we collected 200 Cyphos as well as 500 Larinus spp, another knapweed biocontrol. We split the bigs between the two crews, Logan said his goodbyes to the other four members since he was leaving early, and then he and I drove down around Graves Creek Road towards Highway 12.
Before going over the pass to the Lochsa drainage, we stopped at the Jack Saloon for lunch, having been informed that sitting at the swinging chair at the bar was a must-try experience. An older man, Greg, was sitting at the bar next to us, and upon realizing it was Greg’s birthday, Logan promptly offered to pay for his food and I offered to split it with him. After a brief show of reluctance, Greg was deeply grateful and warmed up to a heartfelt conversation. He said that he was a relative of Sir Walter Scott, who “died drunk in a gutter in London but was a great writer,” and quoted his favorite line from Walter Scott's most famous novel, Ivanhoe, to us. A little more conversation revealed that he had worked on and off for the forest service for the past 37 years, that he had a dog named Daisy, and that he was currently acting as the nearby campground host. After lunch, Logan and I drove over Lolo pass and found a place to set up camp under the Cedars next to the Lochsa. We then surveyed trail #7 to finish the day, a short, beautiful hike through the woods with no end destination that eventually fades into nothing more than a series of criss-crossing elk trails. Dinner next to the Lochsa offered us great views of a brood of nearly mature mergansers, trout darting amongst the rocks, and a sandpiper flitting from shore to shore before the sun set, then the frogs started chirping, and we passed out for the day.
Day two started with a drive back over highway 12 to Petty Mountain, where we hadn’t had time to release our biocontrol the day before. Hiking up the trail, we stopped briefly to say hello to several bighorn sheep, two coopers hawks, and a few huckleberry bushes before arriving at the upper knapweed polygon. A nice breeze took the edge out of the heat of the day, as we conducted a SIMP plot, finding that Larinus were already present, and released the cyphos. The second plot had both cyphos and Larinus present, so we supplemented the Larinus population with those we had collected and then hiked back to the car and swung through Lolo for gas. Several crawdads showing up in the shallows at dinner offered a tempting addition to my lentil curry, but I opted out after realizing I had neither a second pot to cook them in or an Idaho fishing license.
We shuttled cars for a loop hike to survey trails 227 and 203 the next morning, starting on 227. The trail did not have a promising start, with no parking lot or sign, though there was an apple tree with delicious green apples near the start. After leaving a small thicket of rose bushes, ferns, and assorted shrubby deciduous trees, the trail entered a beautiful old cedar grove with some signs of human use. One particularly fantastic cedar was slowly approaching being girdled and killed by a wire wrapped around it about 12 feet off the ground. After several failed attempts to climb the (branchless) trunk and stand on each other’s shoulders, Logan and I wandered a short way down the trail to find a log to lean against the trunk. With the log resting securely (ish) in a divot in the trunk, and Logan was then able to give me a boost to stand on top of it, which finally put me within reach of the wire to uncoil it. We wished the cedar the best of luck to grow for many years to come, and high-fived. An unusually large and well preserved moose skull we found on top of the duff added to the celebratory mood. Unfortunately, the trail disappeared entirely a few hundred yards after the cedar grove, and after wandering through the forest looking for it for a little while we accepted that we weren’t going to be able to make a loop hike out of the day and turned around to survey trail 203. Trail 203 was beautiful, a seven mile point-to-point leaving Highway 12 and climbing gradually to No-See-Um meadows next to the Lolo motorway. On top of this, it was actually well-maintained all the way through! We watched a coopers hawk glide away from us through the firs, got the wits scared out of us (for the 100th time this summer) by a ruffed grouse exploding out of the brush, and made it back to the trailhead otherwise uneventfully. We finished the work day with a short survey of trail 2 to the Lochsa historic ranger station to shorten the length of the survey for the coming days.
Saturday was Logan’s last day for the season, and we woke early hoping to successfully complete a loop hike with a car shuttle before trail conditions became impassable for surveying. Unfortunately, Post Office Ridge Trail became a veritable jungle gym of fallen Ponderosas about 2.5 miles in, and we were forced to retreat. Logan left to get back to town in time to pack up and head back to school, and I went to the trailhead for the Lewis and Clark Trail (#25). The start of the 7 mile climb was recently maintained, and didn’t have too many weeds, making for smooth sailing. The upper section of the trail yielded excellent views of the western side of the Bitteroots, offering an unusual angle on many of the peaks I’ve spent my life exploring, as I almost always enter from the east side of the range. After spooking a solitary elk and hiking back to the car, I ended the day with a pleasant evening hike up Jerry Johnson Trail (#38), the other half of the loop Logan and I had hoped to complete. A group of three pileated woodpeckers serenaded my ascent with strangely melodious calls that sounded like a curious infant. Trail conditions deteriorated a couple miles into this trail as well, so I turned around to enjoy a small luxury of car camping: a fresh poblano pepper in my rice and beans!
A Western Skink.
I started early on Sunday, hoping to finish the rest of the surveying along the Lochsa in time to meet up with the other crew by evening. Skookum creek trail (#204) was the first on the to-do list, and was overgrown but decent most of the way, bouncing from a dry south facing hillside infested with knapweed in and out of the lush cedar forest along the creek bottom before crossing the creek and heading up the hillside. It showed no sign of recent human use, though it was criss-crossed with elk trails and covered with ungulate tracks and quite a few piles of black bear scat. Trail conditions gradually began to deteriorate, and after disappearing briefly in a few fern-filled meadows, it faded out completely at around 5000 feet elevation. I then swung down for a brief visit to the Lochsa Historic Ranger Station on my way to finish up surveying trail 201, where I was generously offered as many wild plums growing on the trees as I wanted, as most of them were already rotting on the ground. This trail was in good condition, and even extended slightly past the end marked on the map, though it was unfortunately severely infested with St. Johnswort and Knapweed. I heard a black bear lumbering through the brush not far off the trail, perhaps on the way to get to work on the plums that I hadn’t gotten to, but was unfortunately unable to see it through the thick brush. I had left trail 142 for last, as it was just over two miles and I figured it would be a nice easy hike to end the day. This decision quickly reinforced a lesson I should already know about looking a little closer at topo lines before assuming anything about trails, even if they’re only two miles, because upon leaving the car at 4:00 I learned that the trail included over 2500 feet of vert on loose, gravelly soil. This was enough to just crack 13,000 feet of vert for the past two days of surveying, and I returned to the car exhausted, but was delighted to find several brilliant-blue skinks along the way. I then drove into Kooskia, got gas, and called Chris to finalize plans for meeting up with the other crew since we had been struggling to plan over satellite. Chris told me that Kalle had gotten a flat tire so her and Micah were out of the field, so we planned on picking them up the next morning to drop them at Clearwater Crossing to handpull knapweed. Thoroughly ready to fall asleep before waking up at 5:00 the next morning to pick them up, I got a burger to-go at the only open restaurant in Kooskia, drove back up the Lochsa to the nearest passable campsite, and passed out.
I arrived in Missoula late the next day to pick up Micah and Kalle, for reasons that may or may not involve a speeding ticket. Because it would be a bit of a late start for the day, they opted to just do Indian Creek the next day, since Kalle could get her tire fixed by then anyways. This gave me a day to unpack, shower, and catch up on building trail polygons for the weed populations I found while surveying before the end-of-season farewell picnic at Pattee Canyon. We met Wednesday at the group campsite next to the top corner of the meadow loop, for those who ski at Pattee in the winter. Hayley had cooked a delicious meal of pulled pork and coleslaw, and there were drinks, salad, grapes, and dessert as well. We all enjoyed good food and good company, and reminisced about the season. It was a great send off, and a reminder of all the great people that go into making GBCA’s work happen. Meaningful conservation work requires a dedicated and enthusiastic group who care deeply about the natural world they work in, and we’re so lucky to have one for the Great Burn.