Lynx

June 6th

Made it to Summit, the highest elevation on the Alaska Highway. We rode our mountain bikes, 1.5 miles (and walked them about half of that, after swearing to myself, while my thighs burned again, after our last Jasper hill-raiser) to the trailhead to Flowers Lake. This was a 3.5 mile hike through bogs, tundra, ponds, streams, up and down Sound of Music hills, landscapes, surrounded by lightly forested, tundra'd hills, and rock and striated mountains where stone sheep should have been.

There were multiple fires on both sides of the highway, the flagger gal said, so the sky was hazy. Smoke tended to create some cool, rose-colored mushroom cloud-like formations, that reminded us of atomic 'rooms. Luckily, the smoke did not follow us further on.

 

Two young couples and their 4 dogs (2 Chesapeake retrievers, a German wirehair, and Australian shepherd) caught up to us so quickly, and they walked vs. riding bikes up the road, so we waved them on ahead of us. Flowers Lake was partially full, and Mark had witnessed it so, two years ago. It was still a lovely teal blue, and the sparsely snow-capped mountains surrounding it were awesome. After snacking on trail bars, mix and bagel, we got a headstart in front of the young 'uns, and Mark wanted to have a better chance of wildlife, without the dogs. I spotted an elk and her calf across the hill from us, and the mother kept looking over at we potential threats, guiding her baby upward and over out of sight.

 

 

At the trailhead, the young folks, again caught-up to us, and we had the nicest chat with them all. They were from Fort Nelson, south of Summit, and the two guys were technical workers for one of the local big energy plants, one gal a barrista and taking online college courses and with past job doing mental health work, the other woman worked in a dental office. Several strongly recommended we camp at Muncho Lake. The ride down the service road was fun; although up and down, I am a magnet for most of big rocks in the road.

 

We decided to shower at Muncho Lake camp, but Mark got fatigued, after we discovered a perfect free provincial recreation site, when looking for a geocache, right by Toad River! It  was our first night by the river camp, so far, with an old wooden and steel bridge above us, with little traffic. When Mark went looking for another geocache, while I was enthralled with my fun read, The Boat Who Wouldn't Float, I heard voices, listened for more and couldn't hear anything else. He came back, all excited about meeting a lynx on the bridge road, said he yelled twice for me, but figured that may scare-off the cat.

We walked the trash to the dumpster at a further away camp-site, and Mark looked over into trees, and there stood a taller than I expected, calm and majestic lynx. At first, I was nervous, thinking she was a small cougar, but then saw her upright, fur-tipped, pointed ears and her manchu-like jowls. The three of us stood there just staring at eachother, muttering nonthreatening endearments to her. She was so comfortable in her security and curiosity of us, that she laid down, and occasionally gazed to her right, and then slowly back to us. Mark got several beautiful poses out of her, and when zoomed to view, were startlingly elegant and lovely.

Her eyes were like a painting of a regal Asian beauty, so human-like, and framed by those upright tufted ears and graceful long wisps on both sides of her mouth. Made our day, truly.