A week in Jasper

At the end of May I spent a week in Jasper working on a vegetation survey for a company called Terasen. They have a pipeline that runs through the park and they are expanding it with a larger pipe to increase their capacity to send oil to Vancouver (it's eventually going to Texas). Because they're putting in a new pipe they need to make the pipeline right of way larger so they can avoid the pipe that's already in the ground. This is going to have a significant impact on the landscape in the park, therefore lots of surveys and assessments are required. One of the surveys (which I was involved with) entailed classifying the plant communities using a dichotomous key that was developed by the wardens for the Rockies.

We hiked the pipeline right of way for four days and classified the veg. I got to see some amazing forests and places in the park that most people will never see. Seeing an old growth Engleman spruce/horsetail/moss forest for the first time was super cool. It was so old - I felt like an intruder, like I didn't belong there. There were a lot of plants in bloom and I got some good pictures.

A cute little sedge of some sort (Carex sp.) - they are notoriously difficult to identify

Sitka columbine (Aquilegia formosa)

Canada violet (Viola canadensis)

Fairy slipper (Calypso bulbosa)

Yellow lady's-slipper (Cypripedium calceolus) not quite fully opened

A cool story: We were working in two teams of three and my team got dropped off on the highway to do a short section of the pipeline that runs parallel to the highway. On the way to our drop off point we passed a large, fat, and very sleek black bear wandering down the side of the highway about 1 km from our start point and going our direction. We didn't think anything of it and started the survey. I had to stop almost right away for a bathroom break. As I was doing up my pants, here comes the bear, walking down through the bushes between the right of way and the highway, not more than 30 feet away from me! I grabbed my stuff and told my team members that it was time to go! We walked down the right of way away from the bear. He followed us for about 300 meters. We finally decided to radio the other team to get picked up. We did a different section of the pipeline that day and finished the bear section the next day. I would have loved to have gotten a picture of him because he was so close, but it's not worth the risk.

I also caught a western toad (Bufo boreas)!