Story & Photos by Chris CzajkowskiThe Chilcotin, the area west of Williams Lake in central British Columbia, is blessed with a wonderful geological diversity, each rock type supporting its own stable of flora. One mountain range is a mixture of sandstone and limestone (see Wildflower 16.4); the main spine of the Coast Range is granitic; and the vast majority of the plateau-like interior is overlaid by tons of volcanic magma, sometimes manifest in basaltic "organ-pipe" outcrops, and sometimes smothered by glacial gravel. Most of this plateau does not exceed 4,000' in altitude but, north of the highway that runs from Williams Lake to the Coast, a series of ancient volcanic ranges poke up above the tree-line. Like the Hawaiian Islands, these ranges were all formed over a single fumerole which erupted periodically after long periods of inactivity. In between eruptions, the earth's crust had moved, thus new ranges were formed. The most recent of these eruptions occurred tight against the Coast Range; the brilliant red and yellow swirls of coloured stones earned it the title of Tsitsuti, "The Mountain that Bleeds" in the Carrier language: the white settlers called it "The Rainbows." The Rainbows lie about 60 km north of my home but, what with the inaccessibility of both areas, it is difficult to find time, especially during the flower season, to visit this tantalizing range. So I was delighted when David and Joyce Dorsey, who operate Rainbow Mountain Outfitting, gave me the right kick in the pants, by inviting me along as a botanical guide for one of their trips.
David's grandfathers, Lester Dorsey and Thomas Squinas were both legendary guides in the area and they established many of the trails and camps that the Tweedsmuir Provincial Park have since adopted as their own. David grew up in hunting camps, but he has also developed a fascination with plants, not only as objects of beauty, but also for their traditional uses. His wife, Joyce, and daughter Leslie, share his love for the great outdoors. As with so many people in this remote and sparsely populated region, I have known the Dorseys for years but have rarely seen them. When they are not guiding, they live on a ranch that is accessible only by horse. A bonus to this trip was that I would finally be able to visit with them for a little longer than a few minutes once a year when we happen to run into each other at the store.
Not that we would be together much during the day, for this was to be a "horse-supported" trip: i.e., the horses would carry our gear and the rest of us would walk. Sounds like hard work? Well it was quite a long walk for some of the clients, who were Elderhostel members, but botanizing is essentially a nose to the ground occupation. How can you identify plants when you are riding a horse and your head is ten feet off the ground?
We met for a wonderful dinner on 30th July at the Eagles Nest Resort just west of Anahim Lake (named for the active eagle's nest viewed from the window: also a wonderful place to watch that extraordinarily mis-placed bird, quite abundant here, the American white pelican). Along with the seven Elderhostel members (from the States and Canada, both east and west) were: a geologist and his partner, also instructors; two riding clients; and wranglers Eileen, Ed, and the Dorsey's 16-year-old daughter. After a forty minute drive to the trailhead the following morning, we packed our gear into army duffel bags, then we hikers left the horse people to do all the work of organizing and loading the animals, while we started along the trail.
Regular readers of this magazine will know that my own mountain resort is a day and a half walk from the road. As I hiked out from home, my route took me through areas usually covered in flowers by late July. It had been a very low-snow winter, but a very late spring and a cold, dry summer. The flowers in "my" area were extremely disappointing. Previous excursions into The Rainbows had indicated that the flowers there were usually slightly later. The development of almost all alpine flowers is triggered by the retreat of the snow. The Rainbows are further west than my backyard and therefore receive a deeper snowfall which takes longer to melt. So I wondered if there would be anything to see.
I need not have worried. The flowers were absolutely stunning. David and Joyce said they had never seen a year like it.
For five whole days we absolutely wallowed in carpet after carpet of fabulous colour.
Overall, the combination of flora is similar (with one very obvious exception) to the wet meadows of home. Red paintbrush Castilleja miniata, blue lupin (probably Lupinus arcticus), yellow daisies (mostly two different Arnica species and Senecio triangularis); purple daisies (Erigeron peregrinus and Aster foliacious); white valarian Valariana sitchensis; and the white bog orchid Plantanthera dilatata. Nowhere in the world is there so much variety of strong, bold colour as in North America's mountain meadows.
But The Rainbows also boasted another very dominant plant in these meadows. The leafy or bracted lousewort Pedicularis bracteosa grows in massive profusion throughout the range, both below the treeline and above it, but does not occur in a single place in my backyard. Tall as a lupin, and with a flower spike as large, Pedicularis bracteosa's flowers are creamy or a bit reddish. It grows commonly in the limestone Potato Range, too, but I have not seen it in standard alpine meadow calendar pictures. Most of these would have been taken further south or in The Rockies, by which I must assume that the bracted lousewort is either a more northern species or simply less common elsewhere.
Three other louseworts on our hike included the bird's beak Pedicularis ornythoryncha and P. langsdorfii in the higher country, and occasional patches of P. racemosa, which has the peculiar distinction of growing, abundantly at times, in the very narrow elevational niche of the last thousand feet before the treeline. Never lower, even when conditions might seem similar, and never in the open country of the alpine.
But we are still within yards of the carpark when two other species not found in my area presented themselves. The chocolate bells of the rice root or Kamchatka lily Fritillaria kamschatsensis were in full, rich bloom, but the stinky-leaved Sanicula graveolens was finished and hidden by a lush growth of potentillas and fleabanes.
By lunchtime we had reached a plateau that had elevated itself above the treeline which, as well as the flowers, offered us a smiling panoramic view of the snow-hung Coast Range. It was a balmy, idyllic scene, but in the west were a few piled clouds above a sky with a rather curious yellow cast. Within moments of our starting off again, a tremendous thunderstorm beat us about the head, sending everyone diving somewhat ignominiously for the nearest shelterbelt of trees. But, apart from a couple of very loud cracks and a half hour of heavy rain, we were little inconvenienced. At the end of our journey we found that half of BC had experienced windstorms that blew trees and power lines down in all directions. Some places were without power for two days. Being in our own snug horse camp, with the fire for warmth and our only source of light, digesting our wonderful steak dinner, we were aware of no more trauma than that of holding damp socks to the flames to dry.
The rain pattered on and off through the night but by morning it cleared and we had a most spectacular day. Within half an hour we had reached the tree-line again and this time stayed above it for most of the longest hike of our trip. The trails were well-graded and well-marked for the most part, and the flowers were absolutely fabulous. As we climbed slowly higher, the tinier rock-loving alpines came into their own: the gorgeous blue bells of the almost stalkless alpine harebell Campanula lasiocarpa, the pink cushions of moss campion Silen
e acaulis; mats of insignificant-looking rusty saxifrage Saxifraga ferruginea, whose fuzzy appearance is due to the profuse covering of bulbils, many of which had already sprouted leaves and were on their way to becoming new plants; and the rich blue blossoms of Penstemon procerus.
Higher still and the heathers took over as the dominant plant, the pink-flowered Phyllodoce empetriformis, the yellow P. glandulifera, and the white Cassiope mertensiana. In the wet seeps were the strong dark leaves and a few faded flowerstalks of the mountain coltsfoot, Petasites frigidus.
I have a book on Chinese National Parks. In one is a spiritual shrine, the path to which has fourteen false summits before the goal is reached. These false summits are called by a name which translates as "Rejoice too soon." The climb to the pass near Crystal Lake has several "Rejoice too soon"s. But a late lunchtime saw us picking over the bare gravel slopes east of the lake for the extraordinary opaque opal bubbles and black iron fans that give the lake its name. My particular delight was a wonderful patch of horned dandelions Taraxacum ceratophorum. These occur at home but I've never found so many together or such vigorous plants in full flower. Here they were, gnarled and prostrate, but blooming gloriously, each shaggy head as large as those of the European weed.
Wherever I've been in the Coast Mountains, I have noticed an interesting phenomenon. Eastern slopes are often gentle in incline and usually treeless and dry. Western slopes are often steep and, the moment one plunges into them, one is consumed by a veritable jungle. The Boyd Pass leading down from Crystal Lake is a classic example. Even before the trees started the flora had changed dramatically. Geranium richardsonii grew in tangled clumps with head-high cow parsnip Heracleum lanatum. This is prime grizzly habitat - the cow parsnip is a favourite food - and there have been a few bear encounters on this part of the trail but, by keeping close together, we had no cause for alarm. Within moments we had dropped into dense subalpine fir forest and the steep trail led us 2000 feet down to the meadows at the head of a valley named for Alexander MacKenzie, the first white man to cross the north American continent. It was here that he had set his feet on his route to Bella Coola and the Pacific Ocean.
Camp was situated among grassy meadows that were not only in a west-facing, therefore much warmer, valley, but were also lower than the trail head by about 500 feet. This made for a marked change in flora. Kamchatka lilies had been common here but they were long finished - all that was left were the shrivelled heads and yellowed leaves. Geums, potentillas and buttercups gave us some taxonomic fun, as did the fleabanes and asters, but the oddest plant of all was a thistle. I've seen it in the Potato Range as well as The Rainbows, and once near Nimpo Lake, but not at home. It is never mentioned in field guides and, as far as I can make out from Hitchcock et al, it is Cirsium scariosum, the elk thistle. It is an extraordinary-looking plant, standing fat and solitary, well above the rest of the herbage. It appears to have no flowers at all until one looks into the centre of the terminal rosette of long, thin, many-spined leaves. Buried deep within this armament are a dense cluster of tawny blossoms that look as if they have already gone to seed.
We spent two nights at that camp. Some people hiked off to see the views or collect obsidian (jet black volcanic glass) from the outcrop that was used by the first nations to make arrowheads, and some of us had a plant putter around camp.
The gravel river bars were in excellent bloom, the usual paintbrushes, lupines and daisies interspersed with bright buttery yellow cushions of Mimulus tilingii and what would soon be extravagent purple clumps of the mountain fireweed or river beauty Epilobium latifolium.
Day four took us out of the valley again and, once more, we went through densely vegetated bear country. As we entered the subalpine flower fields, there was much evidence of these animals: a plethora of droppings on the trail; freshly nipped cowparsnip stalks; and, thanks to an eagle-eyed hiker who spotted it, a freshly-used bear rubbing tree whose projecting twigs bore clumps of crinkly, reddish hair. Tracks were few, even through the muddy areas, but eventually the fresh sow and cub track with the telltale clawholes in front, denoting a grizzly, were seen. But of the bears themselves, we saw not a one. Even my "smelling-nose" dog (kept tight on a lead through that section of trail, just in case), although he was alert, did not register the excessive excitement he would have done had a bear been close.
Once again we climbed a pass, and once again we were on the long, southern slopes of the mountains absolutely flooded with flowers. It had turned cloudy with little wind, and the bugs were having a field day, but bugs and wet meadows go hand in hand. What is a good climate for one is, unfortunately, equally as good for the other. I wanted some pictures for this article and made everyone take their head nets off while they posed. Can't have people looking as though they were not enjoying themselves! But in fact there were no complaints. Our hikers, though tired, were a wonderfully cheerful bunch. It was my first experience with an elder hostel group and I was certainly impressed with their pleasantness, cheerfulness, and great interest in their surroundings. By no means all guided hikers fall into that category!
We dropped down to 4,500' again for our last camp, and for our final hike we were presented with 16 km of trail, the longest actual distance covered in a day. But most of it was below the treeline with very little elevation gain, although unfortunately there was a long, slow drag uphill right at the end. It was also extremely hot. By early afternoon we passed through more open sedgy meadows and people were spreading out a little more. "The least likely place you will encounter a bear," I told everyone, "is in an open space in the hottest part of a very hot day." And of course that is exactly where we did see one. But it took one look at us and did what any self-respecting bear would do when presented with a dozen people and one dog - threw dignity to the wind and took to its heels as fast as it possibly could.
And then suddenly we were at the trailhead, arriving dusty and hot at the same time as the horses. After an overload of mountain flowers it was the powerful, sweet scent of the alien roadside clover that most captured my senses. Dinner at the Eagle's Nest Resort was another gourmet feast; and while we ate we watched the great white pelicans flapping slowly in front of the window, or preening themselves in the last of the evening's light as it shone on Anahim Lake.
Chris Czajkowski is Wildflower's Field Editor for the Central Coast Range.
For further information:
Write - Chris Czajkowski, Nuk Tessli Alpine Experience, Nimpo Lake, BC VOL IRO, Canada
Phone: Summer - 250 742 3222. Winter - 250 476 1171.
E-mail nuktessli@lincsat.com
