March 9, 2025: Tall Timbers at Ten Thousand

The past week was spent at altitude in the beautiful surroundings of Steamboat Springs, Colorado:  7000' in the city, 10,568' at the top of the ski area.  

Looking west over the Yampa Valley from the top of Mr. Werner in Steamboat Springs.

We've been to Steamboat Springs many times, but it's still strange to see such tall trees growing at 10,000 feet elevation.  

Snowshoeing at 9400' elevation in Rabbit Ears Pass we were surrounded by towering Lodgepole Pines.

Trees peter out in New Hampshire around 4000', and by 5000' there's nothing but scrub.  But in the Rocky Mountains trees grow robustly at well over 10,000'.  Part of the difference is due to the lower latitude - even Steamboat Springs, located in northwest Colorado at a latitude of 40.48 degrees, is more than 200 miles south of Meredith at a latitude of 43.66.  But other factors including better soil conditions and less severe winds in Colorado are probably even more of a contributor to the difference.

At the city elevation of just under 7000' many species of trees grow at elevations where no tree can survive in New England.

Aspen (above) and Cottonwood (below) along the Yampa River.

The Yampa River is also the life source for many animals, especially in winter. 

The Yampa River, fed by springs in the Flat Top Mountains and plenty of snowmelt.

There are lots of mammal tracks leading down to the river, as well as various birds gathering along its course to secure food, including osprey, magpies, and ducks.

A pair of Mallards that decided to spend the winter in the Yampa River.

A Black-billed Magpie perched over the river.

We returned home early Saturday morning to a cold and blustery New Hampshire day, but that didn't stop the mink from making its daily rounds.

A mink passes along the Wicwas Shoreline Saturday morning.

Mink live as far west as Colorado, primarily along the rivers, as riparian habitat is their preferred territory.  One's not likely to see them at high elevation though, even if the trees can thrive there.

Clouds form over Storm Peak.

Thanks VP for another great visit to the 'boat!

March 5, 2023: Snowy Steamboat

We spent the past week visiting family in Steamboat Springs, Colorado (thanks for being a great host VP!) where there is definitely snow - 360.5 inches this winter and counting.  In feet, that's 30.  Downtown Steamboat has quite a few sculptures along Main Street, similar to Meredith, though the art work in Steamboat is permanent, not rotating.  And this time of year, they aren't all that visible.  

There's actually a third person buried in the snow - that's what the two girls are looking at.

And maybe that's why we didn't see much wildlife - animals aren't moving around much.  Usually we see a moose or a deer, or at least a fox.  All we saw this week was a different variant of a junco and quite a few magpies.  I believe the junco variant was an Oregon junco, the most widely spread of the western juncos, but I didn't get a picture.  

Oregon Junco.  Photo courtesy U.S. Dept. Fish and Wildlife

Magpies on the other hand were seen often - they are not shy.  Like other members of the corvid family - crows and ravens for example - magpies are intelligent.  They know how to coexist with humans, take advantage of our actions, and are conscious of just how close they can get to us without being in danger.  Crows, which know they can eat road kill just over the white line on a highway without getting hit (usually) have this same ability to learn.

Right along the edge of the Yampa River in Steamboat, a pair of osprey have built a nest on a post set up for that purpose.

Osprey nest along the Yampa River.

But in the winter when the ospreys are off enjoying life in the tropics, a magpie has taken over the spot as its observation tower.

Magpie stationed as lookout.

Magpies perch in the highest spot to observe and defend their territory from intruding magpies.  They are large birds with long tails, and are quite flashy whether they're sitting or flying.

The ski resort in Steamboat has a set closing date every year so as not to interfere with the elk migration, but this year due to all the snow the closing date has been extended a week because those elk aren't going up the mountain until the snowpack melts down.  30 feet is a lot of snow.

We arrived back in New Hampshire just in time to enjoy our own local dump of snow, and it was a good one.  After a few hours of shoveling the snow we've had in the past week I took an excursion on the skis up behind Lake Wicwas on the Hamlin Trails.

It was a beautiful and warm day, full of cobalt skies and brilliant pristine snow contrasted with inky black streams.

Most of the trails weren't tracked out when I was there this morning, but it's so nice today that I expect the popular trails will be packed down by the end of the day.

It's going to be a great week to get out and enjoy late-winter activities in the long days and warm sun of March.

March is my favorite month of winter.

March 13, 2022: Muskrat Lodge Revealed

Well, it was revealed - for a couple of days anyway before yesterday's snow came along and buried it again, but still, it's another sign of spring coming.

I found this medium-size muskrat lodge in a marsh near Chemung Road after a few warm days melted away a lot of snow cover in areas exposed to the strong March sun - we're only a week away from the vernal equinox now.  A muskrat family built this lodge over time in much the way beavers build a lodge, but they differ in their construction materials.  Beaver lodges are built primarily of sticks and branches held together with mud from the bottom of the lake, while muskrats use mostly vegetation in their lodge.  Both start as small mounds which are enlarged until they're well above the water level at which point they excavate their home from the inside.  (Both beavers and muskrats are rodents.)

Muskrat lodge in greener days.  Lodges are built close to a plentiful supply of food sources.

A muskrat lodge may start with only one or two rooms, but as the family grows the lodge is expanded and additional rooms added.  The rooms are above the water level so they have dry living quarters, but the entrance is always under water to foil some predators, though mink are excellent swimmers and are the most tenacious predator of muskrats.  Muskrats are active all year; their winter diet consists mostly of the roots of aquatic plants such at cattails, reeds, and arrowheads but they will also eat clams, mussels, snails, and other small animals.  Maybe they'll find an appetite for Chinese mystery snails!

I don't often see muskrats but on occasion I'll find one swimming in the lake in the early morning.  On one occasion, while riding my bike along the road, a startled muskrat ran in ditch beside me for a dozen yards before darting into the safety of a culvert.  Unless there's a point of refence to judge its size - which is considerably smaller than a beaver - or I can clearly see its tail, I have a hard time discerning a muskrat from a beaver.  But, as the name suggests, a muskrat has a thin, rat-like tail rather than the large paddle of a beaver's tail.

The rat-like tail shows this is a muskrat.

Poking around the muskrat lodge this week made it clear that the days of walking on the lake are coming to an end.  There's open water at the shore line wherever the March sun warms a south-facing bank or where a stream runs into the lake.

Anyone trekking onto the lakes now must know where the weak spots are.

There's still 18" of ice in the center of the lake but that consists of only 8" of solid ice with 10" of soft, porous ice that's cut through with just 10 or 12 revolutions of the ice auger.  The recent snowfall will make it even more treacherous to be on the ice - we already had one snowmobile go through the ice on Wicwas, requiring a rescue of the rider.  (Thank you GP for the notification!)  With a forecast of multiple days in the 40s and 50s for the coming week, my lake activities may be done until kayak season arrives.

These gaps will soon enlarge enough to launch a kayak.

And as of this afternoon, those holes are concealed by fresh snow, as was the muskrat lodge.  And look - there were turkeys strutting past the lodge just a short time before I was there.

Turkey tracks at the freshly decorated muskrat lodge.

We had been out in Steamboat Springs last week enjoying a week of Colorado snow, sun, and skiing.  (Thanks for a great visit VP!)

Plenty of snow at 10,000' in northwest Colorado.

I usually try to find wildlife on trips out of New Hampshire but this time I only came across a few birds - no moose, elk, coyote, not even a fox.  But there were plenty of signs they were out, searching along the Yampa River over night for a meal.

A popular place along the Yampa River for Steamboat's predators.

There's a wonderful boardwalk and Peace Pavilion built by the Steamboat Springs Rotary Club along the Yampa River.  I'll close this week with an optimistic yet hopeful sign for today's world which stands at the pavilion.

March 5, 2017

We were away from the lake for much of last week, visiting family and enjoying the sights of another winter playground.

Steamboat Springs, Colorado

Impossibly blue skies behind Lodge Pole Pine and Aspen Trees

Colorado is beautiful but it doesn't have a monopoly on blue skies - this is from Ragged Mountain, right here in the Lakes Region, during our short spell of winter back in February:

New Hampshire has it's own bluebird days that rival anyone

Crazy cycles of weather have roiled the whole country the past couple of weeks;  in the Lakes Region  warm temperatures really took a bite out of the snow, but it also provided great opportunities to enjoy the outdoors.

Evidence of fun times on Lake Wicwas

Being away I don't have a lot to report on what happened around Lake Wicwas this week, but here are a few sights I found over the prior couple of weeks.

Woodpeckers working on a rotted stump near shore

An American Tree Sparrow dines in a light snow

A casualty of the winter's storms

A chick-a-dee grabs one last seed before the feeders come in to avoid the bears

Beavers doing more un-licensed logging - this time of pretty white birch

Back on January 1st when the bobcats came and took a couple of gray squirrels out of circulation I mentioned the squirrels would soon provide replacements with their first of two annual breeding cycles coming in late winter.  Well, I can't be sure this is mating behavior, but it sure looks like it:

It could be a couple of males chasing a female, or it could just be animals fighting over the food supply in the yard as their natural sources become depleted in late winter.  Either way, it's fun to watch, and the timing is about right for mating:  Gray squirrels usually give birth to a litter of 1 to 4 blind babies in March after a gestation period of 44 days.  [Ref:  New Hampshire Nature Notes, Hilbert R. Siegler, pg. 105]  Did you know that squirrels are considered a game animal in some states?  Hunting of gray squirrels was banned in New Hampshire between 1915 and 1935 but is now allowed from September 1st through December 31st.  [Ref: ibid]  I did find one small snack that some animal squirreled away in a little hidey-hole.

I wonder if the owner will ever come back to claim it.  Or if an oak tree will grow out of the middle of a Maple.  Now that would be something to ponder if one came across such a sight ten years from now.


It was cold at the end of the week, but we are into meteorological spring now, and one can feel it in the warmth of the sun, even on those crazy days in late February when the temperature hit 60 degrees. 

Not the usual lake surface for sunbathing

It won't be long now....

September 27, 2015

From death does life spring.  This large dead and decaying stump - probably from a white pine, but perhaps a hemlock - caught my eye due to the amount of new life springing forth from its remains.

What was once a mighty tree, perhaps 100 or more feet tall, is now only a rounded form of rotting wood.  But the strong heartwood that once supported its mass is now returning the energy it stored over many decades back to new and varied life.  I counted seven different species being incubated there and I'm sure there are many more a better trained eye would recognize.  The obvious ones:

A hemlock tree

An oak tree (a little chewed by the insects)

A maple tree

Ferns

Moss

Lots of partridge berry

And even a couple of new white pines to carry on the family tree.

And this is just on the outside.  I didn't violate the sanctuary, but if I did I'm sure I'd discover an even more interesting array of life including ants, grubs, earthworms, salamanders, and thousands of microscopic organisms working slowly but relentlessly to decompose the stump into rich soil and compost.  By the time that happens the plants now growing on it will have extended their roots deep into the earth and will survive without the stump, consigning to oblivion what provided their initial nurturing.

It will be quite a battle among the trees to see who reigns supreme over this little patch of New Hampshire.  There will be enough light and space for only one tree to emerge to any magnitude.  The maple and the pine will grow the fastest;  the hemlock and oak more slowly, but will establish a more complete canopy, perhaps shading out the faster upstarts.  Anyone want to make a wager on the victor?  I'll put my money on the hemlock;  it seems to be off to a healthy start, and they can inch upward for years with very little sunshine.  I'll hold your wager in escrow and get back to you in, oh, about 50 years.


This post is being sent from Steamboat Springs, Colorado as we are on a trip to visit the national parks of the southwest.  But fellow nature watchers (including our good friend who is staying at our house - thank you!) have offered to keep me appraised of what's happening around Lake Wicwas while I'm away.  Of course, I'll also share  interesting events I encounter along my trip.  The first thing I noticed is how far ahead the season is out here at the higher elevation.  Whereas the trees are just starting to turn in New Hampshire, the aspen in Colorado, even at Steamboat's base elevation of 6900 feet, are at already at peak color.

Summer colors at Lake Wicwas (photo credit:  Laurie Conn)

Steamboat Springs, Colorado in its fall colors