Today, Herb and I hiked the Upper Powers Creek Trail. At this elevation, around 1175 metres, the snow is almost gone--only a few of the larger drifts remaining. On the trail, where one large drift had been, we found a pile of grouse droppings about the size of a dinner plate. There was no cover, no trees or shrubs above or near the spot, so the only explanation is that the grouse had spent a long time there on the ground, deep in a snow bank. Animals of all kinds have developed unique and varied ways to cope with nature's severest weather. The bear goes into hibernation; so do the reptiles and amphibians.

Today we came upon two Pacific tree frogs that spent the winter hibernating--and now they were on their way to ponds, to mate and reproduce. This picture was taken of one of those frogs. Their overall colour is variable, from bright green to greyish, like this one.

Several early spring flowers are in bloom. This Spring Beauty is an unusually brightly coloured specimen. Most were white with a touch of pink.

One shrub is in bloom, the Red Twinberry. Note that the blossoms are also arranged as twins.

 Swale Desert Parsley

Paintbrush

One of the two trail cameras that we installed a week ago had taken just one picture of a Snowshoe Hare (small animal in the upper right corner of the picture). Note that it has already changed from white to its brown summer coat. We found that the memory card of the other camera had not been fully inserted, and so there were no pictures in that camera. There were only a few old tracks of deer and moose on the trail. It seems that they have not yet followed the retreating snow up to this level.