Week Nine

Week Nine – Spray Lake 2015

I was outside building a fire so I could make dinner while Tom had a nap this evening and in flew this beautiful mountain bluebird.  It was kind of an odd day today with rain showers here and there throughout the afternoon but it didn’t deter this guy from hopping from one tree to the next.  I think they’ve got a nest somewhere near because we see them fairly often.  They are so pretty!

 

 

 

 

 

The other day we noticed these four big horned sheep walking on the dam…two are older adults having full curls on their horns and two are young rams…it wasn’t long before they had reached the other side and wandered down to the lake for a drink.  One of our campers must have also seen them and raced across the dam where this woman got out and walked up as close as she could to them with her hand held out as if she was going to feed them.  She probably wasn’t more than 15 feet away from them.  I was ready to make the 911 call as soon as the ram butted her but he decided to just turn and walk away from her.  People don’t realize that even the sheep are wild animals…they are not farm animals or pets that can be toyed with.  Those four rams could easily have left her with serious injuries.  She was just plain lucky.  I did manage to get some good pictures of them from this side of the lake.   Tom said a couple of them had their horns clipped so they wouldn’t be attractive to hunters…that’s a good thing!

I washed the cover on the bed we found for Oso…he sure does like it.  Not sure how he can bend himself up in such odd positions but he seems comfortable enough on it!

We had a few rowdy campers this weekend.  One  group of three couples had arrived on Thursday night and been really good up until Saturday when they decided to play Beer Pong…it’s a game similar to ping pong and involves a lot of drinking if you don’t get your ping pong ball in the red solo cup…at least that’s how I think they play it.  Anyway these guys must have been at it all afternoon because when I went to quiet them down in the evening they were pretty sloshed.  Two of the guys were on the verge of getting violent with each other and so I moved one couple to another site.  I talked to the remaining couples like a mother with kids who were misbehaving…I told them they had to clean up their site because it was filthy, put their booze away and go to bed.  I think I took them by surprise a bit and they ended up doing what I told them.  Too bad they cant just come out here and enjoy hiking and biking and appreciate their beautiful surroundings!  It seems its always the booze that gets them in trouble!

We went to a bbq held for all the staff at the campgrounds and it was really nice to meet up with the new folks and reacquaint ourselves with the ones who were here last year.  Being up at Spray we don’t often get to visit with other campground managers and its always fun to compare stories with them.  Everyone has more or less the same kind of tales to tell but there are a few that really go above and beyond the normal activities in a campground…for instance, while we were there a radio call came through from one campground that a grizzly was chasing a sheep through the campsite…that must really have been something to see!

One of our camper/fishermen took this picture of a grizzly up the lake past the campground.  I thought it was such a beautiful shot with Mount Sparrowhawk in the background.  He used a cell phone camera so it is a bit grainy but still a nice shot.