Yesterday I took part in the annual Christmas Bird Count. It was my job to climb a mountain and find a ptarmigan. I do this every year and pride myself on usually getting the job done. I generally find ptarmigan.
During my daily skis earlier this week I had been seeing ptarmigan. So yesterday morning when I climbed up the mountain with the dogs I had high hopes for getting the job done quickly. But I reached the top, and nothing. .... Not even any tracks in Friday's new snow. So I skied down around to the backside of Pyramid where there is a big broad valley that is perfect ptarmigan habitat.
It was certainly a beautiful morning and the valley behind Pyramid was gorgeous in the low angled morning light. I was glad I had come. But . ... . No Ptarmigan.
And so began a day where I went everywhere on the mountain looking for ptarmigan. Dogs had to chase me on the descents. I was hopeful they would kick up a ptarmigan on the flanks. We ended up going about 7 miles and never did see a ptarmigan. Only bird I saw in 3 1/2 hours was a lone raven. I had failed.
To make it worse, near the end of the day, I decided in a desperate move to check if there were ptarmigan in the south bowl. I skied all around down into the bowl and then boot packed up to the middle of the salmonberry choked slope above the gravel pit by the road. And then I climbed down through a 1000 feet of thick salmonberries. The dogs hated me. It was really bad. I even snapped buckles off of my ski boots. Utter ptarmigan defeat. Patrick
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