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| Ice! |
Last Saturday, the Townsend Chipmunks met for their first ever winter outing together. We have seen how our favorite ecosystems and places look during fall, spring and summer, but this was our first chance to see what the Chuckanut Creek ecosystem looks, smells, sounds and feels like during the icy grip of a winter freeze.
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| Frozen Chuckanut Creek! |
The most obvious (and most fun) part
about exploring during winter is all of the ice! As explorers, we are
usually itching to get onto the trail and into the woods as soon as
possible but today none of us could resist the temptation of playing
on the completely frozen pond at the edge of the parking lot.
Thankfully, this pond was frozen solid all the way through so we were
not worried about the ice breaking and getting our feet cold and wet
for the rest of the day. We spent time here slipping, sliding and
investigating the interesting patterns that the ice made when it
froze.
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| Ice is way to much fun |
After finally pulling our attention
from the ice we were able to have an opening circle and set an
intention to travel to a cool spot and have enough time to play
spiders web and get back to the parking lot on time. However, as it
often goes in BEC, the forest had a different day planned for us.
Only a short way up the trail, we came
across a waterfall that was still flowing but was covered with all
different kinds of ice. This scene immediately captured our
imagination and we couldn't help but get close to touch, break,
hold, and look through these beautiful and odd-looking ice
formations. We discussed our theories as to how and why certain
shapes and kinds of ice existed at different places in the stream.
It was hard to pull ourselves away from this wonder but as the first
shoe was dunked into the water, the mentors knew that we had had our
fun here, and that staying any longer may have resulted in some cold
and uncomfortable explorers.
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| Cool ice formations |
We moved further along the trail and
noticed even more types of ice. We saw ice that grew up and out of
the soil in the form of columns that looked like mini skyscrapers. We
noticed that areas on the trail that looked like wed mud were
actually frozen and held the tracks of animals who had passed weeks
before when temperatures were above freezing. In one frozen mud
pit we identified the tracks of humans, domestic dogs, and deer!
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| A rare sight in Bellingham, ice in Chuckanut Creek! |
We eventually found our way to the
fallen tree bridge that we used to access the other side of Chuckanut
Creek and get to our spiders web spot. A mentor scouted the
condition of the log bridge and found it to be a little slick but
safe for careful passage. We went one at a time across the bridge so
that we could pay full attention to how and where we placed our feet
on the way across and with this intentional focus we all made it
safely across.
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| Crossing with care |
We were close to our spot now and
trekked up a huge hill that warmed our bodies and reminded us how
hungry we really were. After a quick lunch and some hydration (some
of us had hot chocolate!) we again set off to look for more winter
wonders in these woods. We had fun building bridges across frozen
creeks and making neat sounds with frozen sticks.
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| Making a bridge over a small stream |
At this point, we realized that our day
together was already coming to a close and that we would not have time to
play spiders web. While this was disappointing, we were grateful at
the end of the day for having gotten to come out in winter and see
all of this special, seasonal phenomena. We ended our day, as always,
with apples and gratitude in the forest. Afterward, we made quick
time back to the parking lot where we met our parents who would take
us home to warm up after a day of exploring out in the cold.
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