Grey Mountain
Carrie posted in Recreation on July 5th, 2007
Today I joined the Yukon Conservation Society on a guided hike up Grey Mountain. Grey Mountain looks down over the city of Whitehorse but also provides a panoramic view of the surrounding landscape. It was pretty remarkable that you could climb up the mountain and look down on one side at the Yukon River and an urban centre such as Whitehorse and then turn around and view the unbroken wilderness on the other. No roads, no trails, just trees.
I was also blown away by the diversity of plant life and the colours that we found on top of the mountain. One man on the hike who was visiting Whitehorse from the UK commented that it reminded him of a part of Wales…the entirety of which could fit in the tiny section of Yukon valley down below us. There were so many flowers though! Too many to name. There were purples, blues, dozens of shades of yellow, reds, whites, oranges, and of course green. The limestone rocks that make up the mountain stuck up between the patches of tundra grasses, juniper bushes and knickknick (or maybe should it be that the vegetation patches were interspersed among the rocks?) either way, it reminded me the landscapes from the Lord of the Rings. I imagined that at any moment Aragon, Legolas, and Gimli were going to come lightly over the tundra and going our hike…but knowing my luck I would sooner expect be a herd of flesh-eating Orcs instead.
On the way up the hike we diverted our route to pass some caves of unknown origin. They were small and shallow but one was tunnel-like and I couldn’t see its end. I climbed up to the entrance of one cave using my rusty and unused rock climbing techniques and though I probably could have made it up to the first cave decided it wasn’t worth taking such an unecessary risk. I like my bones the way they are. But I was glad that I got to see the caves because the scheduled caving hike is planned for the 18th of July, but I fly out that morning. Since there were only 5 of us on the hike we all agreed that it would be cool to see the caves on our way up to the summit.
The summit was cool, you could see stuff, but that definitely wasn’t the highlight. There was good weather and it was good exercise but I would trade it all for the opposite for chance to see them again. As we approached the summit someone pointed across the small plateau on which we stood to 2 birds on the edge of the mountain. Being prepared for the first time since my arrival in Whitehorse I quickly reached into my bag to grab my binoculars to look at the alpine ptarmigans or whatever they might be. I practically had a freak out when I saw that instead I was starring at a pair of full grown Golden Eagles. UNBELIEVABLE!!! I couldn’t get over it! I’m so excited I quickly pass the binoculars around to the rest of the group so that they can get a look and tell me I’m not dreaming. At this point I’m all but jumping up and down on the mountain side. They were beautiful and HUGE and…just chilling. They weren’t even really scouting for prey and didn’t seem bothered at all by our presence. I wondered if they were possibly just juvenile bald eagles but they were positively identified by the rest of the group as a mating pair of Goldens. I could have watched them all day. Pete (the guy from Britain) pointed out that the scene was almost too good to be true. They sitting on the edge of a mountain, with the blue peaks in the background and outlined by a clear blue sky. It was post card material. Eventually they decided to see what was around and just opened their wings and stepped off the ledge. Never even flapped, just caught the updraft and soared up into the sky. ‘Soared’ finally seems like an appropriate word and not cliche. The word ’soared’ was probably developed for eagles because these two didn’t fly, they soared. I would do the hike again in a second if it meant seeing them again. But I would do again for the flowers too. And the view. And the fact that I met someone else to include in my research. It was a good hike all around. The eagles were just the icing on the cake:)
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