Students share lunch around the fire at Buster Brown campground.
At Mountain School the entire
second day is dedicated to studying and observing the biotic elements of our North
Cascades ecosystem. Hiking around the Environmental Learning Center,
instructors and students keep their eyes and ears open while looking for animals
signs – scat, middens, scratch marks, fur, overturned logs, and occasionally
animal tracks! Below, instructor Sarah Bernstein tells of her group’s adventure with a
bear track last week.
Student David points to the bear track found on the Buster Brown trail.
On day two of Mountain
School, Kiira and I decided to take our group the Chickadees out to Buster
Brown campground for lunch so we could make a campfire to warm us up after a
cool, rainy morning on the trail. As I led the group down the path, I
stopped short upon seeing something in the mud. The students gathered around and
after deciding it was definitely an animal track we started to hypothesize
about who it could belong to. Tony, our chaperone, turned out to be an expert
tracker and wandered ahead on the trail only to find another more well defined
track. We whipped out our tracking books and got down close to take a look.
After much discussion we decided based on shape and size it must belong to a
black bear! Tony aided us by pointing out some clues that would lead us to
believe we were not very far behind the bear. We never did catch up with the
bear, but we did enjoy a delightful lunch around the fire.
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