20060520 Dumpling Mountain Hike

Immediately northwest of Brooks Camp [~65' elevation] sits Dumpling Mountain at 2440' elevation. Its summit yields a spectacular panorama of Lake Brooks, Brooks Camp, Naknek Lake [background of this photo with a breached moraine visible], and a couple of local peaks. Brooks Camp residents exercise by hiking up Mount Dumpling, named for some forgotten person's forgotten daughter. I figured you were tired of photos of me, so pictured here is a modern day Dumpling, welcoming us to the tundra. Treeline here is between 700'-1000' above sea level.

With boat training complete, I can now focus on what I came here to do, namely interpret Katmai National Park and Brooks Camp to park visitors. To that end myself and the rest of the interpretive staff are trained in a number of areas. Today was Wilderness Training, which seems appropriate since most of this park is officially designated wilderness under the terms of the Wilderness Act of 1964.

We began the day with a video, Wild By Law, which tells the story of the founding of the wilderness system in this country and the roles played by Bob Marshall, Aldo Leopold, and Howard Zahniser. Fascinating stuff, farsighted people.

Mid-morning we [staff numbers at least 12] began to hike the trail up Dumpling Mountain with Peter, my supervisor, interpreting at stops along the way. The trail passes through boggy lowlands, birch forest, willow and alder shrub thickets, and then reaches the tundra. Cool stuff with several different lichens, crowberry [looks like heather], and unknown other life forms.

We did not summit since we spent so much time exploring, but we saw wolf scat with fur and an arctic ground squirrel paw in it, and relatively fresh bear tracks in the snow.

OK, so you get a picture of me after all.