Wildlflowers!

I had Bonnie and Sarah wake me at the crack of dawn, 5:30 in the a.m. to be exact. I'm going to help them get started on their birding transects comparing bird diversity and abundance across three successional paramo types. It's been a while since I've been up quite this early without coffee, but it is so peaceful and quite I don't mind the grogginess of waking up slow like this. It is chilly and wet with the ghostly silhouettes of alpacas framed in the ethereal white mist rolling in with the dawn and I catch yawning glimpses of the tawny mastiff of Georgia O'Keefe looming across the valley. Sometimes bird watching is slow, not much to see like going fishing. Seth comes later to help bringing some coffee to wake us up...yes! Only two birds seen, an Andean snipe and a Sierra ground finch, both on the last transect point before heading back to camp.

Student research project day, so I say and soon everyone is off in threes and twos scouting out project ideas, measuring vegetation, counting puyas, stringing out transect lines and so on and so forth. In other words this means I have a rare afternoon off and there is nothing I'd like more than to explore and go for a long hike. I intended to hike to the East to the lakes of Kimsa Kocha but the winds are so ferocious today I opted to head somewhere else less in the brunt of it. Kimsa Kocha can wait for another day , and besides I'm hoping to take Chris out here next chance I get or our neighbor Yon as a nice gesture. So few people get to see this landscape, it is so remote and they would love it. KK would be a perfect hike. Today though I'm heading down the mountain across the river, following the valley between the peaks and then up to the huge grassy ridge top to the North-west of our camp. I have never been up there and have been eying it for just a day like this for a long while now.

Across the river into new territory I'm exploring again just like a kid again. It's great! Marshy, muddy, wet meadows full of sedges and purple lilies greet my gumboots in the valley below. It was so nice I collected wildflowers there, bright red paintbrushes of Castilleja fissifolia, droopy purple swans heads of Pedicularis incurve, white daisies of Oritrophium crocifolium, and furry green donkey tail ferns of Jamesonia goudotii. There are all sorts, shapes, and kinds poking up over the grass sea dancing in the wind of the meadows.

There are signs everywhere and I have the freshness of new eyes seeing this place for the first time. There is evidence of a recent burn but not a very intense one, burned mostly around the edge of the puyas. A positive reinforcement of fuel from the ground up leaving charred stumps giving way to fantastic spiky clusters of puyas sticking up like barbed swords swiss cheese nibbled by bright green grasshoppers. There are holes and tunnels of meadows voles like a labrythine maze through the grasses while the occasional shadow of a hawk passes overhead looking for lunch. In the creases and folds of the ridges great fields of tussock grasses shimmer and undulate in unison to the wind's tune and there are many species of wildflowers dancing along in humble specks of color. It is all pretty sublime.

Up at the highest point, summiting the ridge top the wind howls and shrieks full force coursing over the high points channeled up like some great upside down river of air straight from the bowels of the Amazon basin. I took a moment to just sit there in the fury of it, letting the cold wrap around my body and ripple under the open creases of my clothes. Goose bump pinpricks pinching my skin still hot, warm blood pulsing in my veins from the climb. The feeling of being alive. I can see 360 degrees from up here. Far below I see the Rio Mazar snaking through the valley East. Power lines march up the hillsides from the waters edge, the dam nearby. This is where 40% of Ecuador's energy comes from. Hydropower, harnessing water and gravity to power the country. I can see the communidad de Dudas also, the small specks of dairy cows grazing in mountain pastures below. Best of all I can see our camp in full relief now on the opposite side of the mountain from whence I came. This is a wholly new perspective and I can't help but scan the hillside with my binoculars. I can just pick out Hannah's bright red jacket laying a transect line and on another hillside Seth's big frame marching through a cluster of puya stalks. I took some photos and said adios to the winds then, descending to less restless climes below....

I took my time walking back down laying in the grass and staring up at the clouds overhead. Nibbling on a bar of chocolate and taking in the view. I even followed after a grass wren trapezing through the tussock clumps for a moment They are small and drab, but have the most beautiful song. I like that and took that note as my cue to head home and press some wildflowers.