New Years Day 2012

Out for the first wander of the year today.

 Been pretty quiet down at the old hot spring these days.

There were only 4 outfits camped out to bring in the new year last night.
I was laying in bed and heard one feeble fireworks go off down there at what must have been midnight.

                                                                

There wasn't much of a turn out for the hot spring polar bear swim.

The only snow we have had was back in November. There were continuous rains over the Xmas season which washed away most of the snow up to about 400 meters.

The creeks came up just a little with the rain enabling a few spawning salmon to get up from the river into the creek that goes by here. Once into the spawning area they die quickly and are pulled from the shallow water in short order, others simply disappear in the dark of night and taken away to distant dens.

You can tell if there is fish running by the amount of eagle activity.
There may be 5-6 in the area at one time.

Fish make their way up the rocky channel from the river and into a deep pool where they rest before fighting their way up the creek for the last 100 meters of their lives.
This one slowly followed the shoreline, Skookie took great interest and went down to have a closer look.