A full day somewhere was nice, but the RV still needs packing before hitting the road! As soon as we had done so we headed along the Maligne Valley to Maligne Lake. En-route we had our first Grey Jays and at Medicine lake we got American Pika and a couple of Hoary Marmots. There were also a large number of Mourning Cloak butterflies (probably a better name these days than Camberwell Beauty!), something I’ve never seen in Europe. We also got close views of Mule Deer and more Elk, but bird life was very quiet. So, after visiting the spectacular Maligne Canyon, having something to eat, and then walking a very small section of the watch-tower trail, we headed into town, booked a white-water rafting trip, and took the cable car to the top of Whistler Mountain.
Here White-tailed Ptarmigan were apparently easily found around the boardwalk at the top. They weren’t. I scanned for nearly three hours and the only birds I saw were a Steller’s Jay and American Pipit. The photos in trip reports suggest that the birds are very close, so I guess they simply can’t be found there at this time of year. A few Golden-backed Ground-squirrels were found as well as more Columbian Ground-squirrels and five distant Mountain Goats which we all enjoyed ‘scope views of. The way down was interesting with the cable-car temporarily breaking down and hanging in mid air after quite a wobble and quite a bit of panic by some of the passengers!
Finally, at dusk we drove Marmot Mountain as far as possible (little was seen) before cooking steak and corn outside on the fire (they’d been a fire ban in British Columbia), washed down with beer and whiskey whilst Coyotes howled in the distance.
