Over 2 days I worked with Galen and Jen to take down 13 cameras in the bow river hoodoos area. Over the 2 days I hiked around 41km!!! It was a long 2 days I can tell you that, but with good company it wasn’t too bad.
The first day Galen and I collected 7 cameras from 3 different locations; spray river loop, the golf course and I cant remember the 3rd location (just some random woods!!!). It didn’t take as long as I originally thought; we met at the visitor center in Banff at 8.45 then headed straight off to the first location. We were finished by 4pm and was a successful say. No issues finding any of the cameras and the sun was shining.
On the second day it was Jen and I collecting the final 6 camera. We started at 9am and the first stop was tunnel Mountain to collect 1 camera. We started to make our way up the Mountain, with 200m to go till we reached the camera we were stopped by passers-by and told us that there was an Elk and her calf were on the path a little ways up and was very agitated and not letting people pass by.
We pondered on what to do next so we decided to call it off and try again later. As we got to the bottom of the mountain we saw a Parcs Canada guy who was heading up to move the Elk and her baby. In that moment we decided to go back to collect the camera. 1 down!
After Tunnel Mountain we went to Hoodoos trail to collect 3 cameras. This was a bit of a walk but there were some stunning views and was nice to walk along the river. We had no issues finding any of the cameras, and again the weather was hot and sunny.
The last stop was The Cave and Basin Trail where we collected the final 2 cameras. By this point Jen and I were exhausted. We were unsure of where the trail started so took us a while to find the actually trail, it was so hot and it was becoming a bit of a nightmare. Once we were on the actual trail it was easy sailing from there. And once the cameras were collected it was off back to the car and finished for the day.
13 cameras, 2 days and 41km! Shattered!!
My Placement Year - 30 weeks of wildlife, travelling, data analysis and everything in-between 