Skip to main content

Missoula Trip


On 8th March, 2010, Professor Stephen F. Siebert too my wife and me in and around Missoula. We visited Bandy Ranch, which is about 45 minutes drive from University of Montana.
It was bright sunny day and a beautiful drive. We were hopeful of less snows in the Ranch but we were proved wrong. Though hiking within the Ranch was difficult we tried to hike on one small hill top in the Ranch hoping to spot some Elk.
Looks like we ran out of luck as we could not see even a single Elk that day. Bandy Ranch has an interesting history. It was owned by a man called Bandy. Since, there was no one living with him, he donated the Ranch to the university.
Since it was difficult to hike around in the Ranch, we took the feeder road from the nearby forested area to reach Salmon and Seelay lake.


It took us about half an hour to reach the lakes from Ranch. To our utter surprise, whole water body of the lake was still frozen and we could see people undertaking ice fishing.
The second picture shows the frozen lake.
At some portion in the lake it was weak and we could see the water bodies below. Trails of the cars can be clearly seen on the frozen ice.
It was an interesting trip with good sunshine. Looks like god made the weather favourable for our trip as the strom started while we were returning.
The next day, i was taken aback to see the snow fall in Missoula. We weren't expecting snowfall at this time of the year as it was starting to warm up.
IT WAS A GREAT TRIP. Thank you Professor Steve.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cordyceps

  This article is part of my thesis “Fuelwood Consumption and Production in Alpine Bhutan: A case study in Wangchuck Centennial Park, Bumthang, Bhutan). I have also worked on uses of Cordyceps in Pharmaceutical industries long time back, but could not trace out as of now. If people are interested I will try to re-write it and publish it. I have also cited references, in-case if any readers is interested to explore further. I will also try to provide papers to those who are interested to know more about the organism. What is Cordyceps Cordyceps sinensis is an Ascomycetes medical fungus with a long and illustrious history. The genus Cordyceps is mostly entomophagous flask fungi belonging to the family Clavicipataceae (Winkler, 2008). Although it is not actually a mushroom in the taxonomic sense, it has been regarded as a medicinal mushroom for centuries. The name Cordyceps comes from the Latin words “cord” and “ceps”, meaning, “club” and “head”, respectively (Holliday et al., 2005). Th
2 comments
Read more

Non-Wood Forest Products (NWFPs) or Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs)

Both Non-Wood Forest Products (NWFPs) and Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) refers to what is earlier known as Minor Forest Products (MFPs). The use of "MFPs" terminology has been discontinued as it seems to greatly mis-guide the produce. For instance collection and trade of Cordyceps ( Ophiocordyceps sinensis ) by high alpine dwellers and even Chirata ( Swertia chirata ) in the east (Shigkhar Lauri) contributes more than 50% of their annual earnings, which of-course is clear that these forest products doesnot justify to be called as minor. NWFPs and NTFPs are two very similar yet different terminologies adopted to address these produce of forest other than timber. In short it includes everything besides timber. Rattan Shoot In Bhutan we use NWFP and it is defined in the National Forest Policy of Bhutan, 2011as, "NWFP means resin, varnish, katha, kutch, plants, flowers, seeds, bamboo, bulbs, roots, leaves, grasses, creepers, reeds, orchids, cane, fungi, moss, medic
6 comments
Read more

The Mighty Manas River and Future of "SHE"

The Manas River is a trans-boundary river in the Himalayan foothills between southern Bhutan and India . It is named after Manasa , the serpent god in Hindu Mythology . It is the largest river system of Bhutan, among its four major river systems; the other three are Amo Chu or Toorsa , Wang Chu or Raidak, Puna Tsang Chhu or Sunkoosh . The total length of the river is 376 kilometres, flows through Bhutan for 272 kilometres and then through Assam for 104 kilometres before it joins the mighty Brahmaputra River . Mighty Manas River is formed by merging two rivers, viz. Dangme Chhu and Mangde Chhu in a place called Dung-du-me brag and Un-dhala thang in Panbang.  Confluence of Dangme Chhu and Mangede Chhu  and also showing Bird eye-view of Panbang. Source: Google Earth  The river valley has two major reserve forest areas, namely the Royal Manas National Park   in Bhutan and the contiguous Manas Wildlife Sanctuary encompassing Project Tiger Reserve which constitutes a UNESCO Wo
11 comments
Read more