We planned to visit Akeley Swam and look for ducks after a visit to find the caches on Big 4 Road. There were a number of caches along the Conawango Creek. We started this series
in September and enjoyed the location. I was hoping we would finally spot skunk cabbage in the bottoms area nearest the Conawango.
Our first find was across the river and along a steep slope. The mix of remaining ice and flowing water told the tale of winter winding down and spring arriving.
It was really wet in the lowlands. Normally we could skip around the wettest areas. Today the area was covered with so much water we had to go in to reach the cache hides. The water was high enough to reach over the top of my waterproof boots. I was glad for warmer weather to go with the wet feet.
The skunk cabbage was plentiful in the wet areas and generating heat to melt the snow in the higher areas.
This one melting snow has the blossom clearly visible.
We left one cache unfound at Big 4. After our first finds we were going to move the car farther down the road to hunt the last cache. The road so far had been wet but snow free. As we rounded a bend the road became complete ice. Lucky for us Ali was driving and got us through a long stretch of ice covered road without incident. There was no place for any error. A slide to the right and we were in a deep ditch. A slide to the left and Subie was over the embankment and headed toward the Conawango. She was amazing. Much like being speachless, I was so terrified I never grabbed my camera to shoot an image.
Shaken but safe, we made our way to Akeley Swamp for some duck images. The water was busy with ducks this afternoon.
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