Hiking Sheep Creek Trail in Kluane National Park

Sunday, July 17, 2016 was our last day in Destruction Bay, Yukon Territory, and our last chance to sample the hikes in that section of Kluane National Park.  On our arrival, we had chatted with a ranger at the Tachal Dhal Visitor Center --

-- about suitable hikes in the area, and she highly recommended Sheep Creek Trail, which heads south and west into the interior of the park behind Sheep Mountain.  It would give us different views of the Slim's River Valley and an opportunity to spot some Dall Sheep.

Here's Dave pointing the way at the trailhead:

Sadly, also at the trailhead was a memorial plaque to a young woman who was killed in a grizzly bear encounter on one of the nearby trails in the park.  It was a sober reminder of how important it is to be "bear aware" and " bear smart" when out in the wilderness up north.

Our trail climbed steeply.  We had an 1800 foot elevation gain in about 3 miles, but the early part of the trail was only a moderate climb, so the last 2 miles were quite steadily steep.  The lower portion wound through boreal forest and gave us some interesting things to see, including this spruce tree that had been killed by beetles, and had a burl that had formed during its life from encounters with a fungus common in spruce up here.  The interior of the dead tree obviously is home to many bugs, because a nearly perfectly round woodpecker hole made itself evident.  Gnarly grey roots completed the picture of a very idiosyncratic tree:

As to mountain sheep, we weren't disappointed.  We got three or four good looks at groups of the on the mountainside above, although they were so far away that we needed our monoculars.  Here is the best photo we could get with our modest telephoto, but it gives you the idea:

As we climbed, the forest slowly opened up as the spruce and aspen became shorter and fewer in number.  We started to get glimpses up Slim's River Valley, but the haze from humidity and some blowing river sand partially obscured our view:

At the 2 kilometer mark, we had a great view of Sheep Creek as it wound its way across the flat basin toward its conjunction with Slim's River:

We noticed there was much sandstone in the uplifted ridges of Sheep Mountain, and that proved a good predictor for some striking hoodoos where the cliffs were exposed near tree line:

A little higher and we were in the subalpine zone, with krumholz and low bushes for vegetation.  The vews started opening up:

We eventually reached our goal - and our lunch spot, 3.5 miles up, at the end of the trail.  Kathy finally took a look at her sore heels and found that, unfortunately, those hot spots had become opened blisters, so she spent a bit of time dressing her wounds while David took photos.  Then we munched our lunch gazing out at the views.

Here is what Slim's River Valley looked like from the high point of our hike.

At this point, there is a side trail that continues up to the summit of Sheep Mountain, another 2,000 foot gain, but we did not attempt that because we didn't think we had enough time (or enough flesh on our blistered heels).  We did run into two groups of hikers who continued on.  One was a group of four graduates of McGill University in Montreal, which is where our daughter Katie attended as an undergraduate.  Dave was wearing his McGill cap, which has been handy in Canada because anyone who knows McGill stops us and asks us if we graduated or if we are from Montreal.  A great conversation-starter.  (So far, though, we haven't met anyone who knew our daughter; nor have we met anyone who knew about "Bertha," the mysterious hole in the ceiling of the freshman dorm where goofy college men would toss their leftover food to "feed Bertha."  Bertha had an unfortunate drooling problem.)

On a more pleasant note, here was our view of Sheep Creek and Slim's River from the higher vantage of our lunch spot, when the air had cleared a little from earlier in the hike:

Our return hike was uneventful except for a few opportunities to view groups of Dall sheep.  We ran into a young couple and their 1.5 year old son Gus, who was fortunate enough to get a ride up the mountain in a backpack seat on his father's back.  Gus, you got those parents well trained!