I'm surrounded by orchids most of the year. Here in the office I have seven. For whatever reason they really like it here and every spring I can count of some of them putting on quite a show. This year I have five in bloom. I would have had six, but I accidentally broke the blossom spike on the pink Phalenopsis just as it was starting to emerge...maybe next year. The white, yellow, and yellow with purple veins are Phalenopsis orchids as well. They bloom for an incredibly long period of time. They started blooming this year in late April and as you can see from the above photo (taken this evening) they are still going at it. The little guy way on the right is an Oncidium and in the early morning it smell just like Hershey's kisses. Everyone that comes in the office is amazed that orchids can grow here.

Orchids don't just grow in my office. Orchids are the largest family of flowering plants world-wide and there are a number of species that grow wild in the park. They are always a treat to find. I decided after dinner tonight to go orchid hunting. I didn't have to go far to find the white bog orchids (Habenaria dilitata). They grow in moist soil and are just starting to bloom now all along the Lake McDonald section of the Going-to-the-Sun Road. I'd like to say it was some exotic location, but it was in the drainage ditch right along the road. You will also find them as you hike the trails and come across a moist spongy area where a small stream crosses the trail.

Next I went looking for the spotted coralroot (Corallorhiza maculata). I had seen them several years ago near the head of Lake McDonald.  Just about a mile and a half past the lodge there is a side road that heads to some inholdings along the north shore, and just across the bridge is a trail that winds through the forest and parallels McDonald Creek. I only had to go in a few hundred feet and I was rewarded with a tiny coralroot growing beneath two 18" Hemlock trees. They are very small and easy to miss. I only saw two and only one was in bloom. The other, although much taller (about 12") looked like it had another week to go before the blossoms opened up. If you head up that way it's on the left side of the trail. When you first see these weird reddish brown stalks sticking out of the ground you might not think that they hold such a treat. It's always best to give something new a second look. Coralroots lack chlorophyll and get food by parasitizing the mycelium of fungi.

While I was there another of the park's flora and fauna was parasitizing me. Anyone visiting the park later this summer can be assured that there will be at least a few more mosquitos. If you get bitten on your visit, it just might be because I stopped to take a photo of an orchid.

Many Glacier Update
June 18, 2009

Thanks everyone for the emails about putting a cam back at Many Glacier. It's about 60-40 right, now in favor of having something up there, even if it isn't a spectacular view. Please continue to let me know what you think. email link

Our IT specialist (the network admin.) is hopeful he can check something out next week. It's a long shot, but we are looking into any possibilities at this point.

I have also received a number of emails about placing a webcam at Logan Pass. I may have touched on this before, but for anyone that didn't see previous messages...there is no power or telephone at Logan Pass. We need to have a place that has direct network access to easily hook up a cam. There was some talk about solar and satellite phone connections up there, but they are expensive. I think for the time being we are online in as many locations as we will be able to service. I keep looking around however so you never know.

Thanks,
Bill Hayden

Just a Short Note This Time
June 16, 2009

I was out at the foot of Lake McDonald tonight and decided to stop back at the office and jot down a blog while I was thinking about it. I managed to get here without my reading glasses however, so this will be short and to the point, because this is all a bit of a blur right now. I'll double check it in the morning for typos.

There have been a lot of requests lately for the return of the Many Glacier Cam. For various reasons (posted in past blogs) that's not quite possible, but...what if we could put a cam there at a different location. If there was a Many Glacier Cam that didn't have the view of Mt. Wilbur or Gould or Swiftcurrent Lake, would it be worth doing? Would I get all kinds of email complaining about the view? It's probably possible now to put a cam somewhere at the Ranger Station, but the view options there are very very limited. So tonight's question is...is something better than nothing?

Webcams - Post Tampering News
June 10, 2009

If you are a follower of webcam goings-on, then you know that there was some tampering at the Lake McDonald Cam a week or so ago. I'd like to thank everyone that sent in images of the people that moved the cam. We were not able to track them down.

That was the first time that someone has tinkered with the one of the cams, just so they could be on the web while they chat with someone back home. Well that got us to thinking about just what the role of the webcams is...or at least has become, for some people.

Initially we thought the webcams would be just something that local residents from around the park would use to check for weather conditions and things like that. We quickly found out that people from all over were using them to check in on one of their favorite place in the world. The cameras provided a "close to live" reminder of good time had in the park. More recently the cameras have become something that people seek out so that they can use them to connect with family and friends around the country. I often see people standing outside my window here at HQ, waiting for their image to show up on some computer screen somewhere. It's very cool. Frequently I see people on the Apgar Lookout Cam. I never realized how many hikers go up there in the summer...and skiers in the winter too. I never intended for the cams to be any kind of attraction in and of themselves, but they seem to have become so. That brings us back to the incident back at Lake McDonald recently.

People really want to share their park experience with friends. We have not really had a good camera to do that with. Most of them are in places where it is hard to get in the view. Some like at Lake McDonald and Goat Haunt generally require a boat. We did have one spot that was good. We had a cam at the Apgar Visitor Center a few years ago. For a couple of different reasons we removed it. One major reason was that I kind of thought it was becoming a distraction with people using it to stand in front and get online, etc... Well it's time to rethink that and realize that providing a way for people to share their visit and experience here in the park with others "live" is not a bad thing.

This afternoon I put a cam back at the Apgar Visitor Center. I'm hopeful that it is not tampered with. The view of Apgar Village is not the most scenic webcam shot that we have, but it's the only one that really shows a developed area and the comings and going of visitors to the park. It's also going to become the best one to use to wave at your friends and family back home.

:-) Bill