Deer Stargazer...

by Ron Jerome, Vancouver Centre

As is our wont, my wife and I spend many summer days high on mountain slopes enjoying the flora and fauna and testing our stamina. It is far more satisfying to ascend an ever rising trail for three hours than to spend a mere 20 minutes on a Stairmaster at the local gym. We do admit to the latter, however, when the damp winter months are upon us and trail heads well nigh inaccessible.

We recently spent a week on the eastern side of the North Cascades in Washington State just beyond the west coast rain shadow. Our favourite guide book rates the trails we travel from "Wow" to "Don’t Bother" and their recommendations have never disappointed us. Anne limits the choices to those with the wow factor. If the trail doesn’t offer a view, she is not interested. "Might as well be at the gym" is her standard reply. She dutifully records the mileage and elevation gain of each hike and keeps a cumulative total. Over the twenty years of our adventuring, we have not quite accumulated enough altitude to escape earth’s gravitation pull but we are working on it. Should we get there, I am sure we will be treated to some magnificent glimpses of a truly dark sky.

In the evening, after a day’s adventure, I often set up a telescope in whatever campground we call home, both for my benefit and to share some of the views with interested folks in the area. With this year’s emphasis on IYA there has been an added incentive to promote the joys of the night sky.

On our most recent trip, after returning from a comparatively short hike, I set up my scope behind the picnic table at the back of our campsite. Our location in the foothills of the Cascades restricted the views to many of the targets that are circumpolar or seasonally high. Dinner and dishes were completed around dusk and I opened the door of our trailer, intending to move the equipment to a nearby vacant site with fewer trees. Negotiating the edge of the adjoining forest was a deer, grazing its way in the direction of my telescope. I quickly retreated inside to retrieve my camera. The deer approached the telescope and sidled up close to the eyepiece. Discovering that the lens cover was still on, which spoiled any views, it contented itself with licking the salt off the hand controllers... a minor consolation.

Unfortunately, the low light yielded the less-than-crisp image, but it documents my efforts to take IYA to an audience that I had not foreseen. We may have to consider a new class of members in the RASC to accommodate ungulates. Then there was the bear that appeared on the mountain during the Mt. Kobau Star Party...