wild animals congregate at salt licks in the forest, their traditional migratory routes and territories bending and folding to make room for their mineral thirst.
numerous species, such as mountain goats, elk, and bighorn sheep, may travel out of their way for many kilometers to access these spots, influencing their movement patterns and affecting their population distribution. these mineral oasis can attract many species at a time, a congregation seeking the nutritional osmosis.
i've been creating, now for the second year in a row, my own tradition; i seek out a mineral hotspring soak during the easter long weekend in early april.
last year i visited lussier, nakusp, ainsworth, and a guitar-shaped pool near a cutblock in the east kootenays. this year was a journey to sloquet hot springs: up a winding logging road past mount currie and along the lillooet river snaking thorough the mountains.
last year i visited lussier, nakusp, ainsworth, and a guitar-shaped pool near a cutblock in the east kootenays. this year was a journey to sloquet hot springs: up a winding logging road past mount currie and along the lillooet river snaking thorough the mountains.
the snow was still on the ground in the low-elevations in the mountains, but the steam rising out of the hot waterfalls melted the spring-crusted snow on a mossy outcrop where we could pitch our tents and be warm.
we soaked for hours, absorbing our own forest-mountain mineral pools, a small congregation of travelers and migrants, who had bounced down the same rocky slush logging road as us. a moss-covered cliff face, cedar and hemlock shading the pools, deer fern limp in the steam, our thighs and elbows rose-coloured from the heated and silty pools.
