Finding Mother Nature's Secrets

The Ponds in Infrared

Friday was my planned hike or bike day with my neighbor, but I didn't hear back from him so I put my bike in the Subaru and off I went to Kickapoo Valley Reserve. Walking the trail along the Kickapoo River bottoms is not something a person would want to do after heavy rains.

The bugs are vicious and unrelenting this time of year through the bottoms. A bicycle solves that. 

I really like this bicycle!

It is so much more photogenic than I am.

My purpose was to get out and do some experimental photography with the infrared camera. I'm starting to get an idea of what elements work best with a photo.

Sky, water, clouds, and foliage.

But sometimes it just doesn't work out that way.

I was cycling north when I came into an area of rock bluffs on one side of me and the Kickapoo River on the other side. The blacktop route had been covered in water and mud. As I negotiated my way through it, I realize that I hit a spot of extremely cold air. Being as that it was hot and humid, I was surprised.

However I recalled the discussion in the Master Naturalist Class that I started that the Kickapoo Valley Reserve and the surrounding area had some rare ecosystems in it.

One of them being called Algific Talus Slopes. 

Basically it is a rare area where cold air comes out of rock bluffs and supports a very rare plant and snail species. The Monkshood and a rare snail called the Iowa Pleistocene Snail are the inhabitants of these areas.

This is exactly why the LaFarge Dam Project was halted and how the Kickapoo Valley Reserve came to be what it is today.

On my way back through, I stopped and parked my bike. I could feel the cold air despite the hot and humid surroundings.

It was like entering a refrigerated room after being outside in the heat.

I noted the location and decided this would be a great winter hike too. I'm sure that these rocks are covered in ice formations in the winter.

These slopes and Algific areas are kept secret so people don't trample them and destroy or pick the Northern Monkshood plant which is on the Federal Threatened plant list.

I'd love to find and photograph this plant, but do not wish to trample it.

I'll be back in this area with a long lens perhaps to scout around. Carefully.

All I know, is this was the most exciting thing that happened to me this week.

Oh it sounds pretty boring to most people. But to me, it feels like I found a huge secret of Mother Nature's!

Here is a bit more about Algific Talus Slopes from the WI DNR site:

This rare community is known only from the southwestern corner of Wisconsin's Driftless Area. Algific talus slopes are small and isolated and tend to occur on steep north- or east-facing slopes with a substrate of fractured limestone (dolomite) bedrock that retains ice and emits cold air throughout the growing season.