And just like that: we’re done.

After a few short, frantic weeks, we can no longer trap for goshawks or place nest cameras. Although it feels like no time has passed at all, the goshawk chicks are already beginning to fledge. As the young birds test their wings and leave the nest, their parents, previously hyper-protective, are suddenly unconcerned by the presence of an owl in the heart of their territory. This renders our dho-gaza traps mostly useless. If the chicks have already left the nest, there’s clearly no point in installing a camera; and if the chicks are still in the nest but beginning to flap their wings, climbing a nearby tree could frighten them into prematurely leaving the nest. And so, after only about four weeks, all of our trapping and camera work is finished.

We found this out the hard way after working for three days trying to access a site called Glacial Lake. Our first attempt was, to put it mildly, a disaster. The site isn’t that far from Pemberton, as the crow flies—but the crow doesn’t have to fly over washboarded, potholed, waterbarred, overgrown roads. We did. The trip began pleasantly enough: a wide, well-maintained gravel road lined by vacation cabins that overlook Lillooet Lake. The lake, just outside Pemberton, fills a long valley with milky glacier-colored water. Though the mountains rimming the valley are not tall (by Canadian standards), many of them still sported a cap of snow even in late June.

We traded the first road for a narrower one marred by continuous potholes, and then an even narrower one scored by deep waterbars that scraped the bottoms of our trucks. The forest closed in around us: willow and cottonwood arching over the road, cedar and hemlock growing up from its centerline. Saplings bent and scraped along the sides of our vehicles like a thousand fingernails, while larger trunks thumped ominously against the undercarriage. The truck ahead of me seemed to vanish into the green chaos, almost disappearing from view as the trees devoured it.

Hours crept by as we crept along the overgrown road. I watched the clock anxiously. If we arrived at the site too late, we wouldn’t have time to set up, trap, and climb. Rain dripped from the gloomy sky, adding another complication: we couldn’t trap or climb in the rain. The weather forecast predicted conditions would clear in the afternoon, but would we have time to wait?

The only thing that kept us going was the knowledge that another crew was already at the site, waiting for us. Gina and Will, who had found the nest the day before, were still down here somewhere. How they had gotten so far was at first a matter of speculation, and then awe, as it dawned on us just how terrible the road truly was. In several places we had to stop to cut through fallen trees before we could continue, yet somehow Gina and Will had made it through these obstacles that brought us to a halt.

In the afternoon, only two kilometers short of our goal, we admitted defeat. Via inReach texts we learned Gina and Will, who had spent the night camped at Glacial Lake, had given up on us hours ago and left without either crew knowing the other was nearby. The weather showed no sign of improving, and we were out of time to trap, anyway. Amid a general feeling of disappointment and failure, we retreated back to Vancouver. By the time I finished unpacking my gear and crawled into bed it was after midnight and I hated everything and everyone.

The next time we tackled Glacial Lake we were better prepared. On the first day we drove only as far as the lake, where we camped at an unofficial but well-established campsite dubbed “Campo Mucho Relaxo.” It was Canada Day, and although I was sad to miss the fireworks in Vancouver I had to admit it was hard to think of a more Canadian thing to do than have a campfire alongside a glacier-fed lake beneath the shadow of snowy mountains.

The next morning we broke camp and finished the drive in to the site. The road soon became impassable even by Gina’s generous standards, and we followed the blowdown-covered road on foot for a while, scrambling over rafts of fallen logs and jumping creeks. A short but steep scramble brought us to the nest tree, where we set about the now-familiar routine of staging our gear. Because we’d had to return our borrowed nets there was no question of trapping at the site, but we planned to put up a nest camera. But when John climbed a nearby tree, he called down that there was nothing in the nest.

That’s right. The nest was empty.

In retrospect, it explained a lot. The female had appeared briefly while John climbed, screamed a few times, and then retired to a nearby tree to watch the process. Her unconcern was almost as confusing as the calls we heard from more distant points in the forest. They were unmistakably goshawk calls, but strangely thin and whining: the juveniles, we realized later, still learning how to make an alarm call.

There was nothing to do except pack up our gear and retreat, again, back to Vancouver. Our spirits were, if anything, even lower than last time. Goshawks grow fast and we knew this was bound to happen eventually, but that it happened at a place we worked so hard to reach seemed unusually cruel. But when we regrouped in Squamish for (surprise) a consolation beer, we had to admit we’d had a good run while it lasted.

The final tally: