Postcards from the Trail

I heard that the trails in the Teanaway basin were open. The warm weather has opened the eastern slopes of the cascades earlier than last year even with our heavy snow fall. We decided to go to Iron Peak, one of our favorite trails in the area. We hiked this last Tuesday - June 23rd.

We have been hiking this region since the early '80s. I have a photo on my desk that was taken on our first trip to Iron Peak way back in early July 1986. I think we've been up this trail 4 or 5 times. The trail is not that hard since the wide switchbacks spread out the elevation gain. It was fine for me even being out of shape.

The drive takes about 2 1/2 - 3 hours from north Seattle. The last 13 miles are on dirt road. The road used to be pretty bad but it was regraded and improved about 5 years ago. But time is starting to takes its toll - man were the potholes killers this time - especially in the bright sunlight.

We got to the trail head around 11am. The parking area at the side of the road was empty. It was Tuesday and few people were to be seen. In fact we never saw another hiker on the trail the whole day.

The trail starts along side of El Dorado Creek. It was running fast and full but it was a lovely sound. The forest is Douglas fir and pine with very little undergrowth. But what makes this area special is the serpentine soil - a unique soil poor in minerals. It creates a botanical wonderland with species of wildflowers that have adapted to the soil. About half way up, we came across a large blow down. Fortunately, it was easy to pick our way through the broken trees.

On the upper slopes we saw lovely anemones, glacier lilies, shooting stars, and snow douglasia. Off in the distance we could see Rainier and close by the rocky sides of the peaks in the Esmeralda Basin.

We reached the saddle by 2pm. Yep - it is taking me about 1 hour to climb 1 mile. The rest of the way to the summit still had snow patches and we were content to explore the saddle. We sat on the rocks, ate our sandwich and watched the lovely view down the opposite side to Beverly basin where we hiked last year. The wind picked up and the high overcast cooled us off. We headed back down to the car and back to Seattle by 7pm.

View towards Esmeralda Basin

View towards Beverly Basin from Saddle

View of Beverly Basin from Iron Peak Saddle

Anemone drummondii

Erythronium grandiflorum

Douglasia nivalis

Related posts:

• Beverly Turnpike - August 2008
  
• Esmeralda Basin - July 2006
  
• Iron Peak - Ingalls Loop - July 2004 (a 16 mile loop!)
  
• Miller Peak - June 2004
  

Malaysian Flags decorating building in Kuching

It is Saturday - That means it is time to hunt photos again. This week's theme is Flag. Boy did I have a hard hard time with this theme. I almost did not post. I was looking for another picture of a US flag on one of the Washington State Ferries but I could not find it. This morning I finally remembered this picture that I took in Kuching in Malaysia. I loved the colors of the building and the flags were a nice contrast to the pastel colors.

Have a great weekend and check out more hunters at Tnchick

I was inspired by WCS video garden tour. He did a tour of his vegetable garden that was fun to watch. My small Canon SD800 has a video mode so I made the following video of the garden in front of my house. You might recognize a few of the flowers from my recent posts. It was a lot of fun to make.

Related Posts:

• Colour My Garden: Yellow
  
• Colour My Garden: Blue
  
• Colour My Garden: Pink
  

Twenty Two Creek

Last Monday, the weather had cooled off but it was still warm. No rain was forecast so we decided to take advantage of the weather to go hiking. We decided to go to Lake 22 which is north of Seattle along the Mountain Loop Highway.

Mt. Pilchuck is the dominating peak in the area. For many years, it was an easy to get to ski area with two chairs and a couple of rope tows. It eventually lost its permit and the area closed.

There are several lakes located in small cirques below the rocky slopes including Lake 22. It is an easy 1 hour drive from Seattle. The trail to the lake is 5.4 miles round trip with an elevation gain of 1350ft.The proximity to Seattle and the easy trail makes it very popular even during the week.

The Forest Service has recently build a new set of bathrooms at the trail head in addition doing work and laying gravel in the parking area. The trail starts starts climbing slowly above the Mt. Loop Highway to the crossing with Twenty Two Creek. It starts to climb more switching back to waterfall views of the creek. It was running fast - an indicator that we were going to run into snow. There were wonderful small woodland plants like Cornus canadensis lining the trail.

After climbing for a while, the trail opens and crosses a large talus slope bring lots of interesting plants in the open area. The trail makes a couple of large switch backs up the slope before reentering the forest near the creek. This become more boggy. It was filled with Skunk Cabbage - Lysichiton americanus. Can you guess that it is related to the stinky Arum in my garden? Yes! It is one of the few arums that are native to the US. There is also a species that grows in bogs in the east. The weather was cool so we did not notice any odor.

We were just about 1/4 mile from the lake when we ran into snow. The moist air had cooled considerably and we arrived at a foggy snowy lake. On clear days, the rocky slopes of Mt Pilchuck tower in the background. Maybe another day.

Rosa glauca

Our streak of rain-free days has come to an end. It rained Thursday bringing the streak to an end. We matched the previous record of 29 consecutive dry days in May-June. It was nice to hear the rain again. Fortunately it continues to be warm and we have partial sun.

Our garden is mainly a Mediterranean drought tolerant garden. We do not water it much in the summer. Some plants don't do as well and eventually they are moved out or die. There is also not a lot of order. G often plants things just to get them out of containers and into the ground. But there is usually something in bloom.

The blues and yellow continue but we have streak of pink to fuchia to purple blooms now.

Delphinium "Millenium"

Phlomis tuberosa

Lavandula stoechas

Geranium maderense

Blettilla striata

Salvia leucantha 'Santa Barbara'

Salvia verticillata 'Purple Rain'

Salvia semiatrata

Teucrium cossonii

Anna Hummingbird visiting a Salvia

Related Posts:

• Colour My Garden: Yellow
  
• Colour My Garden: Blue
  

  Tags:

  • gardening