Rock Mountain

Last week the girls and I hiked to Rock Mountain. The trail starts at Tiffany Springs campground which was full of campers. Unusual to say the least. It’s a long bumpety bump road to Tiffany Springs and few people make the trek up there. The Washington Native Plant Society was having a weekend of plant hunting and quite a group of amateur and professional botanists were out on the trails in search of rare plants. They are pretty good folks to be around – quite willing to answer questions about plants and other natural history topics. One of them did try to tell me I was going to Middle Tiffany Mountain and not Rock Mountain but after looking at my map and asking a friend who is familiar with the area, I’m quite sure I went to Rock Mountain.

The trails goes first to Tiffany Lake, an idyllic mountain lake, home to non-native, but tasty, brook trout. No one was fishing when we went by so the girls enjoyed chasing sticks in the cold water til the mosquitoes and black flies forced me back on the trail. The bugs followed us all the way to Honeymoon Pass and then finally let up when we got into a pleasant breeze. From there a person just follows the view across the rocky slopes to the mountain top. Lots of wildflowers and a few birds were interesting distractions and good excuses to go slow.

This resembles the Douglas sunflower

Buckwheat and paintbrush

Lots and lots of Castilleja (paintbrush)

Would you quite looking at the flowers?

I don’t know this white one

Let’s go

Pedicularis sp, maybe bracteosa?

Burned trees grow more beautiful as time passes

It feels good on my feet

I heard this baby bird up in a tree and was able to hold my camera above my head to get a picture of its gaping mouth hoping I was bringing food.

Aquilegia sp, maybe western columbine

Lots of asters

This tree, way up on the rocky slope, was only about six feet high and probably 25 years old or more. This year it has had phenomenal growth for such a harsh environment.