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Author Archives: Teri J Pieper

Twisp Independence Day Parade

Twisp has the best parade! Every Fourth of July folks are encouraged to dress up, bring a float of some kind or a horse or a wagon or whatever strikes their fancy and join the parade. There are no marching bands or fancy flower-covered floats – just home grown and mostly locally designed parade entries. A few horses, fire engines, sports cars and local organizations and lots of kids. Dogs too. Folks seem to want to bring their dogs to the parade. It’s better than leaving them in hot cars in the summer but most dogs don’t seem all that entertained by the show unless they are part of it.

Line dancers entertained parade goers before the main event on Glover Street
Lots of flying candy
This guy looked old and hot
This one seemed to be enjoying the show from his front row seat
Hot
The Spartan Art Project makes its way down the parade route and then to the Arts Fest in the Twisp Park
The big dog barked a lot.
This little guy was part of the show
Interesting costume
Shouldn’t this child be wearing some safety gear?
Uh oh. Luckily the only hill is downhill
The mayor made an appearance
What’s better than a trailer full of kids playing violins?
Marti and two of her dogs
Hi
This is my favorite sports car because it has a dog in it.
The dogs from Mazama got their own float.
Proudly showing her colors!
Our favorite plumber and banjo player

Immediately following the parade, The Methow Arts Fest happened in the Twisp Park at the confluence of the Twisp and Methow Rivers. You can see my photos of that other fun Fourth of July event here.

Early Summer Fun

My dear friend came to visit from Wenatchee early this week and we got to enjoy good times spent outdoors. She and I learned to paddle kayaks on the Columbia and now she is a competitive paddler while I simply enjoy a day in my boat whenever I can. I do miss the water of the big river. Up here I have small lakes and they have their own charm, that’s for sure. On Monday we took our boats over the North Cascades to Diablo Lake, a reservoir on the Skagit River. Diablo and Ross Lakes both have greenish-colored water from all the glacial deposits of the high Cascade Mountains. They are deep and cold. We had smooth glassy water to begin and as we went up the gorge we had a nice wind behind us. Of course that was a wind we had go against on the return trip. As we got to the big open water, it was pretty stiff and we had an interesting swell when we turned up the Thunder Arm of the lake. It was lots of fun!

The next day we had planned a hike to a lookout but after a big rain storm and the threat of more rain showers we decided to stay closer to the valley bottom and enjoyed a nice three mile walk in the woods. The early morning rain left everything fresh and fragrant. The flowers were outstanding. The scent of the wild roses was enough to make a person swoon. Well, maybe not so much. It was lovely though. I managed to lose my lens cap along the way so if you are on the Patterson Lake trail and find a small lens cap, please let me know.

Liberty Bell is a distinctive landmark when crossing the North Cascades
That beautiful water of Diablo Lake
Heart-shaped moss on a rocky outcrop above the water
This barge passed us coming and going. The barge drive was kind enough to slow down and not make a big wake.
Ross Dam holds back Ross Lake
Horsetail Falls and the Highway 20 bridge high above us.
After this it was too rough to have the camera out.
A walk in the woods with lots of photo ops.
Luna liked the cool wet morning.
Wild roses
Tiger lilies. Lilium columbianum
An odd fungus on the end of a log
Lady-slipper orchids
Orange paintbrush. Castilleja sp
Cat’s ear lily. Calochortus elegans.
raindrops
More Lady-slippers
Some were past their prime
Wild onion. Alium sp
Elderflower. I made some cordial earlier this week.
Tall grass, hay field, foothills

Highlights from a Drive in the Mountains

It’s been pretty busy around here lately and once again I find myself behind on all of my computer work, including photo processing. Here are a few highlights from Saturday when the dogs and I had a nice drive stopping to watch birds and other animals in the Okanogan Forest.

I think this is a dogwood known as bunchberry or Cornus unalaschkensis. I haven’t seen it around here before.
It carpeted the ground in one area.
Why did the porcupine cross the road?
I always thought the spines were dangerous but look at those talons.
Sweet face.
Sky waits for me to throw a stick in the creek.
American Dippers, formerly known as Water Ouzels. In the winter we see them on the Methow River; in the summer they nest and raise their young on the smaller tributaries.
A young one begs for food.

Tiffany Mountain on Thursday

How many of my posts start with ‘The dogs and I’? Well here is another one.

On Thursday, the dogs and I hiked to the top of Tiffany Mountain. It’s a favorite hike I do most years. This is early in the season and I’ll do it again, maybe next month when the wildflowers are in bloom. Well, when most of the wildflowers are in bloom. Some were blooming on Thursday but the snow has only recently melted leaving behind last years brown grasses and the starts of some flowers. Even the larch are not fully leafed out.

On the rocky mountaintop there was some extra color from Ladybugs! Technically, I think they are Lady beetles but whatever you call them, there were thousands, probably millions of them. As I understand it, they migrate up in the fall and hibernate under the big rocks and emerge when the weather starts to warm up. It wasn’t really warm in my opinion. 52 degrees at the car when I started and colder still on top with a stiff breeze. The sun came out as I went down and it was warm enough to lose the jacket before I returned to the trailhead.

 

Along the road to the trailhead, scarlet gilia, various penstemons and lupine were blooming
Roger Lake from the trail
Roger Lake in the distance
Spring beauty
Clark’s Nutcracker. These birds have excellent spatial memory, which enables them to cache up to 33,000 seeds in the fall, and then locate a large percentage of those during the winter. Information from http://www.birdweb.org
Looking back down the trail
A good rock for a break. About halfway up and it has a nice depression that collects water
Sky wonders if we are really going to the mountain top. Or maybe she is watching Luna.
Someone named this rock. I think they call it Troll Rock.
Buttercups
Sweet yellow flower growing out of a crack in a lichen-covered rock
The top is over 8000′ elevation and there it is.
Sky waits while I catch my breath
Hmmm, another one I need to learn.
Clark’s Nutcrackers cache seeds from whitebark pine trees and here under a rock outcrop, there were two whitebark pines growing. I wonder if the nutcracker planted the pine nuts and forgot them.
Little Tiffany Lake with ice on it.
Tiffany Lake
Lunch time at the top. They ate half of my sandwich.
What are those red areas?
Ladybugs! Thousands of them emerge from the rocks when it warms up in the spring
Ladybugs and orange lichen
Horned Lark nest
Horned Lark
Sky rests while I photograph flowers.
Larch needles emerging for their short season.
Jacob’s ladder, Polemonium sp?
Luna’s turn to rest. She needs a bath
Bark peels evenly from a tree killed in the 2006 Tripod forest fire that burned nearly 200,000 acres on the Okanogan Forest
Another challenging yellow flower
Roger Lake
Lupine
Wild rose. Can you smell its perfume?
I should know this one too.
Boulder Creek
I sat on a boulder in Boulder Creek and cooled my sore feet.

Highlights from a Walk

Last week I went birding with a group of folks from Pilchuck Audubon Society. June is a good time for a birding trip to the Methow Valley but the weather is not in agreement with the calendar. It was chilly and raining. We didn’t get far along the Beaver Pond Trail before getting chilled but we did see a nice assortment of birds. My two highlights of the walk were a baby Northern Flicker clinging to a dead aspen tree as still as could be hoping we could not see him (we could) and mountain lady’s-slipper orchids (Cypripedium montanum).

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