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Tag Archives: hike

Fall Hike

I have to admit I wanted summer to come to an end as soon as possible but now that fall is here I am sorry I missed out on so much hiking this year. The summer was sort of a lost season. I look back at posts from June and early July and it seems like eons ago.

Now life is better and the weather is perfect for hiking. A person does need to remember to take her extra layers and if it’s sunny she will be putting them on and taking them off regularly.

The girls/dogs and I hiked to Tiffany Mountain earlier this week. It started out gloriously sunny with bluebird skies so as I climbed through the burned trees I soon had to shed my jacket. In the open I was able to see migrating raptors including a Golden Eagle! Mountain Bluebirds and Clark’s Nutcrackers entertained me along the trail. As we made the final push to the top, the wind picked up and gray clouds rolled in. It tried to rain or snow or something wet and cold. We hunkered against a rock and I tried to make some selfies with dogs and quickly had lunch before making the descent. It warmed up again as we neared the trailhead but never got as nice as when we started. I found a few lingering small flowers and some slow butterflies.

After the hike we stopped at Boulder Creek. Along the way we saw an aspen with unusual coloring. Instead of its leaves turning yellow, they were a reddish-orange. I have seen this occasionally in the past but it is pretty uncommon.

I always wonder when these burned trees will fall and hope it’s not when I’m on the trail
The round top of Tiffany Mountain
A natural watering hole
American Pipit
The Pasayten Wilderness in the distance
A distant smoke from a fire on the Conconully side
Tiffany Lake
Alpine larch trees with fall colors
Clark’s Nutcracker
Growing lichen
Fireweed seeds. We hope some will grow on our place.
An unusual aspen showing reddish orange fall foliage
Boulder Creek

 

A Better Day for Us

As the Cougar Flats fire began to explode I was high in the mountains with my friend Mary from Montana. The weather was hot that week – 100 plus degress so we were anxious to get someplace cooler. We packed a little lunch for us and the dogs and headed to Harts Pass. Indeed, it was a glorious day in high country and we were lucky to enjoy it.

We started out on the Buckskin trail descending into the basin below Slate Peak
How to get a Labrador retriever’s attention
Hey – did Gus get a cookie?
My, what a big tongue you have Luna
Tiny bubbles in the creek
Smoke on the horizon down valley
Glacier lily
Pretty white flower that looks like miniature bear grass next to shooting stars
Two women and three dogs with a self timer? That was a challenge!
Mary and the Labradors!
She found a rock that looked like her home state of Montana
Mount Baker
Gus was insistent on trying to climb the stairs despite the sign that specifically said not to.
The smoke grew as the day went by
The Pasayten Wilderness looking north to Alaska
North Cascades
Silky Phacelia
Maybe my favorite wildflower

A Short Jaunt on the PCT

Every summer I try to get up to the Harts Pass area as early as possible to catch the start of high mountain wildflowers. I have to wait til the road is open and passable. There are always new washouts over the winter and the Forest Service works hard to get it open for use. Hot weather has settled into the valley so it was a great relief to get up high and enjoy the cooler mountain air and sweet little creeks flowing with melted snow. The dogs were excited to be in snow too! The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) crosses through this region and can be accessed at several trailheads. We picked the one that goes generally south towards Grasshopper Pass from near the Meadows campground. It was a good choice with a cool breeze and enough water to keep the dogs hydrated and snow to cool their feet and bellies. The snow and water won’t last long with this hot weather. It’s too early for the through hikers to be here – they are the ones that start at the Mexican border and walk all the way to Canada. We had the trail almost all to ourselves except for the marmots, pikas and ground squirrels. We saw only three other day hikers. The wildflowers were over the top beautiful!

The trail starts out across this big talus slope
Happy hiker
Happy dogs
Slate Peak lookout can be seen on the far left
Anemone occidentalis or western pasqueflower
Western pasqueflower
Phlox and pasqueflower
Buttercup
Walking on the PCT towards Grasshopper Pass
The meadows really are that green!
Cairn
What is Luna thinking about now?
Pack with a view
Inukshuk
Antennaria rosea
Tiny bell-shaped flowers of heather
Jacob’s ladder, Polemonium sp.
the heart of the North Cascades
Shooting stars
Lewisia columbiana
I like Lewisia
There was lots of Lewisia!
Oh look – Sky found a stick!
How many kinds of plants?
Silver snags from an old forest fire
Silky phacelia
Jacob’s ladder
The snow is soft
Alpine larch trees with their fresh green leaves
Ballhead waterleaf
Frida enjoys a cool creek after the hike

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.

Pipestone in January!

Most years, it is a long slog to get up to the Pipestone Rim Trail in January. You’d have to park at the bottom of Lester Road and walk, snowshoe or ski up to it and then you’d be tired before you even got to the trail. This year, we can drive to the trailhead. With just a bit of snow it is getting lots of use from hikers, dog walkers and fat bikes. Three women and five dogs enjoyed it yesterday. Snow was in the forecast but the few flakes that fell didn’t amount to anything and at one point the sun was shining. More snowflakes in today’s forecast.

Frida
Luna
Wondering – where is the rest of the group?
Sky
Wyatt Ann. She loves me.
Jennifer pointing out landmarks at the lower end of the canyon
Amazing geology of Pipestone
Juniper, close to the edge
Sky, close to the edge
Looking back from the trailhead
Tired dogs are good dogs.
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