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Tag Archives: #northcascades

Summer Fun

August has been warm and sunny and we have been out on some terrific hikes. Sometimes the girls do not get to go. Too much sun and dry conditions are hard on Luna. I don’t know how to tell her that one day, I will be taking Sky and not her. How do you handle leaving the older dog behind? It’s kind of heartbreaking. Some days and trails are ok for her and I do carry water for her to drink but she seldom drinks much of it. She’d rather have a cool mountain stream or a muddy puddle! She really likes to cool her belly in a creek or even better, on a patch of snow. Snow patches are getting few and far between this late in the summer.

The wildflowers have been glorious this year. We have seen lots of pikas, marmots and ground squirrels too. We have enjoyed blue skies and sunshine and endless mountain views. I have had no work this summer so I am very happy to spend my time in the mountains. If we have to be socially distanced, this is a pretty good place to do it.

So Many Wildflowers, So Many Colors!

The girls and I had a floriferous hike last week. The wildflowers were magnificent and the sky was the bluest blue. We saw and heard pikas, hoary marmots and ground squirrels. Did you know that pikas make hay piles in the summer? They let the ‘hay’ dry out and then haul it under the rocks so they can eat it all winter. Pikas are the smallest rabbit species and they do not hibernate.

I know, this is a lot of images for one post but really, you need to see the beauty of the mountains right now.

This is a pika haystack!
The pikas were stacking anemone seed heads like this!
Pikas live here.

Not Afraid of the Dark

Have you been out after dark recently? You might like it. Clear summer nights make for excellent star gazing and Comet Neowise is bonus! They (who are they anyway) say that it won’t be around much longer so you’d best get out and see it soon. Look to the NW after dark.

And the Milky Way is at its best. Warm summer nights are perfect for seeing it. Since it is too hot to be out during the day, go out at night. Although, I have to say, at 7000′ and I got darned cold. It was worth it.

Sunset at 9:30 pm
I love the blue hour, after dusk and before dawn
This glow is coming from the NE, somewhere in Canada?
This glow is from the NW – Vancouver BC?
And that glow is from the southwest.

Top of the World

My husband wrote a song called Climb to the Top of the World and I thought of that when we reached this mountaintop on Tuesday.

It was a chilly day and the wind was blowing pretty hard at home and I almost didn’t go. Then I remembered that Luna does much better on hikes when the weather is not the best in my mind. She just doesn’t tolerate the heat well anymore. So off we went with a rain jacket for me and carrying extra water for the dogs. It was 48 at the 6560′ trailhead and I was glad to have a warmer jacket too. The dogs thought it was perfect.

The trail goes steeply through a burned forest and then into high meadows before going straight up through the rocky mountainside. Just before the last big ascent, there is a rock that holds any water from recent precipitation and I don’t know if Luna remembers it or if she can smell it but long before I got there, she was slurping up the remnants of the dirty puddle. I gave her clean water too and used some of that to replenish the puddle.

The views at the 8245′ summit just can’t be beat. Mountains everywhere. The flowers are just beginning. In a week or two, they will be glorious.

paintbrush
pretty yellow composite
lupine
paintbrush
Burned in 2006
whitebark pine
chipmunk
Olive-sided Flycatcher
resting
drinking
shooting stars
old, well-worn trail
cooling off
Clark Mountain?
Just up
on top
Top of the World
Tiffany Lake
I don’t know this one
or this one
I heard a pika
Horned Lark
Lewisia pygmaea, dwarf lewisia
Prairie smoke
alpine larch still wearing its spring green
there was a chipmunk
old nest box no longer on a tree
raven
Roger Lake. Who was Roger?
paintbrush
lupine and saxifrage
saxifrage, but what species?
wild strawberry growing out of a rock and trying to start a new plant
Bog orchids and lupine growing along the road
bog orchid
paintbrush

Still Not Summer

Yesterday, the girls and I enjoyed our first outing over the pass this year. It’s hard to believe we are staying so close to home all the time. And we barely got over the pass so maybe it doesn’t even count, even if we did leave our county. There were a fair number of cars in the parking lot when we arrived and many of them had out of state plates – it seemed like more than usual.

The trail is muddy in places but more of it is snow-covered and icy. Normally I would not take my hiking poles for this hike. This time I did and I was glad to have them. They made the downhill part of the day much easier. Lots of little streams crossed the trail. Luna appreciates having water to drink regularly. Her old body seems thirstier all the time. She did lead the way and did more exploring than Sky so at 13 1/2 she is still going strong. The lake is mostly ice-covered and Sky was disappointed I did not throw the stick in it for her. Next time. There was a little bit of rain but no wind like at home where we’ve been buffeted by high winds for days.

Sky did get to swim in the pond near the trailhead so her day was complete. It was a good outing.

Come on, let’s go
Maybe we could have cookies first?
Rhododendron albiflorum, a native rhododendron
Strange things in trees
Strange things on trees. Quite a few trees along the trail have small pieces of duct tape. Why?
The lake is up there, on the right
Mostly ice-covered
cool patterns
underwater
The stick. Throw it.
What’s over there?
How about this stick?
Happy dog, swimming around, wagging her tail.
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