Start of the Hiking Season

My hiking season is in full swing. The weather has been good and I have done trips for the past two weekends. I have been doing day trips to try to get ready for the longer trips I hope to take later in the summer. Day trips can actually be harder than overnighters. Though your pack is lighter, you have to keep going all day so you can get back before dark rather than camp and rest before going on the next day.

Last Saturday and Sunday I went into some ponds at the head of Wanlick Creek which drains to the South Fork of the Nooksack River, Bear Creek which drains to Lake Shannon and Grandy Creek which drains to the Skagit River. The land in this area is a mix of private and DNR (Washington Department of Natural Resources). The ponds are all in fairly close to one another and there are roads near most of them but the roads are now gated at the bottom and many are decommissioned.

I didn’t expect to see any fish on the trips to the smaller ponds. When I first started my project, the focus was all on fish and I only went to places where I thought I might catch them. Later, I became interested in amphibians and my project evolved into small ponds as well as bigger ponds and lakes. The project also evolved into a photographic study of the entire Skagit River watershed. I no longer harbor much hope of doing anything with the photographic study but I have turned up some interesting things with the amphibians. I saw a lot of amphibians these past two weekends.

I accessed this area by taking the Dock Butte trail from U.S. Forest Service land to Dock Butte but, instead of going up the butte, I went to the north side of it and dropped about 800 feet into the road system below. This meant a lot of walking on trails, off trail and decommissioned road systems. Overall elevation gains and losses were probably only about a thousand feet or so but I did a lot of walking on decommissioned roads which can be pretty miserable because you have to go through a lot of tank traps which means a lot of tiring up and down, like going over hurdles in reverse. Not too many years ago it would have been possible to drive these roads. Now this area is fairly remote.

I don’t know exactly how much distance I covered. On Sunday I traveled the furthest, maybe 6 miles, one way, 12 total, with a lot of minor (several hundred feet at a time) elevation gains and losses. I spent a solid 8 hours walking on Saturday and about 11 hours walking on Sunday. My pack weighed about 50 pounds give or take. I don’t usually weigh my packs or try to judge distances but it seems like most folks like these types of stats so there they are. Since I am usually alone when I go places, I always take a bigger pack so I have more resources if I run into trouble. Of course, my camera and lenses are some of the heaviest stuff I pack and they aren't going to do me much good if I get into trouble.

I survived without any major cramps. Sunday night my legs and feet were aching, and I had a few patches of skin chafed raw by sweat soaked pants and the belt of my pack. The temperature was somewhere in the high 80’s on Sunday I think and I ended up wringing out my bandanna sweatband twice that day. On many hikes I never have to wring out my bandanna. I stumbled into the house in an exhausted haze. This is pretty typical of how I spend the summer hiking season on my high lake project, go, go, go and try to recover as much as I can at my day job so I can go out and hit it again the next weekend.

I saw a lot of interesting things. There are some excellent views from this area. I saw lots of deer and elk sign and bear sign and some cougar tracks. I saw what I want to say were goat tracks in the snow but I can’t be sure of this because they were so melted out. I also saw a bunch of whistle pigs or hoary marmots (Marmota caligata).

I saw lots of amphibians. Long-toed salamanders (Ambystoma macrodactylum), Northwestern salamanders (Ambystoma gracile), western toads (Bufo boreas) and Pacific tree frogs (Hyla regilla). 

Twin Sisters from the Dock Butte trail. 

Loomis Mountain and Mount Baker ( L to R) from Dock Butte trail.

Mount Shuksan form the Dock Butte trail. 

Dock Butte from the Dock Butte trail which is still under several feet of snow at this point. I cut off the trail a couple of hundred yards beyond this spot. The snow melted fast over the last two weekends. I would guess several inches a day easily, maybe more. 

Washington Monument from the west flank of Dock Butte. 

The posse is watching. Four hoary marmots (Marmota caligata) watching me from a talus slope on the west flank of Dock Butte. There were actually 5 marmots but the last one didn't show its head until after the photo was taken. I always like to see these critters. I prefer calling them Whistle Pigs if for no other reason than to keep alive a colloquialism. It seems to me that I have been seeing fewer whistle pigs in the past few years. This may just be my imagination or maybe they are currently in a down population cycle. The only way to know for sure would be to do a study. 

Decommissioned road. The road fill has been pulled out to allow natural drainage and to prevent the road fill from becoming saturated and causing a landslide. I have my pack in the photo to give a sense of scale. It is very tiring going through these tanks traps. The constant up and down wears you out as if you were doing inverted hurdles. 

More water bars. These are smaller water bars for cross drainage of ditch water. These are quite often dry. The larger tank traps are for larger, constantly flowing streams. These smaller water bars are easier to negotiate than the tank traps but still tiring. 

West side of Dock Butte from road system in upper Bear Creek and Wanlick Creek. 

View south from road system in upper Bear Creek and Wanlick Creek. The prominent peaks are Glacier Peak, Whitechuck Mountain, Mount Pugh, Sloan Peak and probably Foggy Peak. Prairie Mountain is the low mountain in front of Whitechuck and Pugh. The low mountain in front of Glacier Peak is Suiattle Mountain. 

One of the first ponds on my list to visit.

Western toad (Bufo boreas) observed at pond. Western toads are one of the easiest of our amphibians to identify. They have warty skin and at least the ones in our area usually have a pretty prominent dorsal stripe down their back. Also, if you look closely, just behind the toad's eyes right at the water line there are bulges on either side of the toad's head. These are paratoid glands from which the toad can secrete a poison if it is threatened. I think this poison is quite mild to humans and I have never heard of anyone being killed by toad poison. The toad's hind legs are quite a bit shorter than frogs, our other anurans, and toads jump and swim with a short, jerky motion that is quite distinct from a frog, making identification of this animal possible even if you don't get a really good look at it. I have a hunch that toad's hind legs are shorter because they are somewhat poisonous so they don't have to be as efficient at jumping and swimming as a means to escape many predators. On a side note, garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis) can and do eat toads.

Washington Monument from a pond draining to Wanlick Creek, South Fork Nooksack River. 

Adult long-toed salamander in the pond pictured above. Adults of this species are fairly easy to identify due to the yellow dorsal stripe on their back. 

Salamander larvae. It is very hard to tell the difference between Northwestern (Ambystoma gracile) and long-toed (A. macrodactylum) salamanders without capture and close inspection, which I don't usually have time for. Usually I make my best guess from a variety of clues. Size and gill structure are among a number of characteristics that can be used to tell these two species apart but, except for size, these features are often hard to see without close inspection. I called this salamander and the others I saw here long-toed salamanders because of the presence of an adult long-toed salamander and the presence of long-toed salamander egg masses. This assumes that where one of these two species is present, the other is absent, which is usually the case but not always, which could make for flawed assumptions sometimes. Long-toed salamanders can go from egg to fully metamorphosed terrestrial adults in less than a year at lower elevations. So they can take advantage of ephemeral ponds that dry up later in the summer. At higher elevations, it may take several seasons to metamorphose or they may become neotenes, that is salamanders that remain aquatic and keep some juvenile characteristics like gills while being able to reproduce like adults. They apparently do not do very well in the presence of fish. 

Long-toed salamander egg mass on a stick. Probably the best feature to tell what salamanders are present are their egg masses. Northwestern salamanders use sticks or vegetation with diameters from a little smaller than a pencil to about thumb sized and they lay large, firm grapefruit sized egg masses with lots of eggs in them. Long-toed salamanders don't need sticks or vegetation, though they will use them as they have here. They lay kind of loose or flabby egg masses often with relatively few eggs in them. So, usually, if there are no sticks or egg masses visible in a pond but there are salamander larvae, I assume that they are long-toed salamanders. If there are smaller, flabby looking egg masses with relatively few eggs, I assume that they are long-toeds. If there If there are lots of sticks with large, firm egg masses, I assume that they are Northwesterns. 

View looking north from road system on upper Bear Creek. Mount Shuksan, Mineral Mountain, Whatcom Peak, Mount Challenger (probably), Mount Blum, Hagan Mountain and Bacon Peak (L to R) with Baker Lake in the middle distance and wetland flats on upper Bear Creek (Lake Shannon) in the foreground. 

Pacific tree fro (Hyla regilla). These frogs come in a variety of base colors from green to gray to tan with darker brown markings and masks. These are the frogs you hear singing at night, especially in the spring, which is why they are also called spring peepers. These frogs do swim but they spend a lot of time climbing. The webbing on their feet is almost absent. If you look closely at this one you will see bulges at the tips of its toes. These are the means by which it clings and climbs vegetation. This one was several feet up in a salmonberry bush when I first came across it but it quickly dropped to the ground.  

Unmapped pond. I run across quite a few of these and, if I have the time, I survey them as well as the mapped ponds. 

Tadpoles in the pond pictured above. I believe these are western toad tadpoles because their backs are black. Almost all of our frogs have some kind of brown dorsal surfaces. 

The pond that was my destination when I came across the unmapped one pictured above. 

We have quite a few different species of Odanata (dragonflies and damselflies).  I have, on occasion, tried to photograph the ones that I have seen and identify them later as best I can from the photos. Unfortunately, getting good photos usually takes a lot of time, which is also usually at a premium for me. I usually end up making general notes about what I have seen. These invariably record the color of the insects and little else and are probably of little more than general value to a serious entomologist. 

Northwestern salamander larvae. There weren't many sticks in this pond but there were enough for the Northwesterns to lay eggs. 

Northwestern salamander egg masses. Northwestern salamander egg masses are large (usually about grapefruit sized) and firm with many eggs in them. The algae in these egg masses is normal. The metabolic wastes of the salamander larvae provide nutrients for the algae and the algae produces oxygen for the larvae, a useful adaptation for animals that often live in stagnant water. 

Pond on DNR land that I visited on Sunday the 21st. I walked pretty steadily for 11 hours that day. 

Northwestern salamander larva in pond pictured above. This one was in pretty shallow water and didn't swim away immediately allowing me to get a fairly decent photo showing some good detail. Paratoid glands are barely visible on the head behind the eyes. Paratoid glands produce poison if the animal is harassed. From what I understand, Northwestern salamanders aren't deadly poisonous but they can make you sick. These salamanders need at least a year and a half or two years to reach the point where they metamorphose and become terrestrial. They may take even longer at higher elevations. So they are indicators that a body of water is fairly permanent. They also seem to do better in the presence of fish, maybe due to their poisonous nature, a useful adaptation for animals that live in permanent waters that may often also be inhabited by fish. They are not, however, immune to fish predation. I have seen several in the stomachs of fish. 

Another Northwestern salamander larvae on 7/21. This is more typical of they types of photos I get. This is still good enough to see some details but dark water and the animals constant movement contribute to make this photo a little less crisp. 

This Northwestern salamander was almost white. I did see an albino long-toed salamander once near Mount Watson. 

Northwestern salamander egg masses (center) and larva (lower right corner). These egg masses must be attached to some small stick or rock protrusion on the bottom of the pond. The general rule about the size of sticks this species usually needs in order to lay eggs is usually true but in places where there aren't many sticks of the right size, these salamanders appear to sometimes break the rules. 

Scan of my notebook pages from the past two weekends. I managed to fill 8 pages with notes from that time period. My notes  usually include date, time, temperature and weather as well as location. I try to note all of the vegetation I see in and around the lakes and ponds I visit as well as amphibians observed. I usually walk around a given lake or pond 360 degrees and count the numbers of amphibians I see. This gives a rough number of the relative abundance of the animals. I also note any other wildlife, plants, geology or other things of interest that I observe as well. The underlined six letter words are biological shorthand. The are the first 3 letters of the genus and species of the plant or animal noted. If I don't know the latin name of a plant or animal, I write its common name out and if I don't know what it is, I describe it as best I can. Many plants like sedges, rushes, willows and asters are difficult to properly identify without taking a lot of time with a dichotomous key or identification book so I usually end up identifying them only in general terms.  I usually give copies of my notes from each year to whatever agency is charged with managing that land. Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, the U. S. Forest Service and the National Park Service are usually the main agencies I give my notes to. These notes provide general information and many things in them would have to be double checked to insure positive identification of some of the species I have noted but, that being said, I think some of this information is a lot more than many of these agencies have for a lot of the areas I visit and I think the information could be used to identify some broad patterns of species distribution that could be refined into specific studies. 

Wild blackberries and....

The wild blackberries are ripe. When I say wild blackberries I am referring to the small native blackberries or dewberries (Rubus ursinus). The larger Himalaya (Rubus discolor) or evergreen (Rubus laciniatus) blackberries bloom and ripen later than the native berries. I have also heard these species referred to as wild blackberries but they are non native species that have escaped cultivation. To some, these escaped domestic blackberries are a weedy curse that can swallow buildings in a thorny green mass. Others don’t see it that way or are ambivalent on the subject. I fall into the ambivalent category with a heavy leaning toward the curse perspective. From now on, I will refer to the small native blackberries as dewberries to save confusion.

The small vines of dewberries grow thick under the right conditions but don’t tend to take over. They are highly prized by many people. These small, tart berries make very good jam but I prefer them in pies and cobbler. When mixed with sweetener you get an excellent sweet and sour flavor.

Dewberries can be tricky to find for a number of reasons. I once heard a person talking on the radio about a book they had just written about foraging in the Pacific Northwest forests and this person was at a loss when asked where to find the little native blackberries. They were familiar with the vines but had never seen them grow in very large quantities.

For starters, dewberries, like most of our native berries survive quite well in the shade of a forest but they produce few, if any, berries under these conditions. Most berries in the Pacific Northwest produce best in open sunlight. So the best place to look for them if you want to pick berries is not in the forest but in open areas like burns, road edges, logging units and other openings in the forest. This is hardly a secret to veteran berry pickers and it wasn’t a secret to Native Americans who burned areas to increase berry crops, though most of the areas that I am aware of that were burned for berries where at higher elevations for blueberries. When looking for a dewberry patch nowadays one must be careful that the area has not been recently sprayed with herbicide.

Another problem a novice dewberry picker might encounter is that not all vines will produce berries. Dewberries are dioecious. This means that their vines either have all male flowers (staminate) or all female flowers (pistillate). Only the female flowers will produce fruit, assuming that they have been pollinated by the male flowers.

Before I ever knew about dewberries being dioecious, I was still successful in finding them. I was always on the lookout for big patches of vines in likely places. After the flowers withered, I would look to see if there were green berries or not and then I would know. Another quick way to find bearing vines when dewberries are starting to ripen, is to look for them early enough that there are still a lot of red berries on the vines. These stand out much better than fully ripe berries so you can see them more easily. Once you have found a good patch by this method, you can go back in a few days or a week when more berries are ripe.

On a side note, Himalaya and evergreen blackberries have perfect flowers, meaning all of their flowers have both male and female parts. Therefore, any of these vines that you see will have berries, assuming conditions are right for producing berries.

You will rarely find permanent patches of dewberries. As the forest grows back, the vines quit producing as they are shaded out. It usually takes about ten years for the forest to shade out a dewberry patch.

I have been able to get out on one berry picking expedition and hope to make a few more before the season is over. The end of dewberry season roughly coincides with Swainson thrush season. The first couple of weeks you hear Swainson’s thrushes all over in the surrounding woods in the morning or evening but, by the time you are after the last few berries, the thrushes are gone.  

Female or pistillate dewberry (Rubus ursinus) flower. All of the small hairlike structures are pistils which are the means to get pollen into the ovaries of the flower. 

Male or staminate dewberry flowers. The hairlike structures on these flowers are stamens which produce pollen. It is hard to tell the difference between male and female dewberry plants without looking closely. As I stated in the text above, it is often easier just to look for the berries. The orange flowers in this photo are trumpet honeysuckle (Lonicera ciliosa). 

This is one of my dewberry patches, a logging unit on private timber land.  This is also where I got my deer last year. Certain species like deer and most of our berries, native and non native, become more abundant when there are openings in the forest. There is increased forage for deer and other animals that eat berries have an increased food supply. Many of these species also need forested habitats as well.

Dewberries growing under the shade of a heavy forest canopy. These vines are healthy and green and doing quite well but they are sparse and not showing robust growth. They will not flower or bear fruit. I just took this photo this morning and had to use a flash so the light looks a little funny.  

Dewberry patch in open sunlight of logging unit. It is hard to tell from this photo but almost all of the lower growing green vegetation is dewberry vines and most of these have berries. 

Close up of dewberries from previous photo. Note how the red ones stand out a little more than the fully ripe black ones. The small Douglas-fir seedling in the photo has been planted by the timber company that logged this area. 

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These berries are good sized for dewberries-not the largest I've ever encountered but definitely not the smallest. I don't know exactly what makes berries grow bigger in some areas. It could have something to do with soil nutrients. Dewberries like nitrogen medium soils so a little too much nitrogen or not quite enough may have an effect. I have noticed that bigger berries tend to be in a little shadier spots though these spots still get plenty of direct light. They seem to get bigger in moister areas too. Genetics might be partly responsible for size differences in berries. 

These are not dewberries. They are black caps or black raspberries (Rubus leucodermis). The flavor of these berries is similar to dewberries, maybe a little sweeter and muskier. They often grow in the same areas as dewberries though rarely as thick. I remember the first time I ran across these picking berries as a kid and asking my dad if they were okay.  He said yes so ever since I have picked any ripe ones I run across and add them to the berry pail. 

Dewberries growing on brush. These berries are still reddish colored but they are fully ripe. You can tell if they are ripe or not if some of them are mushy, in other words, overripe. If some are mushy but still red, then probably the whole vine is that way. I have noticed that berries tend to be in this condition in areas that get a lot of sun. These berries also tend to ripen more quickly than areas that get more shade during the day. 

More berries growing over a stump. 

The result of a little more than an hour and a half of picking. This came out to be 12 cups of berries. If you look closely, you will see some black caps mixed in with the dewberries. These berries are probably destined to become freezer jam. As I stated in the text, I prefer pies but jam is good too. There is a good berry crop this year so hopefully I will be able to get out a few more times. These berries also freeze well. I have made some very good pies from berries that have been in the freezer for several years. 

Here is the and...... from the title of this post. The final addition to the herd for the year. I knew Dreadlocks (Miss "D") was due soon but the cows were at the stump farm and I was pretty busy with hay and was out of town for work for almost a week. So the other night I made it a point to find her and, lo and behold, she'd had her calf, a heifer. The swarms of flies are typical for this time of year. Each cow has their own personal cloud of flies that follows them everywhere. 

Know Your Forest Pugh Mountain Trail

On Sunday July 7^th, I walked up the Pugh Mountain trail to lake Metan. The forest along the lower part of the trail is a mix of old growth timber, an old burn and an old logging unit about the same age as the burn.

The interesting thing about this area is that the many of the edges of the burn and old logging unit are right on the trail. Sometimes the burn or logging unit edges end abruptly at the trail so you can look downslope at a second growth forest and turn 180 degrees and look upslope at an old growth forest. Sometimes these edges end a little above the trail. The edge is so abrupt in some spots that it looks like the trail was used as a fire line which is quite possible.

I don’t know much about the history of this area. The burn could have been related to the logging, a slash fire that got away or a fire ignited by the sparks from a steam donkey. Or maybe the fire was unrelated to the logging and the logging was a job salvaging the burned timber.

I worked for Reece Brothers logging on a thinning sale just down the hill along the road to the Pugh trailhead and that area had burned as well. As I recall, it looked like that area had burned after it had been logged. The forest there is about the same age as the forest along the trail so these might be related as well. At any rate, the second growth forest along the trail whether in the burn or the logging unit look to be pretty much the same age.

The second growth trees along the trail are at least 200 feet tall and the largest are about 36 inches dbh (diameter at breast height) though the average dbh throughout the stand is probably more like 24 inches or a little smaller.

The stumps in the logged area along the trail look like they had been cut early in the days of power saws so maybe late 1940’s or early 1950’s but they may have been cut a little earlier. If I remember correctly, the forest along the road below was 60 to 70 years old in 1998, as determined by counting rings in the stumps of the larger trees. This would mean that area was logged in the 1930’s. Also, if I recall correctly, there were lots of spring board notches in the stumps along the road, meaning that they were likely cut by crosscut saws. The stumps along the trail have very few notches which makes it more likely that they were cut by power saws though this isn’t a sure thing.

You can see the first signs of the burn as you are coming out of the valley of the second stream that the trail crosses. This crossing is several hundred yards from the trailhead. The logging unit starts a little way into the burn and ends a little before the upper edge of the burn.

The upper edge of the burn is right before the first major switchback in the trail as it starts up the hill. This upper edge forms a pretty distinct line between the closely spaced second growth forest and the more open, multi canopied old growth forest. The trail goes through the very top of the burn after the first switchback and by the time you hit the second switchback, it is in old growth forest all the way to Lake Metan and beyond.

Another interesting thing about the burn is that, in many areas, much of the tall, dominant old growth Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and western red cedar (Thuja plicata) survived the fire but the understory beneath them burned. This opened up the understory and a new forest seeded in amongst the big trees. So now there is a closed canopy forest with many shade intolerant Douglas-fir trees in it growing amongst the surviving fire scarred big trees which dwarf everything around them. So I don’t know as this technically qualifies as a stand replacement fire because the stand of  overstory trees wasn’t replaced.

There were several interesting things at Lake Metan. There are Pacific crabapple (Malus fusca) trees growing there along the lake shore. If only these trees could talk. The story of how they came to be established at an isolated lake at almost 3200 feet in elevation would surely be a good one. I don’t believe I have seen it anywhere else in a similar location.

I also saw six camp robbers or gray jays (Perisorius canadensis). I have always like these birds, probably because they are so fearless and you can often get within several feet of them. As the name implies, they pick through campsites for stray morsels of food. Camp robbers are relatives of crows and ravens but they don’t seem to be nearly as destructive. It seems like I have been seeing more camp robbers in recent years after not seeing very many for quite a while.

I saw several northwestern salamander (Ambystoma gracile) larvae in the lake. Every time I have been to this lake, it has been difficult to see into it very well. Usually I see a few larvae though. Two years ago, I walked around the lake and saw a lot of northwestern salamander egg masses.

I also poked around a little bit in some thinning timber harvests in the area. One, Bench Thin, I worked on in 1992 or 1993. The other one was done within the last 5 years or so.

This is another long post. Please bear with me. 

Looking down off trail near edge of burn nearest the Pugh Mountain trailhead.

Looking uphill at old growth forest from Pugh Mountain trail.

Same spot as previous photo looking 180 degrees downhill at second growth forest in burn. Charred western red cedar (Thuja plicata) log in foreground. 

Looking down from the Pugh Mountain trail at a spot where several old growth trees have survived the fire and are surrounded with second growth trees. The tree in the center middle distance is an old growth Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) 4 to 5 foot dbh (diameter at breast height). The lower bark has flaked off leaving a smooth looking lower trunk on this tree but the upper trunk has thick, deeply furrowed bark. Just to the right of this tree is an old growth red cedar snag or tree with a few living branches.

Looking up from Pugh Mountain trail at a spot where there are multiple old growth survivors of the fire but where the understory burned enough to allow the establishment of a second growth forest underneath the old growth survivors. Visible to left and right of center frame are two living fire scarred old growth Douglas-firs. The log running toward the viewer is a fire killed red cedar and the snag on the right side of the frame is a Douglas-fir. There are many other living old growth trees in this area but they are not very visible in the photo because of the thick second growth forest. 

Looking down from Pugh Mountain trail at area that was logged. I am standing in the photo to give a sense of scale.  Note the cut stumps to my left and right and the one further down the hill partially obscured by my right shoulder. In determining what happened in the previous forest here, care must be taken to make sure stumps viewed from the trail are not just the result of trail maintenance and hazard tree removal. The presence of many stumps far off the trail here indicate that this area was logged. 

Tail tree. Another clue about fire and the logging. Burned bark is evident on this old growth Doulgas-fir. The line in the bark just above my head that is running perpendicular to the tree trunk was caused by a tail strap where a block was hung in order to yard logs below this tail tree. 

Another old growth Douglas-fir tail tree near the trail. Again, the line perpendicular to the tree trunk was caused by a tail strap. Usually such use will not kill an old growth tree and often it leaves very few marks. Second growth trees survive quite well also. This depends on several factors including species, how the strap was hung, how the yarder was operated and if the sap was up in the tree, making the bark loose when the tree was used.  

The upper edge of the burn just before the first major switchback as the trail starts up the hill. The lighting for showing this was not ideal but it should be apparent that the forest is fairly open. There are at least 3 large old growth trees in around the center of the frame and many more obscured by the smaller timber. 

The upper edge of the burn, looking 180 degrees and down the trail from the previous photo. Again, the light is not ideal but it is obvious that the forest is growing much more tightly together and the canopy is more closed. 

This photo was taken up the trail a little bit. It is above the burn. This forest has been opened up because it is growing on the nose of a ridge so, among other things, it has less soil water available and is more exposed to the elements, mainly wind. The trees are old growth but much smaller and many have been blown down. The small brown tree near the center of the frame is a western white pine (Pinus monticola) that probably seeded into an opening (white pine is not shade tolerant) and was later killed by blister rust fungus. 

                           

Pugh Mountain from Lake Metan. 

Lake Metan from the south end. 

Northwestern salamander (Ambystoma gracile) larva. These animals are often very hard to see. They often lay on logs like this where they look like sticks or debris. I will talk more on these salamanders in later posts.

Camp robber jays or gray jays (Perisorius canadensis). I saw six of these birds two of which darker in color. I assume that these were juveniles. In this photo, the darker bird is taking something from the lighter bird's mouth. 

I stood only a few yards away and watched for several minutes as the camp robbers picked through this camp site. 

The road to the Pugh Mountain trailhead. In the winter of 1998, when I was working for Reece Brothers Logging, we logged a thinning sale along this road called Lyle Thin, named after Lyle Creek nearby. 

Lyle Thin along the road to the Pugh Mountain trailhead.

Lyle Thin along the road to the Pugh Mountain trailhead.

Lyle Thin along the road to the Pugh Mountain trailhead. This areas was originally logged sometime in the 1930's. Springboard notches are evident on the western red cedar stump to the right of center frame. 

Lyle Thin along the road to the Pugh Mountain trailhead, looking up at the forest canopy. The smaller trees underneath will soon fill in the gaps. 

This is another thinning sale I worked on when I worked for Summit Timber in 1992 or 1993. This sale was called bench thin and it was on Whitechuck Bench off the Mountain Loop Highway just after the pavement turns to gravel road above the confluence of the Sauk and Whitechuck Rivers. I am standing on the haul road for trucks to haul the logs to the mill. 

Looking up at a thinning corridor. The logs were yarded down this corridor to a landing where they were loaded on trucks. 

Standing next to a second growth Douglas-fir near another thinning corridor.  The log paint used to mark this tree as a "leave" tree is still obvious just to my left. 

Another thinning corridor. This one is barely apparent.

This area was probably logged sometime in the 1930's or 1940's. I am standing next to an old growth Douglas-fir stump from that original timber harvest. 

The forest in the Bench Thin sale of the early 1990's. To my right are several old growth stumps from the original harvest in the 1930's or 1940's. I am standing next to a second growth Douglas-fir that grew or was planted after that original harvest. In the foreground in the center of the frame is a second growth Douglas-fir stump harvested in the thinning sale in the early 1990's.

The second growth stump mentioned in the previous photo from a different angle. I placed a couple of sticks on top of it to make it more evident. 

Looking up at the forest canopy in part of the Bench Thin sale of the early 1990's. 

As part of the Bench Thin sale or in conjunction with it, an overlook was built to allow views of Whitechuck Mountain. This overlook is just after the point where the Mountain Loop highway goes from pavement to gravel near the confluence of the Sauk and Whitechuck Rivers. A number of trees were cut below the overlook to allow this view. 

This is another area nearby that was thinned within the last 5 years or so. This is along the Peek-a-boo Road (Road 2081). It is just on the Darrington side of the Sauk River bridge at the confluence of the Sauk and Whitechuck Rivers. 

Peek-a-boo Road. An old growth Douglas-fir snag is visible near the center of this frame. 

Peek-a-boo Road. Again this area was originally logged in the 1930's or 1940's. The second growth trees here now probably average somewhere around 2 feet dbh.