Last Hikes of 2014

Saturday and Sunday the 27^th and 28^th of September will probably be the last weekend I get for hiking this year. There is one more weekend in early October before deer season opens but there are a lot of things that need to attend to before I go out hunting. Hiking season for me signifies doing trips into places to check them out for fish, plants, amphibians and other wildlife etc. I will probably do a lot of hiking during hunting season and still make a lot of the same observations. I will probably also make a lot of very different observations because I usually go to some very different places while hunting than I go on most hiking trips.

The weather for the weekend was going to be nice, sandwiched by nasty days. If I had a few more days of good weather, I would have done another overnight trip over multiple days and nights. As it was I hadn’t really figured out a good trip for a single overnighter. I decided to do a day trip into RB Lake in the Cultus Mountains on the lower Skagit. On Sunday Sacha and I decided to take the kids into Blue Lake, near Dock Butte between the Baker and South Fork Nooksack Rivers.

There are some roads pretty close to RB Lake from the Nookachamps Creek/Walker Valley area but I decided to take the road up Gilligan Creek, the same one I walked to go to Dixie Lake earlier in the year. This road also comes very close to RB Lake but the upper section of it is beginning to brush in pretty badly.

I don’t know how far this route is. The last mile marker that I saw along the road was the 5 mile and this was half to two-thirds of the distance I would have to travel into RB Lake. I figured this would be an excellent day trip for late in the season when I was in top shape. I couldn’t have done this trip in a day at the start of the season.

The start to my trip was pretty rough. The evening before, Friday, we moved the cows and it went pretty well but there were a few glitches that required me to jog for much of the way in order to keep up with some stragglers.  I didn’t get a good night’s rest the night before. I was up until after midnight finishing the blog post previous to this one for Galene Chain Lakes. I got up a little before 5:00 a.m. on Saturday. I wanted to get an early start because I had a long way to go. And, I was nursing a cold that was moving from my sinuses into my chest. This was the third cold I had this summer. The last summer cold I can remember getting was in 1995. Of course then I wasn’t living with two young children, the natural equivalent of the Petri dish. 

Vashti woke up before I got out the door. I couldn’t bring myself to just leave without hanging out with her a little bit. I ended up spending most of the time fending off attacks from a toy stuffed emperor penguin and baby that had transformed into an alternately vicious and then friendly woodpecker. Finally Sacha got up and took over the Vashti watch. Sacha hardly ever gets a break.

I got to the road gate at a little after 7:00 a.m. The walk in went quite well. As I said, I was probably in the best shape of the year and I made it to Dixie Lake at a little after 9:00 a.m.

About half an hour later I was at my first goal, a small pond below the road. I overshot it though. I had expected to be able to see it. It was in a logged off area and only about one hundred yards from the road which curved around the basin where it lay. The trees had grown up enough to hide it though and it wasn’t a pond like I had expected. It was more of a wetland flat that looked like it gets inundated during the spring and early summer when water flows are highest.  

I realized my mistake and backtracked. Finally I spotted the flat and started down off the road. I was so focused on getting to the wetland that I almost walked over the top of two nice blacktail deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) bucks. They each had two to three points on each side of their racks, making what would be called two points, or three points or two by threes (with two on one side of the rack and three on the other), using the western count system for describing deer antlers.

The wetland flat was interesting. I saw a western toad (Bufo boreas) and quite a variety of wetland plants for such a small area. In the one small pond of standing water in the flat I also noticed a large number of water boatmen, aquatic insects which are true bugs in the order Hemiptera and the family Corixidae. I saw large numbers of these bugs everywhere I went that day, like there had been a big hatch of them. Either that or they are just very common in the area.

My next destination was RB Lake. The road leading in that direction was fairly open to a pit or quarry about half a mile from the lake. Beyond the pit there were a number of switchbacks before the road continued on toward the lake.

Just below the pit, at the top of the switchbacks, the road was brushed in with a heavy growth of willow that made it almost impassable. I tried pushing my way through for a few yards, quickly realizing that this would eat up precious time and drain a lot of the energy I would need for the walk out.

I got back out of the brush and took stock of the situation. I could see the road below, beyond the switchback area, and it looked to be fairly open, at least not as heavily brushed in as the switchbacks. I cut off the road, cross country, and bypassed the switchbacks altogether, picking up the road below. The road below was much more open and I made good time to the point where it ended, about a quarter mile north of RB Lake.

I looked around for some good landmarks before diving off the road again toward the lake. There was a pretty distinct rock bluff above the spot above me. This would be a good reference point for finding my way back to the road. The whole area had been logged about 30 years ago and the new trees, reprod as they are called, were pretty thick, hiding a lot of features that would have been useful for navigation. I was worried about missing the road on the way back and having to bash cross country until I found another one that lead me back to it. The rock bluff was prominent enough and distinct enough to guide me back to my starting point.

I crossed the old logging unit and got into some old-growth timber. Within about half an hour I was at RB Lake. It was about 12:30 at this point so I ate lunch. I would have loved to sit down but the lake was surrounded by a wide fringe of soaking wet ground and the big timber and brush underneath that I had just traveled through was soaking wet from heavy rains the previous night and day. So I stood and wolfed down lunch.

I found RB Lake quite interesting. There was a wide ring of wetlands around it. Most of these wetlands weren’t flat. They were sloping with numerous rivulets running all over with an occasional small pond here and there. There was a large variety of wetland plants. I probably missed a few species of plants because I was there so late in the season.  

I saw a number of frogs. Most looked like Cascades frogs (Rana cascadae) but I caught one that looked a lot like a red-legged frog (Rana aurora). This one was small though and sometimes adult features are not as prominent in smaller individuals.

I captured a larger frog whose legs were honey colored and belly yellow, typical of a Cascades frog. This one’s dorsal spots weren’t as sharp edged as many Cascades frogs I have seen but, overall, I felt confident that it was probably a Cascades frog. This frog’s right eye was disfigured. The eye didn’t have a distinct pupil. There were a number of black spots spread throughout the gold colored iris.

I was able to get a really good look at several other frogs and these looked like Cascades frogs complete with nice, sharp edged dorsal spots. So I’m pretty sure there are Cascades frogs at RB Lake but I can’t say for sure if red-legged frogs are present there or not . RB Lake is not too far away from an area in the Day Creek watershed where I ran across both species in the same place. So it is possible that red-legged frogs are present and possibly hybrids of the two species. DNA analysis would probably be the only way to know for certain.

This whole area is quite interesting to me. The forest has a lot of mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana) and pink heather (Phyllodoce empetriformis) is present in open areas. Both of these species are typically found at higher elevation. In areas like this farther east in the mountains, you would expect to find Alaska yellow cedar (Chamaecyparis nootkatensis) but there is none here. The cedar here is western red cedar (Thuja plicata).

It isn’t unheard of for the ranges of western red cedar, mountain hemlock and pink heather to overlap but, from my observation, this overlap is not that common farther east. I will have to pay attention in the future to see if I can discover where Alaska cedar grows farthest west in the mountains.

To add to all of this, oval-leaved blueberries (Vaccinium ovalifolium) and black huckleberries (V. membranaceum) were abundant in the forest understory. These are low to middle elevation species. I didn’t see any high elevation Vaccinium species. So it would seem that the area is more typical of middle elevations, though the mountain hemlock still seems like a big anomaly.

My last goal for the day was a pond at the head of Rocky Creek which drains to Day Creek. The interesting thing I found here was that this pond, which was much smaller than RB Lake, had two species here, yellow pond lily (Nuphar polysepalum) and buckbean (Menyanthes trifoliata) that were not at RB Lake. And, there was lots buckbean at Dixie Lake nearby but no pond lily, though there was lots of pond lily in a pond about quarter mile from Dixie Lake.

This is a good example of an interesting phenomena that I have heard about wetlands, and probably most habitats. Not all species are present at all wetlands. And while larger ones may have more overall species, quite often the small ones nearby have a few that aren’t in the large ones.  

I missed a frog at the pond. I took chance.  Instead of trying to catch it, I hoped it would go to water, as most of them do, and hang out where I could get good look at it. However, it dived into the mud and disappeared before I could get a really good look at it.

On the way out I saw two dead adult Pacific giant salamanders (Dicamptodon tenebrosus) in the road. I had walked by both in the morning, apparently missing them because of the rising sun in my eyes. They were several miles apart and both appeared to have had their heads crushed.

Pacific giant salamanders usually breed and mature in streams rather than ponds so have run across them frequently in streams but I don’t often run into this species while doing lakes and ponds. It was not unusual to see adult salamanders of any species in this area but it was unusual to see two adult salamanders of a species that I don’t often encounter, both dead on the road several miles apart, apparently killed in the same mannner.

The road in the areas where I saw the salamanders wasn’t heavily used and neither looked like it had been crushed by a tire. Only a small spot in the head appeared to be damaged. One salamander was well out of the tire tread, almost in the ditch and the other was in the median area between the tire treads. The only thing I could think was that possibly they were hit by a motorbike, there were motorbike tracks in the area, and somehow flung out of the tire tread area. Strange that both seemed to be hit in almost exactly the same part of the body. A predator, maybe a raptor of some kind, may have been responsible as well.

It was a long slog back and I didn’t stop for much other than to look at the dead salamanders. I made back to my rig at a little before 7:00 p.m. I had been on my feet walking for eleven and a half hours. I don’t know the distance I covered.

Sunday Sacha and I took the girls into Blue Lake near Dock Butte. The trip in is only about 0.7 miles which should have been well within Vashti’s capacity to walk.

The drive up to the trailhead is quite scenic as well, offering almost point blank views of Mount Baker as well as Mount Shuksan and ridge on the Baker and Nooksack Rivers. You can also see south a good distance to Whitechuck and Pugh Mountains and Sloan and Foggy Peaks. So I figured it would be a good hike for a family with young kids.

I had been to Blue Lake several times prior to this trip. I distinctly remember the first time I ever went there, just after I got out of high school. Some of my friends had been talking about it and I thought I would see if I could get in there. I didn’t have any maps and only vague directions. My fishing pole was also broken.

So, I went to the hardware store in Concrete, Cascade Supply and bought a Silver Eagle telescoping fishing rod with money I had earned cutting firewood that summer. Then I headed up the road towards Baker Lake. I knew roughly where Blue Lake was so I kept taking logging roads that looked like they would take me in that direction. The next thing I knew I was at the trailhead without having to backtrack once.

As I recall, the trailhead wasn’t signed at that time but I was pretty sure I was in the right place. I headed up the trail and sure enough, I was at the lake in pretty short order. And here is the kicker: I caught my limit of fish, or pretty close to my limit. Blue Lake is notorious for leaving fishermen empty handed. I have heard many stories since about people being skunked at Blue Lake. In fact, the friends I had heard about it from, who were very good fishermen, had been skunked when they were there. I don’t know how I got it into my head to go there since the fishing was so hard but obviously something sparked my interest.

As I have said, I have been back several times since that first trip and every time I got skunked, not even a bite. I wasn’t so worried about fish this time (or so I thought when we started out). I just wanted to spend some time outdoors with the family.

The trip in was a little bit trying. Vashti is at an age where you don’t know if she is making a big deal about something because she is scared or can’t do it or because she is being overly dramatic or playing out some fantastical notion. She was afraid of a crack in a puncheon boardwalk that she couldn’t have gotten her hand, much less her foot into because she was “afraid of falling in”. She went up some hills just fine and refused to go up others that weren’t nearly as steep, etc. etc. etc.

I lost my patience a few times and finally made the comment that it was a good thing it was only 0.7 miles in. Sacha asked me if that was for Vashti’s sake or mine and I said, “both”.

Finally, in a little under an hour, I think, we made it in. The blueberry crop in the area was astounding. Sacha wanted to pick some but we hadn’t brought any containers. Finally I emptied out the 2 gallon plastic bag that I had my lunch in and gave it to her.

Then I figured I would do a little fishing to see if my luck was any better on this trip. Vashti wanted to come along but it was a little to rough for her along the vague trail on the lakeshore so I left her with Sacha, figuring she could help pick berries. I didn’t think I would be fishing for very long.

I turned out that there were a lot of fish in the lake and you could see them. They were also very spooky but every once in a while I would get a light bite. This was enough to draw me in. I knew that sooner or later I would get one….Damn!, just missed.

Finally I succeeded in catching a fish, and eastern brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis), the same species that had been here thirty years ago. Now I was really sucked in. The fish was pretty small so it would be nice to catch a few more to have enough for dinner.

So on around the lake I went. Occassionally I would hear Vashti holler for me but I figured she was just checking in. Any given spot on the lake was only good for a few casts. If a fish looked at the lure, they would only do it for a couple casts before swimming off. If one bit and I didn’t hook it, I was done at that spot. I wouldn’t get another fish to look at the lure, much less bite. After missing a few more fish, I finally caught another one. At this point Sacha had also hollered at me so I figured I’d better head back.

When I got back, I found a very exasperated Sacha. It turned out that almost the whole time Vashti had been pestering Sacha to go with me “fishering”. Finally at the end she settled down to pick and eat a few berries. I guess they talked about the book “Blueberries for Sal” quite a bit. I felt pretty bad. This was supposed to be a bit of a break for Sacha. Instead I abandoned her with the kids. Phoebe wasn’t much of a problem but Vashti was kind of a pest, which understandable from her point of view, that of a bored two year old.

Chastened, I gathered up my things, took a few quick notes on the vegetation and the fish species, population and spawning habitat and we headed out. Vashti did much better on the way out but we were still delayed enough that Sacha was able to pick quite a few more berries. She ended up with something like 6 cups, or a little over two pounds on the kitchen scale. In spite of a few drawbacks, like me running off to the other side of the lake fishing, I think everyone had a good time. I hope they did.

At this point in the season I am in top shape and I feel a strong urge to get a few more hikes in but I have other things that need to be attended to. It’s hard to imagine but next year before I am at this point of physical conditioning again, there will be a lot of pain, cramps and soreness.

Blacktailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) buck above the first wetland I visited on the 27th. 

The first wetland I visited on the 27th. The small pond in the foreground was one of the few small areas that had standing water. The rest of the area was a wet meadow. 

Water boatman. These insects are true bugs in the family Corixidae. They breathe air and use their elongated hind legs to swim much in the way one would use oars to row a boat. There were numerous water boatmen everywhere I went on this trip. 

Western toad (Bufo boreas) at the first wetland I visited on the 27th. This toad was quite dark compared to most toads I have seen. Possibly it is melanistic. The dorsal stripe on this toad is barely visible. Usually it is quite prominent. The large red bumps just behind the eyes are paratoid glands which secrete poison if the toad is trying to discourage something from eating it. 

RB Lake viewed from the east end, looking west. 

RB Lake from the north side, looking south. 

RB Lake from the outlet on its west end. RB Lake is at the head of the East Fork of Nookachamps Creek. The sedge covered berm in the foreground raises the lake level by several feet. This berm may be an old beaver dam but there was no sign of any recent beaver activity. 

Cascade frog (Rana cascadae) at RB Lake. One of the frogs I managed to capture here looked a lot like a red-legged frog (Rana aurora) but it was so small that it could have been a Cascades frog that still hadn't developed all the adult features. The other frog I caught looked mostly like a Cascades frog, except the dorsal spots were a little off. I didn't capture this one but the dorsal spots are clearly sharp-edged, typical of a Cascades frog. 

The pond at the head of Rocky Creek which drains to Day Creek. This was the last wetland/pond I visited on the 27th. 

Northwestern salamander (Ambystoma gracile) egg mass at the pond at the head of Rocky Creek. Northwestern salamander egg masses are pretty distinctive. They are large, typically grapefruit sized and attached to sticks or vegetation that ranges in diameter from about pencil sized to thumb sized. The larvae have already hatched from this egg mass but the individual eggs are visible as the little green blobs within the larger egg mass. The green is algae which, as it grows in the egg mass, provides oxygen to the larvae growing inside the egg while utilizing the larvae's metabolic waste. 

Patch of red sphagnum at the pond at the head of Rocky Creek. 

View north at Mount Shuksan from road between RB and Dixie Lakes. 

Pacific giant salamander. These salamanders are typically stream dwellers. This individual was an adult on the side of the road between Dixie and RB Lakes, one of two I found dead in the road. The death of these salamanders is a bit mysterious to me. The road where I found each wasn't heavily used and, at any rate, they didn't seem to have been run over and both were out of the heavily traveled track of the road. This one was nearly in the ditch. Each salamander's head seemed to have been crushed. It is possible that they were each run over in exactly the same manner or possibly this is the work of some predator. My apologies to anyone who might be offended by this photo. As far as death and decay go, this is a pretty minor example in my experience but I understand others might have different sensibilities. I used the photo to help illustrate the curious circumstances of the salamanders. 

Looking south from the U. S. Forest Service road near the Blue Lake trailhead. On the horizon are Whitechchuck and Pugh Mountains and Sloan and Foggy Peaks. Prairie Mountain is almost hidden in the haze in front of Whitechuck and Pugh. 

The family at Blue Lake. 

One reason the fish in Blue Lake might be so skittish and hard to catch is that the water is pretty clear. 

Eastern brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis). Brook trout are not true trout. Their genus, Salvelinus belongs to a group within the Salmonidae family (to which true trout also belong), called char. In my opinion, these are some of the prettiest fish you are likely to come across. Unfortunately they are not native to the west and have been implicated in the decline of Dolly Varden/bull trout (S. malma/confluentus) which are char that are native to the west. Just as unfortunately, brook trout are also in decline in many parts of their natural range back east. Brook trout are prolific breeders and there were quite a few fish in the lake which is possibly why the lower fish is so skinny. It is strange to me that these fish are so hard to catch. I was surprised to do as well as I did because char are fall spawners so these fish are getting ready to spawn and most fish are notoriously hard to catch while spawning. 

Vashti on the trail with the day's catch. 

The berries were abundant. 

Sacha picking blueberries with Phoebe looking on.