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| "...In which we learn that May is not Summer." |
We tried to go hiking up in the meadows of the Swauk forest, but the snow and ice were so bad on the narrow, tilted road (I guess May isn't summer...), that we opted to _not_ slide down the mountain, turned around, and found another trail lower down. |
Going hiking in May is great, though, because the few times we were at popular enough trails to have parking lots, they were all this empty. |
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| There was still snow where we were, even though we were lower down (about 2500 feet.) |
The eastern side of the mountains is much dryer, as you can see in these pictures. It was also hotter -- we were in 50's-60's (F) in the west, but mid-70's in Wenatchee. |
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| We saw this beautiful butterfly as we were walking and it let us sneak up on it and take its picture. |
The spring plants still came up, though, making a splash of green against dry, moss-less ground. |
The flowers were stark against the dry ground. |
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Despite the dryness, life was still everywhere. |
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A little purple flower nestles between the leaves. |
Some of the plants looked like they were hiding, so drab was their color it camoflaged them against the ground. |
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| This plant has soft, fuzzy leaves. |
There were fewer fungi and moss on the east side of the cascades, but we still saw some. |
Lichen growing on the side of a tree. |
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| Some areas still had a lot of lichen, if they were on the wet side of a hill, but we didn't see the incredible proliferation of moss there was on the western side of the Cascades. |
The bark on the trees was beautiful. |
more bark. |
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| My favorite bark picture (it's printed out and hanging in my office.) |
We saw a wide variety of conifers, including many pines, which was different from the western Cascades. |
The forest was full of Ponderosa Pines and their twisting branches left beautiful negative space against the sky. |
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| More Ponderosa Pine. |
The Western Larch is one of only two conifers ("evergreens") that loses its needles every year and grows them back in the spring. |
Few conifers have cones when they are this young, but this small tree was covered with them. |
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| Another conifer nearby was flowering. |
You can see the bubbles of sap gathering beneath the bark on this tree. Conifer sap is much more viscous because it needs to keep flowing during the cold winter months to keep the needles alive. |
This bark was patterned with where young needles had dropped off as the tree grew. |
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| The views of the mountains were marvelous. |
There were often fewer trees here, so it was much easier to see further out. |
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