Kachess Ridge

 

Went back to Kachess Ridge to see if the snow has melted out.  Jim joined me which makes the hike a lot more pleasant. The day was beautiful with blue skies and a pleasant temperature in the low 70’s.  The trail itself goes up very steeply, but it is mostly in the shade and usually has a cool breeze coming up from the creek.  There is a trail/scramble off of the main trail to the top of the ridge where an aircraft beacon used to be located.  Beacons were put on several of the peaks in the Cascades to guide mail planes at night during the 1930’s.  Once we broke out of the trees there was a great hike along the ridge with views down to Kachess lake and over to Rainier.  n

On the way up, we scrambled to a ridge with with a great garden of Spreading Stonecrop.  It’s one of the best flowers I’ve seen grow from a pile of rocks.

And we had a pleasant time setting on the mossy banks of silver creek.

Photos of kachess Ridge

Lake 22

 

It is not the prettiest name for a lake and on Thursday, it may have been the only place in the state that wasn’t sunny, but I went hiking there anyway.  The hike is easy and there is lots to see,  but I would have really liked to have had some sunshine.  I don’t think I have ever gone hiking on the mountain loop highway and had sunshine.  But it is one of the few lakes in the world that is accessible and in its natural state.  It was set aside as a Natural Research Area in 1947 to study the effects on water, land and wild life when it is left unmanaged and undeveloped.  The entire trail is in old growth timber.  It is well known for its Western Red Cedar

It has weeping walls where plants grow on a vertical garden

and of course there is a lake.

Creek 22 flows from the lake and has at least six waterfalls that are easily accessible

And all of this is there because of the abundant rain. 

Photos of Lake 22

Back to LT Murray

 

It is my second hike in a row where it was sunny and the temperature was in the high comfortable. I was up on this hike about three weeks ago, but the flowers were just starting to come out.  I returned to see them and succeeded admirably.

 

There was a rattlesnake across my path, but no mosquitoes.  The snake and I worked out an agreement where by he would disappear into the grass and I wouldn’t following trying to take pictures.  I think it worked out to the benefit of us both.

 

I stopped counting the variety of flowers at about forty, but there were plenty more if you include the flowering bushes.  This is a great hike because of the wide range of terrain in a short hike.  There are great grass fields,

Cool stands of cottonwoods?

peaceful meadows in the forest

great views of the Stuart Range

and of course, all of those great flowers.

LT Murray photos

It was a great early season hike which I highly recommend if you don’t mind sharing your lunch with a bugling elk.

Kachess Ridge

 

I went east looking for sun and climbed Kachess Ridge.  This time I was successful.  The initial hike is steep but it was pleasant walking through the trees with the dappled light.  The  trail runs along Silver Creek and has a cool breeze and is shaded beneath the trees.

 

The trail leveled off and was a pleasant 3/4 mile walk through a hanging valley and then I ran into the snow.  Not wishing to spend another hike mucking through the snow, I headed straight up the ridge and broke out of the trees into a series of meadows. I don’t recommend this unless you know elevation and how far above you a ridge is.  I always have my trusty altimeter.

I kept going until I topped out on a shoulder overlooking Easton

 

 

  The ridge was covered with flowers and succulents

A short nap in the sun and then a pleasant downhill walk along silver creek

 

 

Photos of Kachess Ridge

Rattlesnake Ledge

 

Hope springs eternal about the sun shine, but not wanting to drive a long distance just to have my hopes dashed, I went to Rattlesnake Ledge out of North Bend for a hike.  The irony of course being that North Bend gets 60 more days of rain a year than Seattle.

Rattlesnake Ledge is actually three ledges, each about two hundred feet higher than the previous that over look Rattlesnake Lake.  The first ledge looks out over Chester Morse Lake, which is the source of Seattle’s water supply.  It is a natural lake formed by a glacier  moraine that has dammed the valley.  If you are a biologist, the fish stock in the lake have been isolated for 13,000 years and have evolved into a unique species, assuming you believe in evolution. Otherwise they were created on October 23, 4004 BC when God created the world and made it look older to test our faith.   Chester Morse Lake is off in the distance.  Rattlesnake Lake is at the foot of the cliffs.  The Cedar River flows north out of the Lake and passes with in two thousand feet of Rattlesnake Lake before veering off to the right towards Maple Valley and its rendezvous with Lake Washington at the Renton Airport. Rattlesnake Lake has no outlets and does not flow into the Cedar, which is probably why it is open to the public and their many dogs.

 

 

The hike is through second growth northwest jungle. All along the trail the plants were sprouting new spring growth.  If there is every a war of plants against the animals, the plants are winning it here.

 

But it was an enjoyable hike, I didn’t get wet I can identify, moss, lichen, ferns, and dogwood flowers even without by taxonomy book.

Photos of Rattlesnake Ledge

Ingalls Creek

 

I was lured to the east side of the mountains by the promise of sunshine, but it was a false promise.  The sky was clear as I went into Cle Elem, but soon turned gray as I headed north over Blewit Pass. But I didn’t actually get rained on, so that was a victory.  The area is interesting geologically.  The North Cascades were formed by mini continents scraped off of the Pacific plate as it submerged beneath the continental crust.  Most of the sea stacks out on the coast were actually formed in Hawaii and have made the slow trip north over many millions of years riding on the spreading sea floor.  So if you want to go to really old Hawaii, but can’t afford the airfare, go out to Neah Bay, look at the rocks off of the coast and eat Indian fry bread with the Macaws.  It’s a lot better than poi. Anyway, as the continents collide with each other magma flows up between them forming granite plugs called plutons.  So Ingalls creek is formed along the fault line of one of these mini continent collisions.  It is about sixteen miles long.  The north side of the valley is granite and the south side is dirt and rock.

 

But that is all from Ingalls Lake.  I started at the end of the valley walking up the relatively flat Ingalls Creek looking for wild flowers.

This is the second week I’ve gone looking for wild flowers.  After last week where I came home and compared my pictures to the ones in the 150 common wild flowers of the North Cascades, I found I was on a hike filled with uncommon flowers.  So this week, I took the book, but didn’t have much better luck.  Makes you kind of wonder about the accuracy of eye witnesses at crime scenes. The hike started of with what looked like the common garden iris

but I was soon able to identify trillium and Indian Paintbrush.  I particularly liked the bright Indian Paintbrush on this otherwise gloomy day.

 

Flowers on hike