Au Sable Institute and Cornet Bay

I had been working long hours and Edward had been job hunting and we were both weary of it all and decided to take Friday morning (June 3) off and do a bit of hiking.  It turned into a beautiful sunny day as we drove to Whidbey Island to visit two of our favorite spots there.

We went first to the Pacific Rim Campus of the Au Sable Institute just south of Coupeville and took a walk through their woods looking for orchids in bloom.  This is one of the few known locations of the Ozette Coralroot, a rare variety of the Spotted Coralroot found only in Washington State.

Walking through the woods we found a few Fairy Slippers still in bloom and many plants of the Western Spotted Coralroot (Corallorhiza maculata var. occidentalis), some of them in large clumps.  We found both the brown stemmed and the red-stemmed forms of the plant.

We also found a few that seemed to be intermediate between the Western Spotted and the Ozette, but perhaps they only represent more of the variation within this species.  In any case, I had never seen so many of them in one location and never so many in this location.  They were everywhere.

We found the Ozette Coralroot (Corallorhiza maculata var. ozettensis), too, but not as many as previous years.  Nor were they in bloom, but have several weeks to go before they bloom.  We've seen them in full bloom in early June, but this year everything is late due to a long spell of cold rainy weather.

Finished at Au Sable, we went back to the north end of Whidbey Island and the area of Deception Pass State Park.  We visited the part of the park that borders the south side of Cornet Bay and hiked the area around Hoypus Hill, looking for the Western Coralroot (C. mertensiana).

We found them in their usual haunts but they, too, were just beginning to bloom.  We took some pictures, but will have to go back when they are at their peak.  They are also very late this year as a result of the weather.  It was obvious though that both the purple and yellow-stemmed varieties were present.

We managed to get pictures also a small blue butterfly and of a Fox Sparrow, but there was little else to photograph and toward the end of the morning we were lost a bit on the winding trails and were trying to find our way rather than thinking about pictures.

Lake Elizabeth

 

Platanthera aquilonis (found in 2009)

Saturday (July 30) on our way home from Spokane, we hiked with the Washington Native Orchid Society to Lake Elizabeth near Skykomish, Washington.  My wife and I had hiked there last summer looking for a very rare Bog Orchid, but had not found it, though we found several other orchids.

Lake Elizabeth

A year ago we had been able to drive up a Forest Service road to within a couple of miles of the lake, but this year we found to our dismay that the road was completely blocked off and that we were face with a hike of over six and half miles each way.

The reason, apparently, was that the Forest Service was working to reopen the road, which had been closed by a washout in 2007, but it looked to us to be an almost impossible task to open the road all the way to the lake, since there were now numerous washouts and one place where the creek had begun to undermine the road.

The road followed Money Creek, and was not overly strenuous, but we were under time pressures, and though we did reach the lake were not able to spend as much time there as we would have liked, but had to leave early and make our own way back to our vehicle.

Money Creek

The day was partly sunny and quite warm, and we noticed immediately that everything was much drier than the previous year.  There was not a lot of variety in the wildflowers, therefore, though the butterflies were out in force and we manged to get pictures of some of them, properly identified, I hope.

Mormon Fritillary (Speyeria mormonia)

Clodius Parnassian (Parnassius clodius) -below also

Cinnabar Moth Caterpillars

(these are not native, but have been introduced to control undesirable weeds)

We also saw a Garter Snake sunning itself and it posed for pictures and did not move until I touched it and then it disappeared into the weeds along the road.  We also saw a tall yellow composite in flower that was covered with small orange and black caterpillars.

The only orchid we found on the way up was the Slender Bog Orchid, Platanthera stricta.  Wherever we found wet spots we found this orchid growing, some plants very small and few flowered and others very robust with many flowers.

Spider on Platanthera stricta seed pods

(taken by my wife)

We also found growing near the lake itself a shrub with beautiful orange-red flowers that one of the members identified as a rhododendron, but which I later identified as Copperbush.  We were able, too, to find some Salmon berries which were ripe though they were only beginning to ripen.

Copperbush

Salmonberry

At the lake itself there is a trail all around the lake, but because the road has been closed for several years, this once popular location was barely negotiable in spots.  We too the trail toward the south side of the lake first, but found our way blocked by fallen trees and brush.

We did find on that part of the trail some Elephant's Head Lousewort (Pedicularis groenlandica) nearly finished blooming along with Spirea and in one drier location a single plant of the Indian Pipes.

Elephant Head Lousewort and Unknown Bog Plant

Mountain Meadow-sweet (Spirea splendens)

There were also several other plants in that area that I was not able to identify and two orchids, the ever present Slender Bog Orchis and the Sierra Rein Orchid (Platanthera dilatata var. leucostachys).  After photographing these we turned back and headed the other way down the trail which was more accessible.

Listera cordata var. cordata fma. viridens and Listera banksiana

There we found three orchids, the Northwestern Twayblade, Listera banksiana, the Heart-leaved Twayblade, Listera cordata var. cordata, and the Western Coralroot, Corallorhiza mertensiana.  We also found the Western Coralroot in its pale colored form, a whitish yellow with very little of the purple color of the normal form.

Two color forms of the Western Coralroot

Corallorhiza mertensiana fma. pallida (below also)

(taken by my wife)

Because we were in a hurry on our way out, we stopped only a couple of times for pictures, once to photograph the leaves of a maple that were beautifully variegated, and at the end of the hike a few pictures of Money Creek.