Catherine Creek

After leaving Snow Mountain Ranch on May 16th, we headed for the Columbia River gorge and Catherine Creek, one of our favorite places in the gorge.  On the way we stopped to take pictures in several different places both along Highway 82 and along Highway 14, the highway that runs the length of the gorge on the Washington side.

Arriving at Catherine Creek around 1:00 in the afternoon, we found that we were earlier than last year and that some of the flowers we had come to see were not blooming yet.  We did, however, find wildflowers we had not seen there before including the Bitterroots.  We photographed many of the flowers and the creek and scenery as well before heading on to our next location, the Oregon side of the gorge.

We saw more wildflowers than I could count.  Those shown here are (in order), Bitterroot (Lewsia rediviva), Broadleaf Stonecrop (2 pictures), Cornflower, Sea Blush (2 pictures), Chickweed Monkeyflower, White-top Clover and Fiddleneck.  My wife also had two encounters with rattlesnakes.  She almost stepped on a small one and was about to climb a rocky outcrop when she noticed a large snake sunning itself on the top of the rocks.  I was disappointed that I didn't at least get to see them.

We had hoped to visit Multnomah Falls in Oregon and do some hiking in that area.  We arrived there as the sun was going down and spent some time around the falls and scouting a place for the next day's hiking before going on to find a place to spend the night.  We ended up at a truck stop and after putting the curtains up in the back of our van and laying out our pads and sleeping bags spent a comfortable and quiet night there.

That is all the subject of another post, but we did stop in various places along the gorge to take pictures of the scenery, the wildflowers and other things of interest.  It was at one of these stops that I not only saw but was able to photograph as Scrub Jay, a new bird for me, and a very beautiful bird, too, in my opinion.  We saw him in place east of Bingen, Washington, where we had gotten out to explore.

Snow Mountain Ranch

We've been getting around.  I was scheduled to speak for the Oregon Orchid Society on the native orchids of the Pacific Northwest on Tuesday evening, May 17th.  We decided to leave a day early and get some hiking in and so left home Monday morning of the 16th and drove to the area of Yakima, Washington, and to the Snow Mountain Ranch, part of the Cowiche Canyon Conservancy, and an old ranch site.

The place had been recommended by our good friend, Marti Anderson, who had been there recently and reported the evidence of a fire (http://meanderingwa.blogspot.com/2011/05/checking-out-burn.html).  We found the same thing and were a bit disappointed, as she was on her last visit, by the sparsity of the wildflowers, though we had a very nice hike up the ridge.

The site is typical of the area - rather dry with few trees except in the folds between the hills and wherever there is water.  The day was dry, though mostly overcast, with evidence of recent rains and some of the trails were quite muddy, but we were prepared for that and took our time hiking the trails and exploring the area while looking for wildflowers.

 

After beginning our hike near the stream that flows at the bottom of the ranch we passed Balanced Rock and headed up the Wildflower Trail.  Evidence of the recent fire was everywhere in the burned sagebrush, fence posts and bare areas that had not yet recovered.  We saw few others until we ended the hike when it seemed as though everyone had decided to go hiking.

The main wildflowers we saw were the Large-flowerd Brodiaea, what I believe are the Kittitas Larkspur and the Silvery Lupine, and the ever-present Arrowleaf Balsamroot.  Interestingly, the Brodiaea on the west side of the ridge were mostly pale blue to white in color while the Brodiaea on the east side were a very dark blue, as the pictures below indicate.

Some other wildflowers were Fleabane (I am not sure which one), Douglas' Buckwheat, Common Clarkia, Gray's Desert Parsley, Gairdner's Penstemon, what I believe to be the Rosy Balsamroot, and Modoc's Hawksbeard.  The Giant-head Clover were mostly finished blooming, but the seedheads were still quite attractive.

We were very much attracted by the way the flowers grew in and through the sagebrush, especially the Showy Phlox, if I have it identified correctly.  Hiking aback along the stream once again, we managed to get some pictures of the Red-wing Blackbirds that had come out as the weather gradually improved and the sun began to break through.