Day 186: I had gone on a mission to Pack Forest about 10 AM and was coming back down from Windy Ridge, walking along the western portion of the 2000 Road with my eyes scanning the slope for a better example of Snow Queens than the ones I'd found near the trailhead. Suddenly, I saw something entirely unexpected: the bright magenta flags of two dozen or more Calypso Orchids on a steep embankment, so deep in shade that I had missed them altogether when I'd gone by an hour earlier. These are the first Calypsos I've seen outside Mount Rainier National Park. They have also emerged at Longmire and at Ohanapecosh, according to reports I've received, flowering there about a month earlier than normal.
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