Day 256: Team Biota ventured somewhat outside the Park boundaries yesterday to hike to Sheep Lake and Sourdough Gap from Chinook Pass, the trail slightly east of the Cascade Crest. Joe had been to the lake only a few days earlier and had found a lichen he knew I'd have to pursue: Letharia vulpina, aka "Wolf Lichen." We have two species of Letharia in Washington and both are primarily "east side" dwellers. The second species (L. columbiana) usually bears an abundance of fringed apothecia which are so distinctive that Northwest Lichenologists uses the lichen as their logo. I was hoping we might find both on our seven-mile trek.
And there's a point right there: Washington Trails Association's website claims the gentle hike to Sourdough Gap covers a mere five miles. Trusting in them, we left our lunches in the truck. Using my new GPS which tracks your actual route, we had covered seven miles by the time we got back at 3 PM. The largest discrepancy occurred between the lake and the pass. WTA claimed it was 0.75 miles one way. My GPS showed 1.4 miles.
That said, we found Letharia vulpina in abundance, noting that it occurred primarily on dead cedars and alpine fir. Brodo refers to it as preferring barkless branches, and indeed this was what we observed, although we also found it growing on bark. We did not find the second species, but felt we were much more than compensated by the number of "new" vascular plants we discovered, including a couple of species I had not seen before. I still have a few left to identify, but many will be featured in this blog over the next week. Stay tuned!
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