A Hike To Lodi Creek

Day 324: This collage has been on hold for the last two weeks due to the Alder Lake Fire. The photos were taken on the day of the Volunteer picnic at Sunrise, at the turnaround point of a hike I seem to take every year on picnic day. Why the same hike? Because little Lodi Creek holds a special spot in my heart as one of the most cheering rivulets on the Mountain. Even in late season (and this year, dry), it can be counted on to provide a selection of wildflowers, particularly Lewis' Monkeyflower (Mimulus lewisii) which grows in abundance all along the stream's passage through Berkeley Park and down to Berkeley Camp.

Backpackers will know what I mean when I say that each stream has its own voice. Some babble, some whisper, some laugh. Lodi chuckles. Every rock in the creek bed has some amusing secret to impart to the water and Lodi chuckles at every one it discovers. Perhaps the mosses tickle it, or it finds the pink faces of the Monkeyflowers funny. Perhaps it finds floating fallen petals droll, or the shapes of roots straggling over its banks absurd. Whatever sportive expressions Lodi encounters as it rambles on, it obviously believes them very humorous indeed because they keep it chuckling until this merry stream eventually pours into the roar and rumble of White River's grand guffaw. I hike each year to Lodi to share in its delicious jokes, and when on rare occasion, I have more time, I will continue on past Berkeley Camp to visit another old friend, an unnamed tributary I call Giggly Creek. I think it knows something it's not telling Lodi. You can hear it in its whimsical titter.

The Icing On The Cake

Day 259: Yesterday, I introduced my readers to two of the most common species of Paintbrush to be found in Mount Rainier National Park. Today, it is my pleasure to show you a rare variety.

First, I want you to notice that I used the word "variety" in that last sentence. This is not a rare plant, per se, but it is a rare colour. Just like pansies, petunias and poppies can be found in a variety of colours, so can some of our native wildflowers. Their genetic differences are not sufficient to categorize them as separate species or even as sub-species despite the fact that they are visually quite different from others of their same species.

Castilleja parviflora var. oreopola is a case in point. This "Magenta Paintbrush" has white bracts. If you compare a "leaf" of magenta-coloured Paintbrush (C. parviflora) to a "leaf" of this white Paintbrush, you should be able to tell that they are identical in all respects except colour. The white form is rather rare in the Park, previously reported from the Sunrise area. Following a lead from a botanizing friend, I was pleased to be able to observe not one but two specimens near Paradise on a morning hike today.

Castilleja Paradise

Day 258: Of the six species of Castilleja (Indian Paintbrush) you may encounter at Mount Rainier National Park (others occur elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest), C. miniata (Slender Paintbrush aka Scarlet Paintbrush, left) and C. parviflora (Magenta Paintbrush, right) are the most common in subalpine meadows. Like Christmas poinsettias, their most dramatic feature is not their flowers. It is their colourful bracts, modified leaves which in the case of the Paintbrushes often conceal much of the actual blossom. Note the inconspicuous yellow "spike" among the bracts in each of these photos. That is a Paintbrush flower (or more properly, its corolla, i.e., a set of fused petals surrounding the reproductive structures of the plant).

So where might you find a painted meadow? These specimens were photographed yesterday at Paradise where, in a normal year, patches of snow might still be on the ground. Wildflower season has begun early this year, and our subalpine meadows are already filled with every colour of the rainbow. Get out there and take a hike!