Dewey

The best guess so far is that this charming caterpillar is Spilosoma virginica (Virginian Tiger Moth), and I figured we wouldn't get more than a "best guess" based on a photograph which fails to show any specific field characteristics. The moth is fairly common in the Pacific Northwest. He was minding his own business, so I minded mine, running through my daily tai chi "silk reeling" exercise on Big Bridge. With those guard hairs, I certainly wasn't going to interfere with him. That said, I had already found a better name for him than his dry scientific moniker. I mean, isn't it obvious to you that he should be called Dewey?

Forest Gold

With commercial pickers behind every tree, it's becoming harder and harder for a simple lover of wild mushrooms to harvest enough for "a bowl of soup and a fry-up" (as I like to term the amount I try to gather every fall). I set out before noon, and before I'd gone half a mile up a trail which has served me well the last several years, I was saying, "It's still too green. I'm too early by a week or two." At the same time, I was having an internal argument, with one voice saying, "Turn around, go home," and another saying, "When have I ever been one to turn around on a hike?" For me, that's almost unthinkable, but there I was, thinking it. "I'm getting old," I reproached myself, forcing my feet forward. Just then, I spotted a button-sized chanterelle, one of only half a dozen mushrooms of any type I'd seen so far. I scanned the surrounding area and...what?! There, on a mound of moss, were half a dozen decent-sized chanterelles which someone had cut and left behind! From their condition, I guessed they'd been cut yesterday, and having been out in the cold night air, they were still fresh and succulent. I dug my perhaps-bag out of my pack and loaded them in. Then I spotted a couple more a little deeper into the grove. All thoughts of turning around disappeared. I had enough already for either a bowl of soup or a fry-up, but not both. I collected a few more before reaching my turn-around point (where, incidentally, I did my daily tai chi routine on the bridge in the company of a woolly caterpillar of some sort). I arranged my collection on a mossy log for the photo, and then on the way back, added another 6-7 which I could then spot by being in a different angle of the light. As it turned out, I had a very large bowl of soup and a whopping fry-up from this, my first (and possibly only) mushroom hunt of the year. Stripping the forest of its gold is not my way.

Hunting Haareis

Day 104: They say timing is everything, and with a few years of experience behind me, I've gotten fairly good at predicting when the haareis ("hair ice") will emerge at Big Bridge. Conditions have to be perfect for its formation, a Goldilocks combination of temperature and humidity, and of course the presence of the fungus Exidiopsis effusa which is the most important component. The exact mechanism is unknown, but the general idea is that Exidiopsis forces moisture out of decaying wood following the medullary rays of the wood's structure, thereby creating threads of ice which may attain lengths up to eight inches. The longest I've personally seen would have been about two inches. The ones in this photo measure a little over an inch in length.

Now here's the story. I know where Exidiopsis lives in the general vicinity of Big Bridge, off trail and through an obstacle course of blackberry vines, salmonberry thickets, reed-canary grass and fallen logs. As I mentioned yesterday, I sent up a plea to the Frost Spirits, asking them to provide a good example so I'd have something to post on my blog. To that end, I parked the car and set off at a dead lope along the mile to Big Bridge. I was nearly there when I spotted one small tuft at trailside and, afraid it might disappear if a ray of sun hit it, I took pictures before continuing on to the main site. The core of Exidiopsis country yielded up a few more small specimens, and by the time I left the area, I was satisfied that I had material for a post. I took my time getting back to the car, and since at that point I wasn't so goal-oriented, I was more observant. Roughly a tenth of a mile from parking, I spotted a larger, more intricate cluster of haareis and the beautiful example shown above. Even closer to the car, I found more right along the side of the trail. I had been so intent on my mission that I'd gone right past the best of them all in my haste to reach Big Bridge. 

Mission to Big Bridge

Day 103: Sometimes when it feels like botany and natural history have closed their doors and rolled up the sidewalks, a trail will surprise me. I had a suspicion...no, I had a fleeting hope that Big Bridge could give me material for one post if I was willing to brave sub-freezing temps to make the 2-mile round trip hike. I shot a prayer to the Frost Spirits with a specific request, and off I went. A few steps before reaching the bridge, they rewarded me with...well, for that, you'll have to wait until tomorrow. But not only did I find what I was hoping to discover, I gleaned at least two more "blogworthy" photos which will cover the next couple of days. It's hard to find interesting material in the dead of winter, but this morning, the Big Bridge trail paid off.

Memories and Mushrooms

Day 333: I seldom think to take pictures of human subjects, and now I'm kicking myself because Merry got to meet a new uncle yesterday, a friend I have not seen for years. Arnie was up from southern Oregon visiting family, and took a day out to make a long detour to spend time with me. The possibility of rain had led us both to think that we wouldn't be able to get in the hike we'd hoped to take, but by noon, the weather looked good enough to chance it. En route to Big Bridge, we picked a handful of early chanterelles, reminding me of one of the last times I'd gone hiking with Arnie in the Park before he retired. We got to Big Bridge, decided to go on a little further, and as these things go when you have two people who don't like to file flight plans, we thought we'd make a loop out of the trip and headed up another trail, hoping to make a connection. As it turned out, the connector was so overgrown that we missed it and kept going, climbing instead of descending, and about three miles in, we both decided that going back was preferable to going on when we had no idea where we might end up. We laughed over our old Park escapades in pursuit of rare and elusive plants: Arnie losing the route, me getting stuck in a bog, and others. It seemed like every time we went out in the field together, there was some Event-with-a-capital-E. Good memories, those! In the end, we covered about six miles, each of us pointing out plants and challenging the other one to remember the names (neither of us is as young as we used to be). We got back to the house, solved several of the world's and the Park's problems vicariously, and Merry got to spend more time with his new uncle. It wasn't until after Arnie left that I realized we hadn't eaten all day! I had a quick bowl of yogurt before going to bed, worn out in a good way and happier than I've been in months.

At Big Bridge

Day 102: In the hopes of finding more elaborate examples of haareis (hair ice), I took a walk out to Big Bridge yesterday, but with the clarity of hindsight, I know now that I should have waited another hour or two for the frost to melt. I found only a few small formations, widely dispersed, and no more than an inch long. That said, it was a lovely but chilly hike of a little over a mile to the bridge on hard-frozen ground. I have to admit it was a relief not to be travelling it when it's muddy. As part of the Nicholson Horse Camp trail system, the path gets pretty well chewed up by horse hooves, and there are almost always abundant equestrian "land mines" to dodge. Still, Big Bridge is my number-one site for haareis, and at this time of year, most of the horsey crowd is staying at home. The photo on the left was taken facing west from the bridge and shows the area where haareis appears. The photo on the right is the view to the east.

Hair Ice

Day 102: Hair ice (aka haareis or frost-beard) occurs only under certain conditions, all of which I felt sure were present this morning, and I was not disappointed. This unusual and beautiful ice formation is most likely to be found in northern broadleaf forests. Although temperature and humidity play major roles in its development, the most crucial element is a fungus called Exidiopsis effusa which provides the "scaffold" on which the ice crystals form. The fungus' role is not completely understood, but it has been suggested that it may provide a natural antifreeze which stabilizes the formation of ice crystals. The ice "hairs" form at the openings of medullary rays (a cellular structure formed in active cambium, perpendicular to the growth rings of the plant) and may attain lengths up to eight inches.

Hair Ice

Day 141: Over the course of these posts, I have shown my readers rare plants and fungi, but how about a rare ice? Hair ice occurs only in a narrow window of coinciding events which include temperature, humidity, latitude, type of wood (deciduous) and degree of its decay, and...are you ready for the punch line?...a fungus called Exidiopsis effusa. That's right. Without the fungus, hair ice does not form. The precise mechanism of the fungus' role is not understood, but it has been suggested that it may provide a natural antifreeze which stabilizes the formation of ice crystals. It has been noted that the ice "hairs" form at the openings of medullary rays (a cellular structure formed in active cambium, perpendicular to the growth rings of the plant). The "hairs" are also similar in diameter to the medullary rays (roughly 0.02 mm).

I encountered hair ice for the first time this year about a month ago, and found myself in something of a pickle when my camera battery went dead. Oh, I was ready for that. I had the spare in my kit. However, I was soon to discover that I had apparently forgotten to put it on the charger as I usually do. Hair ice all around me, I had not one but two dead batteries! Since that day, I have been waiting for the right conditions to occur again, and with my second cup of coffee still settling under my belt, I geared up and headed out for Big Bridge, fairly sure I was going on a wild goose chase. Indeed, when I got to the site where I had seen the hair ice previously, my prospects looked pretty bleak. Still, I made a foray into the brush to hunt for it and found one small cluster just as I was about to give up the search. That inspired me to push deeper through the tangled salmonberry vines where I was rewarded with this classic curled specimen. As I knelt to photograph it, the first rays of sun touched the leaves beside it. Had I been half an hour later, it would have been gone.

Big Bridge On A Frosty Morning

Day 120: Let's step away from the loom for a bit to take a walk up to Big Bridge. It spans Sahara Creek where the Lower Elk Spur Trail crosses it and then begins to climb into Elbe Hills to connect with Upper Elk Spur and a maze of logging roads. It might not be the most pleasant hike in the world because this trail system was designed for people who enjoy the backcountry from horseback, but if I can break away from watching where I step to look at the surroundings, it'll do in a pinch for a brief moment of "forest bathing." It's fairly close to home, so close that I decided to walk to the trailhead (a distance of three miles one way), conserving gas for more important outings and giving myself a little more exercise in the process. Perhaps I bit off slightly more than I could conveniently chew after months of inactivity. Perhaps I should have turned around short of my goal, but such is not my nature. I pushed on to Big Bridge even when I knew the bottoms of my feet were beginning to blister. Upon returning to pavement an hour later, I began to regret my decision despite the magnificent ice-encrusted mushrooms I'd discovered along the path. As I hobbled back home on three miles of unforgiving asphalt, I told myself I should have known better. This is what happens when you stretch "halfway" to "three-fifths."