Little Bridge

Day 139: Three weeks ago (February 10, actually), my readers accompanied me vicariously to Big Bridge, a landmark on the Lower Elk Spur trail. Snow prevented me from taking them on a walk to its counterpart Little Bridge (above) which likewise spans Sahara Creek, but on the Upper Elk Spur. A cross-trail connects the two spurs higher up and west of here, but today I chose to continue east on the ADA trail instead. It is also a loop, but what the land owners mean by "ADA" is most certainly not the same definition used by the Fed. Notable features along its purportedly "accessible" length include a tessellation of baseball-sized rocks in the surface, ankle-deep mud and one bridgeless stream crossing. Other hazards would be equally difficult for a wheelchair to navigate. In any event, I could not recall having ever hiked the eastern portion of the ADA trail, or if I had, it was so long ago that it faded from memory. I will say that the trails have better signage now than they did two or three years ago, although nothing to indicate how far it is from point A to point B. But then, that's what an Adventure is about, isn't it?

Fruitless Loop

Day 158: Like a frootloop, I decided to go for a hike today even though I went to Morris dance practice last night and didn't get home until midnight. Now that I have a (damn) Discover pass, I no longer have to walk two and a half miles up the road to get into the Nicholson Horse Trails system. I can just drive up and park! Theoretically, this means I should be able to hike farther on trail, but today I inadvertently took a different trail than I'd intended and wound up having to loop back on a connector which rather diminished my enthusiasm for the project. It was a fruitless loop, one with no interesting lichens, no lovely wildflowers other than a few Oxalis which weren't open, and (good-news/bad-news) no invasives to report. Still, it was good to be out, and the trails were drier than they usually are at this time of year. Lowland hikes are not my favourites, but somebody has to be on the lookout for invasive species.

Bird's-Nest Fungi, Nidula Niveotomentosa

Day 154: You could fit several Bird's-Nest fungi in the space it takes to spell out "Nidula niveotomentosa" on the page, and a dozen would just about cover a penny. These tiny mycological marvels are not uncommon in the Pacific Northwest, but they are easy to overlook. Each little cup contains twenty or more "eggs," spore-filled peridioles the size of a zero in a penny's date. In this species, rain assists in transporting the peridioles. If you look in the space of lighter wood to the left of Lincoln's head, you will see one which has been washed out of the cup. Another lies in a line with and to the right of the date, just below a patch of grey-green lichen.

I discovered these specimens along the Upper Elk Spur trail while I was out on my morning walk under light rain. I was unable to get a good picture of them with the little point-and-shoot I carry on my belt, so when I got home an hour or so later, I packed up the good camera and tripod and drove back up to the trailhead. As luck would have it, that was when the forecast of "heavy rain" proved itself by coming down in buckets, helping those teeny-tiny peridioles in their search for new real estate.