Thursday, March 21, 2013

Adventures in moss

When I thought about a title for this post (which I almost always come up with while I'm actually on the hike), "Adventures in moss" seemed appropriate since we had so much green to see, but most of it was from the moss on the trees or the incredible number of huge ferns and cedars, not new spring growth. Only four of us showed up today. The sun was shining but the forecast was for rain in the afternoon. It didn't happen; it was partly sunny all day!
Although this Stewart Mountain hike is one of our usual winter ones, it has rarely been without quite a bit of mud. Today was no exception, but for once it was without rain. Last year we went in May, and it was very wet, as you can see here. The year before was also very muddy. Al took us on a bit of a different path today than we took last year, and although it was somewhat longer, it was much nicer. The first part was steep and dry, and the return trip was muddy and wet.
When we crossed Olsen Creek, we were hiking on a logging road and went past last year's clearcut area. Then we turned onto a very nice trail, softly carpeted with last year's leaves. As we gained altitude and had to return back to the road, we ran into snow. At least half of today's hike was on forested trail rather than road, but still.
It was much colder up here, and the snow was hard and crunchy. We gained quite a lot of altitude during the almost ten miles of the hike, more than 2,500 feet to be exact. Hiking on snow takes longer and is much more difficult, but it didn't last long. We finally came to the summit and saw that it was sunny down lower, and we realized that we were in clouds that are caused simply by the mountains themselves. (These are called orographic clouds.)
You can see that it's quite sunny down below us. Although we had the sun peek through every now and then, we also had little pellets of graupel hit us when we sat down for lunch. At first we thought it would intensify, but it passed quickly. It was the only precipitation that came out of the sky all day, so we considered ourselves rather fortunate.
We heard many birds in the forest, and one very large woodpecker, from the sound of him. We never saw him at all, but several trees showed signs of use, such as this one, covered with moss, holes, and mushrooms. Although it no longer puts out leaves, it is still very much needed by the forest creatures.
The four of us returned to our cars in full sunshine and looked back to see the clouds were still there over Stewart Mountain. According to Al's GPS, we had covered 9.9 miles, but since that isn't actually TEN, I am calling it "almost ten" to make one of my fellow hikers happy, who never rounds up, only down. That was close enough to ten that I would have fudged it!
:-)

24 comments:

  1. Love the scenery, the mountains, WOW!

    Our moss here in Florida, USA, our moss is gray!

    Thank you for sharing.

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  2. almost 10 works for me...smiles...what cool moss...that first one on the limbs is amazing...and a bit surreal..

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  3. moss and ferns - two beautiful things we don't get to see much of in texas! sounds like a great day for the 4 of you!

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  4. I had to look up your new word..grapel. Yes I have seen it before..funny looking hail or sleet. Thanks for the new word! I Love the moss..beautiful! I am starved for green as my whole world is white:)

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  5. Moss, my favorite Pacific Northwest sight. Luv it. So glad you mentioned the word 'grappel.' I'd never seen that until moving to the PNW. No one here seemed to know what to call it. I knew it was the poorest excuse for hail I'd ever seen if that's what it was. I barely caught the word graupel during da weather forecast during Sandy. I wasn't exactly sure what I heard so I had no idea how to spell it. Thanks. We have graupel where I live in Oregon.

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  6. Ha! OK, let's not get technical here. Almost 10 is 10 in my book. I wonder if last year's mud might have dissuaded so many people from hiking today. Four hikers is rather few.

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  7. Stunning photos, especially love the one of the sunlight below!

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  8. You guys should have make a couple of laps around the parking lot to bring it up to an even 10. :)

    I always love seeing all those mass covered trees from over your way. We have moss here but not to that extent. No graupel here yesterday, just big old hail. We might even see a bit of snow tonight.

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  9. I hadn't noticed the moss so much in past years. Returning from Arizona last week I was amazed to see it growing on our driveway!

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  10. This would have been a very nice day for your hike. From the tree I would say that the wood pecker in the area would be a pileated. They are about crow size and often are very close to you ...like on the other side of the tree.

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  11. Oh. Wow. Again. I loved the lush green moss. Downhill looked to be very muddy and very wet. Thank you for enriching my vocabulary with graupel, something I don't expect to ever see. It sounds less than ideal, and I am glad it got no worse.

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  12. Graupel is a new word for me. I wonder if that's what I call tapioca snow?
    We had quite the hail storm here in the afternoon, but it was dry and mostly sunny until about 3:00. Tom got lots of work done outside. I did not. I got my miles on the stationary bike during the hail storm.
    I love your mossy pics.

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  13. OMG!! I must get up there with my cameras!

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  14. You did well with your walk through that kind of terraine and weather. I only managed 5 miles yesterday and that was enough.

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  15. I love that first photo DJan - a lovely green and brilliant. Our creeks here are just breaking open from the ice and flowing mostly in the middle. We just had another snow storm day before yesterday and got blasted with approx. 8 inches. "Almost ten" sounds like a good title to me and I think I would have just rounded it off - isn't anything above .6 to .9 just rounded off to the next number, so you actually walked "10". I think it would be neat to see a post on the gear you wear on these hikes, or what exactly you carry in all those backpacks - I would bet you would have some readers that would not know such info and it would be most interesting. Have a wonderful day.

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  16. I have never SEEN moss like that on trees! It looks soft and velvety. And . . . moist.

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  17. Adventures in moss...I like that!!

    I'm back, catching up on my bloggin' buddies today!!

    Wow...what a scene/view from the top of your mountain trek this time!! I like the idea of you telling us the scientific names of the cloud formations too.

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  18. I love to enlarge your photos, Jan, and am never disappointed when I do. The moss on the first photo is incredibly beautiful. I've never seen anything like it.
    I also love the photo of Olsen Creek; the movement of the water over the stones is beautiful.
    I would call it ten miles without hesitation. You go, girl!!!

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  19. Moss fascinates me. I loved this post dedicated to seeing all that you saw. We certainly don't see much moss in Colorado!

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  20. The moss is beautiful and the hike- perfect. Aren't you glad you went?

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  21. Love the moss covered trees with their telltale woodpecker holes. Too many people don't understand how important dead trees are to so many critters.

    Oh and I would have just walked around the parking area a few times until it was 10.1.. then I'd round down. ;)

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  22. Wow, the moss is so thick and rich looking. I love the color too!

    Hope all is well with you. xo jj

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  23. I say you went ten miles. Rounding up is the norm in my world of finance. That being said, when I track my running mileage I NEVER round up. I force myself to be unflinchingly honest, only giving myself credit for the exact mileage I run.

    Beautiful pictures. Thanks as always for sharing them.

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  24. Oh wow! That first photo of the mossy trees was especially awesome. You do take the most incredible hikes.

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