Another Chuckanut adventure

Hemlock trail

 I find it harder and harder to make an interesting post, when my friend Melanie and I keep going up the same old haunts each week during the pandemic. Today we hiked the Lower Salal, starting off on the Hemlock trail, in search of signs of new growth, especially looking for the trillium flower, one of our early spring favorites. 

The Lower Salal trail

It was a glorious sunny morning as we set out on the Chuckanut Mountain trail, and the clearing skies overnight made for a very chilly start, but still the full sun and lack of any wind made us quite comfortable as we started the uphill part of the trail.

Ferns galore

Mel said that whenever we pass this section of the trail filled with ferns, she thinks of our friend Terry, who called this place "Ferndale." (We have a nearby town with that name, but you could hardly find any venue that might rival this one for sheer volume.) We searched high and low for any signs of trillium coming up along the trail, but so far no luck. I learned plenty about the trillium species we're most familiar with, Trillium grandiflorum, when I came home and researched it, hoping we just didn't know what the sprouts might look like. For one thing, they are one of our local deers' most tasty snack. I'm surprised that we have seen any, considering what I learned from that link. (The link takes you to Wikipedia's informative site.)

Skunk cabbage

We did see some early skunk cabbage, growing out of the swampy areas, but even these were few and far between. It's just early, I guess, and in a few more weeks we will be seeing many more signs of spring, which is now only a couple of weeks away. 

One of the many directions we could take

We have been to all of these places, more than once, but today I was not up for more than a 5.5-mile trip up and down the Lower Salal and Hemlock trails. Mel kept trying to entice me to make our hike a little longer, but this was all I felt comfortable doing, what with a sore ankle that I'm nursing. We did climb up more than a thousand feet, so I got a pretty good workout, even if Mel wanted to do more.

We had a great day and saw quite a few fellow hikers out with their dogs, and everyone was in a very good mood, as we were, too. It's hard to find much to complain about on a day like this one!

:-)