Spring at Heckletooth Mountain
Silver lupine (Lupinus albifrons) is outstanding on the steep, rocky, south-facing slope below the summit.
The paintbrushes on the summit are hard to pin down to species just like they are in many spots in southeastern Lane County. They may be a mix of Castilleja hispida and C. pruinosa. Whatever they are, they are gorgeous!
Spring is a busy season, and I’m already running behind. So I’m just going to post some pretty photos of a lovely trip to Heckletooth Mountain that Sabine and I took a week ago on May 28th. After going there at least once almost every year since 2006, I hadn’t been since 2013, so it was good to get back to this steep but lovely trail. There were still plenty of things just starting, including the grand show of showy tarweed (Madia elegans) and white-flowered threadleaf phacelia (Phacelia linearis). The weather was gorgeous. Everything was really quite perfect except for one major problem. The gravel road to get there is only 1.8 miles, but since my last trip, it had really gone downhill (pun intended—it’s pretty steep!). Some major downpours must have caused the many gullies in the road. Usually those kinds of gullies only last for short distances, but these must have gone on for a mile. And once I started up, I couldn’t turn around or back up over them. No fun! I hadn’t felt like dealing with gravel roads—one of the reasons I decided to go to Heckletooth—so it was quite an unfortunate surprise, and one that will keep me from returning to see the next wave of flowers.
A cedar hairstreak nectaring on spring gold (Lomatium utriculatum), which was abundant but getting quite tall late in its blooming season.
Woodland milkvetch (Astragalus umbraticus) is rare in the Cascades, and is usually found in burned areas, such as the summit of Heckletooth. We were very happy to see it was still there and coming into bloom, although we only found a few plants.
Northern buckwheat (Eriogonum compositum) is usually a rather dull white. The plants on the summit slope had unusual gorgeous deep pink buds, but they appeared to be opening to the normal white or perhaps a very pale pink.
Wild cucumber or manroot (Marah oregana) is quite abundant in the large west-facing meadow at Heckletooth. Here, one of its tendrils was twining around the tip of a cat’s ears (Calochortus tolmiei) bud. How strange!
Up close the balsamroot (Balsamorhiza deltoidea) was a little bedraggled, but it still looked quite showy in the very steep, west-facing meadow.