Mountain Plants of the Western Cascades

Posts Tagged ‘Indian Dream Meadow’

The meadow by the Lone Wolf Shelter was quite pretty with lots of scarlet paintbrush (Castilleja miniata) and celery-leaved lovage (Ligusticum apiifolium), but the smoke was unpleasant, so I didn’t stay long. Weeks later, this little smoke would have seemed like a good day!

A tangle of mountain dodder in the rocky meadow at Patterson Mountain

On Sunday, July 23, I left the house planning to head back up to “Mistmaiden Meadow” for my fifth every-other-week-or-so survey. As I headed toward Lowell, something looked terribly wrong. I could see an ominous bank of gray smoke to the east. I stopped to call my husband to see if he could find out where it was coming from—I don’t have a data plan on my phone, so I couldn’t check that way. It turns out the Bedrock Fire had started the afternoon before by the Bedrock Campground along Big Fall Creek Road 18. Obviously, I didn’t want to go anywhere near the fire, so Mistmaiden Meadow was out of the question. I had no idea in which direction and how far the smoke was going to move, but I also didn’t want to bail on going on an outing. I made a quick decision to go to Patterson Mountain. It was one of the closest trails to Lowell, slightly west of the fire, and south of Highway 58—the fire being over 10 miles north of the highway. I figured the smoke would mostly blow to the east, and if I was wrong and had to come home early, at least I wouldn’t have driven too far. Read the rest of this entry »

Springtime means skunk cabbage and mountain buttercups blooming in the lovely wetland at the bottom of the large meadow on the south side of Patterson Mountain.

Still anxious to see early mountain flowers, yesterday, May 23, I headed up to Patterson Mountain. In spite of it being my 29th trip up there, I took a wrong turn on the way up. Last year they started heavy thinning of the surrounding forest, and the main Patterson Mountain Road 5840 is hardly recognizable with the reopening of many old side roads. At one point, both sides of a “Y” in the road look equally well used and the road sign for the side road is in the middle. Hopefully, I’ll remember from now on that the right turn to take is the right turn! Read the rest of this entry »

I watched this courting pair of western tiger swallowtails on mock-orange for quite some time, wishing I hadn’t damaged my new camera with its much better video to fully capture their lovely pas de deux.

Back in May (see From the Minute to the Majestic), John Koenig and I went to explore a rocky meadow I’d discovered last fall off of Road 1714, a little southwest of Patterson Mountain. We decided to call it “Indian Dream Meadow” because of the abundance of Indian dream fern (Aspidotis densa). On Saturday, July 23, I went back to this neat spot to see what else was in bloom. Read the rest of this entry »