Posts Tagged ‘Lone Wolf’
Exploring near Patterson Mountain
After all my exploring, I didn’t have much time left for Patterson, so I only went as far as the Lone Wolf Shelter meadow, where there were dozens of reblooming alpine laurel (Kalmia microphylla) flowers.
With so few flowers left to see, in late summer and fall I shift my focus over to exploring new sites. Earlier this summer when I was contemplating a trip to Patterson Mountain, I looked at the area on Google Earth and noticed an intriguing south-facing opening right by the road and a small wetland a bit farther east. Neither of these are visible from the road, and I’d never realized they were there. I didn’t manage to get up there at the time, but a couple of weeks ago (August 27), I set out to check these two sites out.
The first spot turned out to be even easier to access than I could have imagined. I parked at a wide spot along Road 1714 just a tenth of a mile past the old quarry. In only about 2 minutes, I popped out through the rhodendron-filled woods on the south side of the road into a steep, rocky meadow. I immediately spotted the almost white, dried leaves of silver lupine (Lupinus albifrons) as well as those of hotrock penstemon (Penstemon deustus)—this was certainly a promising sign! Although it’s not a very large meadow, I managed to spend a couple of hours taxing my brain trying to identify all the golden and dessicated remains of the now-ended blooming season. Read the rest of this entry »