Hiking

There are many 'rails to trails' projects in our area - as I've said before - and we finally managed to find one that we knew was there but couldn't locate the trailhead before - the Iron Goat Trail. It is in the Stevens Pass area of the Cascade Mountains and was the original site of the Great Northern Railroad's first attempt to get through the mountains.

The fascinating thing about this trail is the artifacts left from the railroad: remains of 'snowsheds' they constructed over the rails to protect the trains from avalanche, huge concrete barriers to hold back the erosion of streams, flat sheets of metal used for roofing, and even pots and pans from holdovers in the snow.

The railroad ran steam engines over this pass and the sparks from the engines and wheels caused forest fires - many forest fires! So between the extensive cutting for lumber to make all the 'snowsheds' and the forest fires, this is a relatively new forest area. There are beautiful deciduous trees and wildflowers galore. Because of the higher elevation, a lot of the trees are just getting started with their leaves, but the trillium is going nuts just now and other familiar Northwest plants are coming out as well - skunk cabbage, salmonberries, and beautiful wild violets. We even found a big patch of Bleeding Heart just starting to bloom!

Heaven.

But I really am going to have to start carrying my reading glasses along for picture taking. I thought I was getting wonderful close-ups of the trillium - even the pinky variety - and when I got home and looked at the pictures on the screen I saw that the flowers were damaged. I should have been looking for 'perfect' specimens. Oh well.

I just had to share:


This is a stream that was protected from erosion by a timber 'floor' - an artifact not discovered until the 1990s when volunteers were working on the trail conversion:

Skunk Cabbage, for you 'outlanders' who might not recognize it:

I hope it doesn't look too wintery for Carl and Kathy's visit!