As usual with a flower hike, we are moving very slow. Surprisingly this time, the slowest are the 3 girls, and because they are fresh graduates in ecology major, and were taking copious notes scrutinizing the plants.
Candy Stick is not new to me, but I never paid any attention to it. It's actually quite pretty. Heather family. I thought they were the same as coralroot. Was I wrong!
It feeds on matsutake! I didn't see any mushroom though.
We entered the wilderness boundary. Still very foggy, and remains foggy for the entire day.
An hour later, Robin (from Alaska, now a nurse living in Duval, very knowledgable) joined us.
When we took the lunch break at Camp Windy, a boy tagged on to the 3 young ladies. He knows nothing.
Once we broke out of the forest, the flowering slope looks very nice. Too foggy for view.
Interesting ones are Mountain Death Camas (looks like very large death camas),
Nodding Onion.
The summit had no view today. We waited around for a long time, got cold.
At this broad summit area, saw 2 clusters of Olympic Bellflower.
The endemic species are Flett's Fleabane,
Verinica Dissecta (velvet leaves), already past flowering (May).
Saw a lot of Mountain Owl Clover (similar to paintbrush),
A few clumps of moss campion (an Arctic species).
On our way down, for a brief moment, we could see a bit of view.
Alas, the clouds rolled in again.
At the parking lot, Robin had to walk further to her car (parked in the lower TH). We were very lucky with the ferry, didn't wait for more than 15 minutes.
