doot doot doot

From sorakirei: grooved-pavement melodies are here!
Well, for "Hokkaido" values of "here".

Lake Twentytwo hike

Last Saturday hattifattener and I hiked up to Lake Twentytwo, which is out on Mountain Loop twelve miles past Granite Falls. The day was cloudy, and the forecast was for likely drizzle, but it wasn't raining.

The trail soon gets into magnificent old-growth forest, huge redcedar and hemlock, vine maple leafing out underneath. I read that this spot's microclimate gets some extra rain, enough to suppress fires for a thousand years, so the Doug-firs have aged and died. The trail crosses Twentytwo Creek, and winds back and forth uphill within earshot of the creek. The sword ferns are unreeling their fiddleheads, wiry red-stemmed spiral wheels. Devil's club is pushing out tiny leaves from bristling old gray stems. ("In early spring the leaf shoots are edible" -- "One or two is sufficient to add a unique tang to common meals.")

( words and pictures ongoing )

( and can you identify these plants? )