Early hikes -- Barclay Lake, Goose Rock, Talapus Lake, Johnson Medra-Jungle Creek Trail, 2016

Yep, even though I have not posted anything about it, we have managed to hike all four of these areas in the past few weeks.  Classified as easy, all are about 4 miles round trip with vertical gains ranging from 300 feet to 700 feet.  We have been to these places before at different times of the year with the exception of the Jungle Creek Trail.  It was really interesting to see the seasonal changes in vegetation.  Bob recently sent out a short trail report email with some of the photos we both took so some of these may be repeats.

Talapus Lake

Talapus Lake--This year there was more snow in the mountains but also hotter than normal weather in April and May hence much of the snow has already melted.  For example, in most years the Talapus Lake trail would not open for hiking until the first part of June but aside from a couple of small snow patches around the 3200-3300 foot elevation mark the snow was all gone.  The day was cloudy but no rain; however, we still encountered muddy spots along the trail since it had been raining earlier in the week.  The trailhead sign warned of downed trees and we did see quite a few but they had been cut so no need to climb over any.  A while back just for fun we started keeping track of the number of hikers and dogs.  We saw 54 people and 14 dogs on the Talapus trail.  As mentioned before dogs can be a problem if they are not well trained and/or on a leash.

There were several wildflowers in bloom and unlike the really dry year there is lots of water running in the streams.

 Crossing the stream

Bunch berry

 Marsh Marigold

Skunk Cabbage

This little guy posed for a picture

Goose Rock--We went with the Happy Hikers group to Goose Rock at Deception Pass.  It was a large group (19 HH) this time.  We split up into smaller groups with the faster hikers in one, the slower ones in another.  Some folks took the longer, steeper route up while others took the easier, shorter, less steep route to the top and the longer way in down.  This area is known for a fine grouping of Stone Crop, Camus, Nodding and Hooker’s Onions, Larkspur, and Rhododendrons.
 

View from Goose Rock

 Stone Crop

 Hooker's Onion

 Native Rhododendron

 Larkspur

Camus

Barclay Lake is located near Gold Bar.  The day we went a big trail crew was working on trail improvements and repairs.  We stopped to visit with some of them on the way to the lake.  One man had a two man “misery whip” saw just like the one my dad had hanging in the garage at home.  The Wilderness Act prohibits the use of power tools and since this was in the wilderness area the workers were only using hand tools to remove downed logs to clear the trail.

 Barclay Lake

 One log bridge with railing

View from the trail looking up at the mountains

 Some of many cut logs from downed trees

 Salmon Berry

Yellow Stream Violets

The Jungle Creek Trail is an offshoot of the Johnson Medra trail.  We had originally planned to go to De Roux [Esmeralda Basin, in the Teanaway] where the Mountaineer’s nature class had gone and where we knew we would find plenty of wildflowers but the road was closed about two miles from the trail head so we turned around and took this other trail closer to the Beverly Campground.  This offshoot trail didn’t seem as if it was used much, we just met one woman on horseback with two dogs, otherwise we had the trail all to ourselves.

 A view of Mt. Stuart from the car

 One of two deer we saw

The sign to Jungle Creek trail tacked on a tree

 The creek

Trillium--thousands blooming along the trail, some in first white bloom and others like this one at the last of the bloom in bright purple.

 Service Berry

Groundsel?

 Orange Indian Paintbrush

 Both sides of the trail bracketed in Paintbrush

 Yellow Paintbrush (not often seen)

 Penstemon

 Lupine

Wild Strawberry

 We came upon several patches of Columbines

The roadside was covered in Arrowleaf Balsam-root