Suiattle River 2017

Suiattle Trail

One of Bob’s friends had hiked this trail recently and commented on the number of Calypso orchids.  Since these are among our favorite flowers to find in the wilderness we decided to go check them out.  

Once again we found members of the WTA hard at work repairing and improving the trail.  There were a few downed trees to climb over or under and one place where the crew was rebuilding a bridge so we had to wade through water.  On the return trip we were the first people to cross the new bridge. 

 Two women splitting a downed cedar log to use in the stairs pictured below

Yes, we did find lots of the little orchids as well as trillium, fairy bells, bleeding heart, miner’s lettuce, Elderberry, yellow stream violets, wild ginger, and one morel mushroom plus one fake poisonous morel. 

 Fairy bells

Calypso orchid

 Yellow stream violet

 Trillium

 Bleeding heart

Elderberry with friends (butterfly and bug)

 Pink miner's lettuce

 Morel mushroom

 Fake Morel (poisonous)

Suiattle River

The river was high and running fast, we did not do a toe test but can guess that the water must have been extremely cold too.  Aside from the work crew the only other people we saw were a mother and her two boys and their dog who were planning on camping overnight.  There is a nice stopping place 3 miles in near the river where we had lunch and they arrived just as we were about finished.  The mother said it was the first time the boys had carried heavy packs and she thought they were pretty tired so since we were leaving they decided to camp there.  Our round trip was 6.4 miles with a 500 ft elevation gain.