This is one of the spring flowers I enjoy out in the woods. A fairly common plant, I had been calling it “Twin Flower”. So I was a little surprised when I found that I was wrong after all this time. (and glad to correct myself before posting it out there on the internet) And I like that especially since I have a part of my family tree that were Hookers….
These were found up on Dodger Point in the Olympic National Park. You only need to hike 18 miles or so (29 km) most of which is uphill (that’s one way). And you don’t have a way to check ahead of time to see what flowers are blooming. They’re one of my favorites and this was a pretty nice sized patch.
This was a photo I took in summer, but as I was going through some images the lines and the light on the fireweed against the dark background grabbed my attention. This is the Dosewallips River in the Olympic National Park. I was hiking the 6 miles into the old car campground that is isolated by a couple of washouts.
I played hooky from work one day in July 2003 and climbed up South Ingals peak. It has been one of my favorite areas in the Central Cascades … up the North Fork of the Teanaway River. That is Mt Rainier in the distance. I really liked the silver wood snag. This spot hasn’t seen any forest fires (yet), but the access road was the east perimeter of a large fire this summer. Below are some anemones growing in the rocks near where I took the upper photo.
The mountain across the valley (which is the Duckabush) is Mt Steel. The small stream runs down into LaCrosse Basin … this is all in Olympic National Park. It’s a very remote area … 20 miles or so away from any trailhead … which helps cut down on the number of boots smashing the flowers down. We were very careful to step on rocky areas as we made our way across the meadow.