Partly cloudy, temperatures into the mid 50s. Moderate breeze.
As best I could tell, it wasn’t frosty overnight. Perhaps enough clouds remained to keep temperatures from cooling too much.
I decided to go up Verstovia while on calls this morning. Since I planned on going all the way to Picnic Rock and I expected to need to do a fair amount of talking, I took a slower pace than I’ve done on recent efforts.
I had stopped to do some talking when I noticed a couple coming up the trail behind me. I let them go on ahead, assuming (correctly) they were likely to be moving faster than me. They were sitting at the second viewpoint when I arrived, so I just continued on. I noticed them below me on switchbacks, so I took a little detour to visit the old cabin site after reaching the ridgeline.
The cabin site area appears to be regularly visited by at least one deer. I noticed several piles of droppings. The Vaccinium looked a bit browsed to me as well.
Snow was lower down on the ridge than earlier in March when I was last up this far. Traction was reasonable, so I didn’t put on the microspikes.
The last section out from the trees was also quite firm, with steps already present from prior hikers making microspikes unnecessary here as well.
The couple was relaxing on Picnic Rock when I arrived, but they soon headed down.
Had there been less snow around, I would have spent time looking at/for lichens, mosses, and liverworts. As it was, only a little patch of rock was open. There was also enough breeze to cool me off. With other things to work on, I chose not to stay long.
From the elevated position, I could see some herring spawn in Crescent Bay, but I think not nearly so much as yesterday. I didn’t see any obvious milky waters to the north and west.
I chose my steps carefully going down on the ridge, and managed to avoid any significant slips.
Not far above the second viewpoint, I realized the forest was mostly composed of cedars. There were a few spruce and hemlock, but among the visible trees, I’m guessing 3/4 or more were cedars. I don’t remember noticing this before, perhaps in part because the understory and such otherwise looks pretty typical.
At the second viewpoint I spotted a fern-leaf goldthread blooming. It’s the first herbaceous plant I’ve seen flowering (though violets will be going soon).
I’m continuing to check blueberry flowers. Today I found a very red-stemmed plant with quite pale flowers. Kitty has also been checking blueberries, and suggested it would be good to have some calibrated way of comparing color (especially of the stem). I’ll try to start using the gray rulers I have. Then I can set a white balance in a consistent way and look at the RGB color of the stems.
I spent a little more time on willows today. I checked the ones along the channel. They’re opening up, but the emerging catkins are not fuzzy. It looks like leaves may be emerging with them. I also looked at willows along Park Street. They are pretty clearly different than the channel willows (which I’m reasonably sure are Sitka willow) and the sea walk willow.
While checking the Park Street willow, I saw it had lots of Cacopsylla, so I collected some of them in hopes of getting photos sufficient for an identification.
Notes on hike: right about 2 hours to Picnic Rock. Probably would have been 1:45 without the stops to talk and let the other hikers go by. I carried more camera gear today, and my pack was heavier than previous trips. Legs didn’t feel tired until I was on my way down, so overall, it feels like conditioning efforts are having a positive effect.
My iNaturalist Observations for Today
