I was interested to see the photo below show up on one of today’s “on this date in” links. In contrast to this year when the snow was off by mid-June, back in 2008 there was still a pretty good-sized patch of snow on the Pyramids in mid-August.

I looked through my pictures for others showing when the snow went off the Pyramids, and the only one I could find was from 2012, when the last tiny bit of snow was melting around the end of the first week of September.

If I’m remembering correctly, I think both 2008 and 2012 were years that had more (and more persistent) mountain snow than usual, but I think this year was probably unusually early.

Questions:

• Does anyone else have pictures showing summer snow patches on the Pyramids from other years?
• What is the range of dates for the last snow on the Pyramids?
• Are the years I’ve captured indicative of the extremes?
• How does the current melt-off date compare to the little ice age?

Last summer was pretty warm and sunny, so I guess that can help the trees load up on energy to produce flowers the following year. That seems to be the case this year for many of the apple and cherry trees around town this year. At least I don’t remember seeing quite so many flowers in years past.

One large cherry tree (pictured above) on DeGroff Street was absolutely covered in flowers last week, though today the petals were fluttering to the ground almost like snow as the gusty breeze pulled them from the flowers. Mixed with a little bit of liquid rain, this rain of petals was kind of amazing to observe. I couldn’t really hope to capture the effect in a picture, but the cool, moist air, fluttering white petals pushed about by the gusts as they fluttered down towards the street, all contributed to a rich blend for my senses. With any luck, the picture (and this writing) will help me recall the fuller experience.

As mentioned, the rain did return today. It fell fitfully at first, just a light mist that was hardly noticeable. By this afternoon, there was enough falling to wet the ground, though it never really got to be more than a drizzle, at least when I was out and about. Along with the rain, there was a little bit of wind. When I stopped at Swan Lake on my way home from class, I was struck by how it seemed more like a summer sort of rain and wind. It was cool, but not cold, a noticeable breeze, but not very strong or steady, and the rain also was fairly mellow. This isn’t to say we don’t see more aggressive rain and wind during the summer months, but it seems like that’s more of a fall, winter, and spring sort of thing.

Seasons in Sitka are certainly correlated with the calendar, but from year to year the actual time things start to feel like a particular season can vary by a month or more. The birds move through with more consistency in timing than the development of the plants, and both of those are more consistent than the sometimes fickle weather. I think what determines how it feels seasonally (to me) is a combination of all of these things. After all, there’s a limited time for breeding and growing season this far north, and even if it seems a little too cold to really feel like summer, with the abundant daylight it’s time to get going.

Unlike in some recent years, the May weather (so far) has been fairly warm, with a lot of sunshine. That warm sunshine helped the plants really get going, and even though these past couple of days have not been sunny, the temperatures have been in the mid to upper 50s. Those temperatures combined with the lack of migrant birds, and reasonably advanced development of the plants (especially the salmonberries and alders), gives me the feeling that it’s getting to be summer.

Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia) near Crescent Harbor.

Late season flowers on a European Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia).

While walking home one day last week, I noticed some light-green new looking growth on a Mt. Ash (Sorbus aucuparia) along the Lincoln Street green belt adjacent to Crescent Harbor. A little further along, I noticed a tree that had a few flowers. This struck me as a bit odd, since I’ve been noticing how much it already seems like fall is coming on. The temperatures haven’t really dropped yet, but the leaves are starting to, and most of the flowers are long gone.

This year I have been trying to pay more attention to blooming times, and something that has been interesting to me lately is how few things seem to be blooming even though it will be a fair while yet before we are likely to have a good freeze. The plants that are still blooming seem to fall into three categories. There are the species that don’t start blooming until late summer, there are plants with an extended blooming period, and finally the plants that seem to putting out a second, much less abundant, set of blooms well after the primary blooming period has ended.

There are only a few species that I associate with a late summer primary blooming period including Kneeling Angelica (Angelica genuflexa) and Douglas Aster (Symphiotrichum subspicatum), Rattlebox (Rhinanthus minor), and the introduced Hairy Cat’s Ears (Hypochaeris radicata).

Species with a blooming period that has a long tail include, Fireweed (Chamerion angustifolium), Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea), Yarrow (Achillea millefolium), Cleavers (Galium aparine), Pacific Water-Parsley (Conioselinum gmelinii), and the introduced (and invasive) Spreading Buttercup (Ranunculus repens), and Common Ragwort (Senecio vulgaris). This last deserves special mention, as last fall I noticed it blooming until at least the second week of November, and the first plant I saw blooming this spring was in March (though it was May before I started noticing in commonly).

Finally, the group of species that are blooming well after their primary blooming period include Dandelion (Taraxacum officianale), European Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia), and in other years I’ve also seen Giant Vetch (Vicia nigricans ssp. gigantea), and . This group seems to consist of two sub-groups, those plants that consistently do it and those where the blooming seems to be more accidental. The vetch and mountain ash definitely seem to be in the latter category, though I am not sure what might cause such an accidental flowering to occur. Dandelions (and probably the miner’s lettuce, though I’ve not noticed it specifically) do seem to have a late season push of flowers, though not nearly as abundant as in the early summer primary blooming period.

Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia) near Crescent Harbor.

Late season new growth on a European Mountain Ash (Sorbus aucuparia).

I had another activity that did not finish until 9am, so I hoped we could be started up the trail by 10am. As is usually the case, we did not quite meet the target time, but we were headed up by 10:15am. We opted to take the trail up from the end of the road, though in hindsight, it probably would have been better to take the more direct trail up from the Starrigavan ATV trails parking lot. It took us about an hour and a half to reach the first clearings. Last December when Jonathan and I had made this hike, the clearings were covered in a few feet of snow. We were unable to go what I remembered from two previous trips as the ‘normal’ route between the first clearings and Baby Bear Lake. My memories from previous trips lead me to think that the ‘normal’ route was more or less along the hillside with very little up hill involved. In December Jonathan and I slogged up and down through the trees trying to find the right place and avoid the clearings where the deepest snow was located. We found ourselves going uphill far more than I thought we should have which lead to the conclusion that we must have overshot on one or more of the occasions when we had gone downhill. One of my goals this trip was to get a better feel for the route between the clearings and Baby Bear Lake. My conclusion is that my memory stinks. Although Jonathan and I came in to the open area surrounding Baby Bear Lake higher than we needed to, it was fairly close to where I remember coming in the first time I made this hike in 1998 (oddly, I do not have a clear memory of the second time when Jonathan and I both hiked up to camp in 2000). However, we went up hill quite a bit and crossed a couple of steep gullies. My memory is of a relatively easy walk without any kind of steepness. I guess I have that notion straightened out (for the next month until my hiker’s memory kicks in, anyway).

We made it to Baby Bear about 3 hours after our start. It was sunny and warm, and the lake looked inviting. I waded in to rinse the sweat off and cool down a little before relaxing in the sun and eating some lunch. As Jonathan and I were eating lunch a couple of other hikers came down from higher up on the ridge and stopped some distance away along the lake shore. They proceeded to get into the lake an swim for a little a few minutes before heading out. On their way, they talked with us for a few moments and mentioned that they had first gone swimming in the lake further up on the ridge and then came down to this one. I was not so bold as to go swimming just yet, but I did wade back into the lake to get my clothes wet in order to help stay cool. We took some pictures of the many flowers blooming and then walked around the lake to take a look into Katlian before heading up the ridge.

By the time we got up to the upper lake, I had warmed up again significantly and it seemed like it would not be a bad idea to cool off in the water. As we waded around the edge of the lake, we spooked up a sandpiper of some sort. I never got close enough to have an idea of what kind it was. When we got to a place that seemed good for wading in deeper, we stopped for a break. Jonathan waded in first and got deep enough to duck his head under. Despite the presence of snow along the water’s edge, the water was on the pleasant side of cool, especially after hiking uphill under the midday sun. By the time I was ready to get in, Jonathan had returned to shore. A fine layer of silt pushed through my toes as I waded deeper. When I got chest deep, I started swimming. This seemed enjoyable enough that I decided to swim across the lake. I periodically checked the depth of the water and never found that it was any deeper than my neck.

After my swim we walked along the shore to look at the various wildflowers that were blooming all along the edges of the lake. There were some plants that are not aquatic which were submerged in a couple inches of water. I guessed that maybe the lake was higher than usual due to the amount of snowmelt that was occuring in the hot sun.

We went up from the lake to a small cascade below a snow bank to refill water bottles before going on. We skirted around the highest point on the ridge and made our way back without too much difficulty. I had forgotten what the terrain looked like in the 6 years since I had last been back this way, but it all looked quite familiar when I saw it. It took us a couple of hours to get back towards the saddle at the end of Starrigavan Valley. By that point it was after 6pm. It seemed to me that it would take at least another two hours to reach the saddle at the head of the West Fork of Indian River valley, from there I figured it would be at least another 3 hours to get home. Instead of going the way we had originally planned, we opted to cut down in to Starrigavan Valley and call someone for a ride when we got down.

The route we took down from the ridge to the valley was fairly steep. It would not have been a good idea to attempt this in the dark as there were a number of cliffs. We were able to get down by following a well worn deer trail down the steep slopes between a couple of gulleys that were even steeper. We saw a number of eagles in the trees as we walked around lake 1310. We followed a well worn trail down from the lake to the end of the ATV trail and proceded to walk out on it to Nelson Logging Road. I called Melissa to let her know what we were doing, but Jonathan’s phone battery ran out of power in the middle of the conversation.. With no phone to call for a ride, we were stuck walking back to town. We made it about to the large gravel quarry before Jonathan got us a ride into town with his thumb. From the middle school where we were dropped off, it was a relatively short walk back home.

I think it is reasonable to do the hike as we originally intended, however the next time I try it I will make sure I get an earlier start. It also would be good to be in better condition.

While listening, I began to feel a little bit sorry for the sapsucker parents. Being a parent with young children, I know how frustrating it can be when children will not stop crying. These young birds sounded like a wheel in desperate need of grease constantly spinning. There was never a pause in their loud squeaking. After a few minutes, I saw an adult bird return and disappear into a barely visible hole high up on the trunk. The same change in sound occurred as the young birds presumably got excited when food arrived. It only took a few seconds and the adult was off again.

While hiking back, I listened for the calls of the young sapsuckers and heard them at least four or five different times along the trail. It seems that there are quite a few nests in the area.

As all this was going on with the young bird, the adult winter wren continued its chipping and singing. It seemed to me to be trying to communicate with the young bird, although I am not sure what it was trying to say. Perhaps it was encouraging the bird to practice flying. Some minutes after the young bird had disappeared, the adult started to move about. It flew some distance away, although it continued the chipping and singing. Before too long, the adult bird was back fairly close to me and it carried some stuff in its mouth. It perched on the branches of a tree that had been cut down and began chipping insistently. Soon, it received a weaker reply coming from the bushes. It flew into the bushes where it remained for a couple of seconds and then flew back out. When it came back out it still have stuff in its beak, but not as much. This was repeated a couple of times before the adult had nothing left in its beak. The adult flew back to the large tree where I had first noticed it and started chipping and singing again. At this point, I guessed that maybe there was a nest down in the bushes where the adult had gone. Figuring that the young bird would need to eat again soon, I decided to do my best to quietly slip into the bushes and wait for the next feeding in a place where I could see what was going on.

I had seen roughly where the adult had gone to deliver the food, so I got down on my stomach and wormed my way to where I had a relatively good view of that location. I had been waiting there trying to be quiet and still for quite some time when the young bird started chipping. I looked and was able to see the bird through the branches. It did seem to be aware of me and a little uncomfortable about my presence, but not so much so that it flew away. Sometime after it started chipping, the adult flew back. I was hoping that it would come down to feed the young bird again, but this time it flew around calling to the little bird and after a brief conversation, the little bird flew off with the adult. Perhaps the adult was not happy with my presence and decided that it was time to move on.

In the day since my observations of the winter wrens, I have heard the chipping and singing. I am guessing that this is the sound of the adult teaching the young bird the ways of winter wrens. Soon it will probably be on its own.