Sunrise, Orr Lake

After the fires, after the smoke and heat and sturm unt drang, the deaths and devastation, the shouting, 

the recriminations: Talent, Phoenix, Happy Camp, burned.  There was still Orr Lake.  Sunrise.

 

In search of the ever-shrinking Whitebark pine forest

 

A small forest of the endangered Whitebark pine can be found atop the old shield volcano known as Goosenest mountain.  Above left, Pinus albicaulis frames the view of Mt. Shasta to the south.  Above right, it shows off its resinous purple cone, a primary food source of the Clark's nutcracker.  The jays return the favor by caching their seeds for winter in shallow soil pockets, many of which then sprout into multi-trunk trees.  Climate change threatens the livelihood of the Whitebark pine in its subalpine home--beset by heat, pine beetles, blister rust and the loss of fire to the ecosystem, it is vanishing across the American West.

A cluster of the multi-trunked pines adorns the cinder cone rim of Goosenest.

Ripe raspberries, ripe!

Who knew there was more than one variety of wild raspberry in Siskiyou County?  I thought this identification would be a slam dunk.  Nope.  At least three different varieties listed on CalFlora, but no records exactly where we found a large patch of raspberry on a back-country road west of Callahan.  Rubus what-ever-iss was ripe and ready for picking, though!

Another Toad Lake tour

We like to revisit places we've been before, often earlier or later in the season, or--really--just another year, because every trip is unique, every winter has more or less water, every summer more and more heat.  Catch the site on a different week and there will likely be a whole new palette of bloom and leaf, a variation in the bird chorus, an unexpected bee swarm or a green rattlesnake to see.

Our 2015 visit to Toad and Porcupine lakes, at the head of the middle fork of the Sacramento River, followed a lovely wet winter and featured an explosion of riotous wildflowers.  This trip took place only two weeks later in the year--after one of the driest years on record.  There were still plenty of flowers, and my favorite were these Epilobium siskiyouense, on the ridge saddle between the two lakes, in lean, rocky soils:

On top of the world in the Salmon Mountains

Back to Carter Summit and south on the PCT again, to find the headwaters of the South Fork of the Scott River and the wet meadows that line the trail there.  The view from the top is of a long, glorious, green slide down to Scott Valley.

There were still plenty of water crossings in late June, despite a perilously dry winter.  And at every water crossing, a dense green tunnel of ferns, tiger lilies, corn lilies, cow parsnip and angelica, columbine and aconitum, nine-bark and mountain maple.  Through it all flits hundreds of butterflies of all kinds.  

In the dry sections, coyote mint and scarlet gilia:

Cliff penstemon (mountain pride) and paintbrush in their neon glory:

Teeny, tiny plants take over

We took the one-mile hike off the Pacific Crest Trail to Hidden Lake, south of Carter Summit, to find the tiniest of flowering plants carpeting the exposed, sunny talus on the way there.  Teeny dots of white, pink, blue, yellow, fuchsia--an entire garden of miniature marvels.  (Click on any photo to see larger.)

The delightful and undaunted monkeyflower:

A Calochortus lily, C. elegans, no bigger than your thumbnail, hiding in the huckleberry oak:

Ball-headed sandwort:

We don't know what this one is.  Do you?

The well-named pink pussy paws:

Rock and heat-loving sedum:

Little Maiden Mary Blue Eyes:

And one big one: Purple milkweed (which, technically, is a cluster of tiny flowers).

On the way to this eponymous hidden treasure, a cool respite from the heat of the trail:

The view to Mt. Shasta is paved with phlox

Yreka Phlox (P. hirsuta), that is.  Here's this year's bouquet to the mountain, from its home on China Hill on the NE side of Yreka: