Boolie

No One Bothers You When Your Best Friend is an Alligator

We’ve had this stuffed alligator for years but Sam suddenly started sleeping on it this summer. Perhaps he was trying to escape the constant affections of Boo. Hopefully he remembers that when he was a kitten the situation was reversed and it was an orange kitten that was annoying a black-and-white cat. And that nevertheless Scout took him under her wing and they became fast friends until the day she died.

Sam in the Darkness

A sleepy Sam on the loveseat in my darkened office.

Kingdom of the Pika

I spent over four hours watching a couple of pikas on the Palisades Lake Trail in Mount Rainier National Park, keeping an eye on the clock as I had a set time when I needed to depart for Olympic National Park. This pika was below the trail, the other above it, and I watched and photographed them through my biggest telephoto lens.

This pika spent most of its time with its back to me, sitting on a rock and looking down the hill, so I grabbed my widest lens to better show the world of these amazing little creatures (the pika is sitting dead center on a rock near the bottom of the frame). Winters are long and harsh here and it’s hard for me to wrap my head around how, without hibernating, pikas can survive a winter that would kill me within hours.

This is the same pika as in my I spent over four hours watching a couple of pikas on the Palisades Lake Trail in Mount Rainier National Park, keeping an eye on the clock as I had a set time when I needed to depart for Olympic National Park. This pika was below the trail, the other above it, and I watched and photographed them through my biggest telephoto lens.

This is the same pika as in my earlier picture, which was taken further up the trail to the right.

Leaving Paradise

My little Subaru on the road between Paradise and Sunrise in Mount Rainier National Park. I’ve taken it on a trip before but this was its first big hiking trip with all of my camera gear. I used to take our old Outback on trips like this but bought the Crosstrek with the hopes of using it both as my daily driver and for hiking trips short and long. The storage in the hatch is much smaller than the Outback so I was worried all of my stuff wouldn’t fit but most of it did, I only had to put some drinks and snacks behind the front seats. With some different luggage in the future it should all stay hidden in the hatch.

On this day with rain and low clouds I practically had Mount Rainier to myself as I drove up to Sunrise and then on to Olympic National Park. I was thankful for the car’s visibility, both the view out of the car and the visibility of the white paint to other drivers, as it poured rain for much of the drive. As I drove off the bridge and onto the Olympic Peninsula in the rainy darkness, police were directing traffic around an accident that had occurred not much before, so I was thankful for the improved safety of this car compared to my old one even though I didn’t have to put it to the test.

Really love this little car.

Patience, Grasshopper

I spent my first full day on this visit to Mount Rainier hiking the Skyline Trail and its various offshoots. While I had seen grouse and marmots, based on previous visits I was a bit surprised to not see more wildlife than I did. What I saw most were grasshoppers which were constantly hopping about the trails, many crushed underfoot from the mass of hikers on the previous day.

At the end of a hard day’s hiking I went back up to see if any marmots were out in the biggest colony near the trail, as they had been quite active the previous evening, but was sorry to see that they had all called it a day. I hiked a little further and was delighted to find this Townsend’s chipmunk eating what I assumed were some seeds on a boulder near the trail.

I was a little confused when, after watching it eat for some time, it started coming straight toward me. But it just grabbed some flattened grasshoppers near my shoes and hopped back up onto its boulder and ate them. It was then that I realized that most of this little section of the trail had been cleared of grasshoppers, and when I reviewed my pictures I understood why.

After a while it came back towards me, but this time hopped right between my legs and continued on down the trail. It had its dinner, and as the light faded, it was time for mine.

The Siren’s Call

I’ve tried to hike the Palisades Lake Trail in Mount Rainier National Park three times over the past decade but never gotten very far. Once because of thunderstorms, twice because of pikas. I can’t resist them and spent my last hours of my latest visit watching this pika below the trail and another above it. Normally pikas let out a fairly quick call but thankfully this one let out an extended call as I had already packed up to head back up the trail and had to grab a quick handheld shot.

One day I’ll have to hike the trail with friends who can cover my eyes and stop up my ears and lead me safely past the siren’s call.

The Departed Nurse

Despite its short length, the Hall of Mosses Trail in the Hoh Rain Forest provides nice views of nurse logs, fallen trees that provide a beneficial perch for seedlings to take root. As the young trees grow into giants themselves, their roots reach down around the log and into the soil. In time the log rots away, the emptiness that remains a reminder of how life for one tree began with the death of another.

The Dry Rain Forest

I recently got back from a week of hiking in Washington and made my fourth visit to the Hoh Rain Forest. My fourth dry visit to the Hoh Rain Forest. While it rained heavily during much of my trip, it was warm and sunny during my visit to the Hoh, so I’ll make a return trip this winter to all but guarantee a rainy day.

I wonder if tourists would pay me on sunny days to walk behind them with a watering can held above their head, to better get the full rainforest experience.

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