Timberline.



Timberline Lodge.  You've seen The Shining, right?  Well I didn't head out to this historic Mount Hood lodge yesterday to hunt for ghost twins or rub noses with Jack Nicholson.  I just wanted to check out the trails that lead up the mountain from the lodge and maybe see a few birds along the way...


Wildflowers were a big highlight with hot pink paintbrush, lupine, aster, and many more I have yet to identify brightening up the landscape.

 Paintbrush

 Aster

 Penstemon?

Lupine

While hiking up a thick fog rolled in and the mountain completely disappeared for awhile. 


What mountain? 


Oh right.  Birds.  There were some of those too.  A young Horned Lark surprised us in the fog...


Later on after the fog passed and the sun came out I found a couple of adults as well.


The most abundant bird of the day was the juvenile Chipping Sparrow.  They were everywhere.  Never saw a single full-blown adult.


With the sunshine came much better views of... well... everything.

Early morning skiers

Ok back to birds.  The hike down passed through a major Mountain Bluebird party.


Also along the trail were lots of finches.  I saw no obvious males which made me very indecisive about the ID- Cassin's or Purple?


Never a lack of golden-mantled ground squirrels in these parts

As we made our way back down the trail I tried to keep an eye out for raptors.  No Golden Eagles or fancy hawks to be seen, but a Prairie Falcon tore through the small group of trees near the bottom of the trail.  eBird questioned it, so it must be a good sighting.  Har har.


The trees also attracted Clark's Nutcrackers.

See ya

 Lil chippy

 It was a good morning!  I would really like to explore this area more sometime, and maybe even figure out what trail I was on..




Good times!!


Comments

  1. I've never been up there at wildflower time. So beautiful! I think Prairie Falcons are pretty regular up there in the fall--maybe the August filter is set tighter on eBird. Great shot of it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's pretty gorgeous. It has a desolate aesthetic to it, but the remoteness is part of the charm, like some forgotten fjord from the attic of Norway.

    Purdy

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Figure out what trail you were on?" LMBO you are too funny! Does your phone have a GPS? I have the old fashioned flip top phone it does nothing smart--- so I need a compass with me I used to never get turned around in the woods...but its so easy to do here where trees are all over the place and if its a trail I've never hiked...I have to be careful now!!! Awesome on the Prairie Falcon-->>>take that Ebird! Photo proof positive! I cant believe skiers on that small ribbon of snow!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow. WHAT a stunning landscape--I LOVE some of those photos. Great job on getting those weird uphill views of trail then MOUNTAIN, lovely glaciers, flowers, wow. Makes me miss Mt. Rainier!

    1 of yer plants may be: http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=CIUM (a.k.a. Mt. Hood pussypaws). THANK you for sharing (it's HOT and DRY here, so it's a lovely fantasy). =)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment