ERRATIC ADVENTURE
Sunday, June 5, 2016

So I got crazy inspired one day and I decided to go find all the erratics I could and I did so here they are:

My first stop was an erratic in a random North Seattle secret pseudo-park in Northgate, at the intersection of 17th ave and 104th st. It was on the bank of Thornton creek, the same creek that the water at the bottom of my ravine empties into. After heavy searching I finally found it, about 5 feet tall and covered in moss. It was p big but I'd seen bigger... Nothing special.

The second stop was a baby erratic (although I'm sure quite a bit of it is buried underground.) It was maybe three feet tall and had an awkward triangular shape. I knew this one well, it was in Wedgwood, right by a childhood friend's house, situated in the middle of the intersection of 31st ave. and 82nd street. Fun fact: the triangular block that houses this erratic is in fact the smallest park in the city: Triangle Park. I assume that the only reason it's here is because developers back in the 40s and 50s couldn't figure out how to remove the giant glacial rock so they just built around it.

The third stop was the classic: Wedgwood rock. Actually it's not in Wedgwood, it's more like Bryant/Ravenna area, right next to Eckstein Middle School on 28th ave and 72nd st, but nonetheless it is the pride and joy of the neighborhood I grew up in. It's truly magnificent, standing 18 ft tall it is definitely the biggest I've ever seen. In middle school, we used to climb the trees that surround it and hop over to get a view of the whole neighborhood. According to one website, 14,000 years ago the Vashon ice sheet pushed this huge rock all the way from Mt. Erie, on Fidalgo Island by Anacortes (https://wedgwoodinseattlehistory.com/2012/01/31/wedgwood-rock/.) Truly an amazing place.

The fourth stop was another giant, probably the second biggest I found. In the center of the Ravenna ravine, a huge erratic sits right along side the stream at the ravine's base. It has the perfect shape to be easily climable, and I actually had to wait for some children who were playing on it to leave before I took my picture (didn't want to come across as a creep...) According to the Northwest geology press, the erratic is made of granodiorite, a type of stone common in the mountains of British Columbia (https://nwgeology.wordpress.com/the-fieldtrips/glacial-erratic-field-trips/seattle-area-glacial-erratics/ravenna-park-granodiorite-erratic-seattle/). It must have made an incredible journey to get here.

The fifth and final stop at first seemed anticlimactic, but turned out to be the most interesting of them all. It was in Leschi park, near the central district of Seattle and not too far from I-90. I'd never been to this park, so it took me a ridiculously long time to find the erratic among the twists and turns of the various trails. It's a classic random Seattle park– underutilized, beautifully preserved vast stretches of woods like this are every where. When I finally found it in the side of this hill, It was barely bigger than the one in triangle park and I was dissappointed. But when I looked closer I realized that it was covered in fossils– remnants of mollusk animals from an ancient ocean floor. According to the Geology press the source of the erratic and the reason for all of the fossils is disputed (https://nwgeology.wordpress.com/the-fieldtrips/glacial-erratic-field-trips/seattle-area-glacial-erratics/the-fossil-rich-erratic-at-leschi-park/.) It's an unsolved problem that makes the weird, beautiful network of Seattle parks that much more interesting.

Triangle park erratic

Northgate erratic

"Wegwood" erratic

Ravenna Park erratic

Leschi Park erratic

Close up of fossilized shells in the erratic

WEEK 10

Saturday, June 4th, 2016

5:50 pm– 6:35 pm

All Sunny, 78˚

Repeat photo, taken in the same place every visit

My final visit to my site was probably the most interesting yet. I'd never seen the woods so alive with animal activity, maybe it was the heat... I also really got a sense for how dramatically things have changed in just 10 weeks. It's a completely different place today than it was back in April. For one, navigation is far more difficult now than it ever was before, the undergrowth is so thick that I can barely access parts of the woods that I was used to frequenting no problem. But beyond that– the place just feels different. It smells different, the earthy tones of early spring, and the heavy scent of flowers at the beginning of may, have been replaced with an incredibly complex palate– a combination of all the scents before it along with a heavy, almost overwhelming feeling of life. It's hard to describe...

Anyways, the first thing I noticed, just as I first entered my site, was a raccoon. I'd seen raccoons around this neighborhood and I knew they inhabited these woods, but I'd never had such a personal encounter with one. I was within a few feet, near enough to see every detail in it's scraggly pelt. At first I just silently watch it forage for fallen berries– the motion of it was crazy, a combination of a cat's methodical, quadrupedal steps, with a squirrels use of the front paws to pick up food and bring it to it's mouth. It seemed almost as comfortable on it's hind legs as on all fours. When I got too close for comfort, it climbed up a tree like an expert, clearly a defense mechanism. I then watched, amused, as it realized I wasn't a threat and it clumsily made it's way back to the ground and stumbled off into the underbrush, embarrassed. While I was watching the raccoon in it's tree I looked to my right and saw another amazing find– a huge pileated woodpecker, almost posing for a picture barely 10 feet from me!

American robin

Pileated Woodpecker

I'd never seen so much bird activity at my spot. Usually I've had a hard time spotting birds, but today I couldn't help but see them everywhere! I saw several American Robins, and was able to identify their distinctive rising and falling song (I've been hearing that song all my life and only now have I been able to connect it to the robin.) I also saw a few Oregon Juncos with their black hoods, and a Spotted Towhee on a branch on my way out. And I'm not sure if this counts, but on my way back to my parents house I heard a beautiful song and followed it until I saw a dark grey bird with a long beak– I think it was a Bewick's Wren. I also happened upon a very exciting find– what I believe is a feather of a Barred Owl! It's color pattern is distinct, white with amorphous light brown blotches. But it also has a feature distinctive of owl feathers– the fuzz around the edges that allows the bird to fly silently at night.

Shriveled indian plum

Shriveled Salmon Berry

The most striking thing for me on this visit was the degree to which things were dying. The fruit indian plum, which I had been tracking the progress of, was no longer plump and yellow, but covered in a dark blue mold and shriveled into basically nothing. The trees and forest floor were littered with dead, shriveled leaves, which was a surprise for me this time of year. Most unexpected of all was the state of the salmon berries. Many of the bushes that had been covered in delicious looking orange fruits were now empty, the only remaining remnants were utterly shriveled and discolored. I have to wonder– this can't be a normal progression. It isn't even summer yet and already these fruiting plants have gone through the entire process of pollination and fruit formation, and now their fruits are already gone. This has already been perhaps the hottest year on record. February had weather similar to a normal April, May had weather similar to a normal August at times, and I'm wondering if global climate change has pushed Seattle's normal seasonal cycle back a few months.

Barred owl feather!!!

FINAL REFLECTION:

1) There are a couple major ways that my perception of the site changed throughout the quarter. First of all, as the diversity of life and the quantity of activity increased (also, as the weather got nicer) I started to enjoy the weekly visits more and more. Each time I showed up I would see things I'd never seen before, and on the last day I couldn't believe how much was going on. It gave me a deeper appreciation for the place– at first it was simply a patch of woods to me, but the more time I spent there, noticing the complexity, the more the meaning of that "patch of woods" become clear. Another big shift in thinking was the slow realization that this place is heavily influenced by human activity. At first, because the area was restricted, I assumed that it was "truly wild" (in my own words.) But the more I noticed the more I realized how wrong I was– in fact the community has had a huge influence on this space from mulching to invasive species removal. The lines between "wild" and "manmade" became more and more blurred for me.

2) I've lived in Seattle my whole life and have always appreciated the natural world around me, but the information I learned in this class allowed me to experience this place in entirely different ways. The geological history of the sound has given me explanations for features of my own city I used to overlook– the huge hill my family lives on top of, for example, is in fact an enormous drumlin carved by moving ice. The knowledge of the variety of microclimates, too, has made me appreciate how truly diverse the pacific NorthWest is, no longer do I think of this as one distinct, easily definable region. Most importantly, learning the names of plants and animals has helped me see them for the first time, and transformed the natural world I grew up in into a place I not only am familiar with, but a place I truly recognize.

3) For me, intimately knowing a natural place is defined by my ability to sit their quietly, and feel like it is somewhere I belong. The more I visited my site, the more I got to know it, the more welcome I felt there. As I said before, learning the words I needed to define what I was seeing helped– it was like learning the names of my neighbors as a first step to getting to know who they are. But ultimately the intimate knowledge came from the emotional experience of beginning to identify with the place, and feel situated within it. There's only so much I could learn from nature by memorizing titles and historical events– the real knowledge I attained was done on my own outside.

4) The most important skills I've gained are my ability to name, and my newfound appreciation for the power of names. At first I was very skeptical of the fact that this course's material had a lot to do with memorizing the various plant and bird names and traits. But I now see that being able to see a certain plant, and identify exactly what plant it is, makes you see a plant in a whole different way. Before I would walk through a forest. Now I walking past Douglas firs, indian plums, western white pines, and I hear American Robins singing in the distance. I'm finding myself unconsciously trying to identify every plant I see now, and I take great pleasure in being able to know exactly what it is that's around me. The name itself doesn't matter, actually. The names could be anything. But having a name makes a plant or animal exist for me in a way it couldn't on it's own.

5) Honestly, it's been a rough quarter. Things sort of fell apart for me mid-quarter, and I ended up skipping a lot of this class. I'm not happy about it, I realize how disrespectful to everyone else's time it is, I realize that it sends the message that I actively don't care. But I do believe that by doing the work, going to the field trips, and seeing what I have seen nonetheless have had a big impact on my perception of natural history and my place in the natural world. Aside from the concept of "naming" I've covered quite a bit, there were moments in this course that have rekindled a kind of pleasure in discovery of the natural environment I haven't felt since childhood. A particularly childish moment was the time we spent digging through the tidepools at Salt Creek, discovering tiny worlds filled with foreign organisms I'd never seen, or had only seen in aquariums. It was a visceral experience of every sense, touching the anemone, tasting the salt in the air, smelling the decaying seaweed. It reminded me why nature is important, and why I love it and have always loved it.

WEEK 8

Field Trip to the Yakima Valley 5/21/16

View of the Yakima Canyon

I couldn't sleep the night before and we had to meet at 7:30 AM, so I was so tired that I only remember the first location as a confused blur. The canyon was beautiful, it's always weird to cross the cascades and see a landscape so wildly different than the one I grew up in, yet so geographically close. It was a rare cloudy day, and it was a little chilly, but it was still pleasant enough. When I finally woke up it was actually a pretty amazing day, and we ended up seeing a lot of things I'd never seen before.

Lazuli Bunting

Salsify

The landscape was dominated by an aromatic shrub called big sagebrush. It appears a light blue/white because it's leaves are covered in little hairs that prevent the plant from losing water during the frequent windstorms that hit the shrubsteppe. Right off the bat we saw a beautiful Lazuli Bunting perched in a patch of sage barely 10 feet in front of us. I'm not a bird person at all, but I was told that this was a pretty exciting, rare sighting? The bird was one of the prettiest I've ever seen, with it's dark blue head and orange neck. We also saw another colorful bird on the other side of the railroad tracks– a Yellow-Breasted Chat. We had some free time and, like I said, I was pretty much in acoma so I wasn't feeling very social and I wandered around alone until I found a nice place to sit. It was a very relaxing place to exist. I saw many examples of an exquisite flower that I'm pretty sure is called a Salsify. It's buds look like the tips of spears and they open up to reveal a yellow flower with black spots in it's center.

Gross ants being gross

bitterroot in bloom

The next location we went to was on the side of a road in the middle of nowhere. I can't remember what kind of ecosystem Tim said it was– litho-something. It's a rare and fragile arid environment with very rocky soil. Tim said we could find scorpions if we turned over rocks, so a group of us made it our mission to find one. A couple times I flipped over rocks I found weird little ant homes with white grubs and hundreds of swarming ants. My instinct is to say those are eggs or premature ants, but they were larger than the ants themselves, so I wasn't sure what to make of them. The ground was covered in mysterious Bitterroot flowers, which are the only above ground part of the plant itself. I'm not sure how the Bitterroot survives, but it certainly doesn't make it's own food with photosynthesis because the stalks and flowers were a dark shade of red, not green. Little stalks of Wild Onion could also be seen, with small clumps of purple flowers. I tried a stem and it tasted a lot like chive, it would probably be good on a bagel.

Some kinda crazy beetle

Scorpion 

After about 20 minutes we actually did find a scorpion. I'd never seen one in the wild before and it was really exciting– I don't remember being so taken aback by something I found in the wild since childhood. Scorpions have to be some of the most alienesque animals on the planet– their bodies just straight up don't make any sense. It didn't like having it's picture taken and it tried to attack the camera, raising it's claws and running at the plastic wall of it's prison. We also found an enormous black beetle in the same area, about as long as my pinky finger. Further up the hill there were weird mounds that rose like islands our of the rocky soil. Tim said that geologists still debate the causes of the formations, they didn't make any sense to me. They were covered in a different variety of sage– stiff sagebrush. While the big sagebrush had fatter, trident shaped leaves, this new sagebrush had narrow, pointed leaves, and was often accompanied by Thomson's paintbrush, a parasitic plant that apparently fed on the nutrients collected by the sage's roots.

Camel Spider/Alien Lifeform

Rubber Boa got skates

The real high light of this location was the Camel Spider that I found at the very end, under the last rock I turned over. Tim didn't actually know what this thing was. It looked like a cross between a spider and a scorpion, with a fat, long body, big pincers, and 8 legs. Like a scorpion, it had arms of some kind that extended in front of it, but without pincers at the end. The arms were almost as long as the creature's body itself, and it held them up in an awkward position that made it look like a forklift. It was very fast, and it tried to dig itself away from me when I first saw it– I figure that's what the arms are for. I also saw a Rubber Boa, which was ridiculously quick for having no legs and no one could quite catch it.

Maaad pretty waterfall

The final location we went to was the site of a waterfall. We didn't have much time, so I didn't do much species observation because I was focusing on moving as fast as possible to get to the waterfall in time, but I did stop for a minute to look at the Aspen trees, and marvel at the fact that an entire grove of them is, in fact, a single organism. The creek we were following emptied into a beautifully carved bowl of rock, falling 30 or so. But the coolest thing I found was on the top of the adjacent hill– a basalt structure that I could have sworn was built by humans. The rocks rose in uniform hexagonal pillars, and upon closer inspection, the rocks themselves weren't even connected, they were just stacked perfectly on top of each other by some unseen God. I've never taken a geology course so I have no idea what could have possibly caused this, but I enjoyed climbing around on them, the view was amazing from the top.

All in all it was a pretty rad trip, and when I got home I slept for 11 hours.

Close up of massive cracks 

Crazy Basalt structures

WEEK 7

Wednesday, May 18th
6:00– 6:50 PM
56˚ and Cloudy, off and on drizzling

Orange salmon berry

Dull Oregon Grape fruit

So this is probably the first time I've been out here on a shitty day. I'm shivering and a little wet but the forest seems indifferent. For some reason it seems like all the plants made a mutual decision during the week to go all out on their fruit production. Out of nowhere all of the salmon berries are bright orange and ready to eat. Little patches of color are scattered everywhere– I had no idea salmon berries were so abundant in the area until now. I tasted one and it was delicious– still a little sour of course but that's how I like them. A dull oregon grape plant I've been keeping my eye is making huge moves too, stuntin' with it's clumps of light green berries that I hadn't noticed before. The samaras on the bigleaf maples have made progress since last I noticed them too– they're much larger and appear more or less fully formed now. Finally, the fruit of the Indian Plum that I've been observing has turned from light green to bright, almost fluorescent yellow that sticks out like a frat boy in a gender studies colloquium.

Near fully formed samara

Yellow Indian Plum fruit

As my biology major mom pointed out, this isn't a good time for bugs, so invertebrates were very hard to find. It's early in the spider season calendar, which peaks around halloween, so I found quite a few Garden Spiders but they were babies– so tiny that some were barely visible to the naked eye. I watched one cross from one branch of a tree sapling to another, suspended above the ground on a nearly invisible thread. It was very light yellow– nearly translucent. I've always found it weird that Seattle is such a spider infested city– it seems so random. I hate spiders so I'm savoring these spring months where they're all so tiny that they're almost (not quite) cute.

The next invertebrate I found was a pretty basic one– a pill bug. Actually, a few dozen of them, all scurrying for cover when I brushed away a patch of mulch. The one I focused on had a dark grey outer shell that was divided into 8 segments, and I counted 7 pairs of legs. I picked one up and it immediately curled into a ball, protecting it's vulnerable body with the hard exoskeleton.

Next I found a slug whose dull brown body was covered in black speckles. It A curved line seemed to seperate one part of it's body (a head?) from the other, which had two distinct black stripes down the length of it. It had antennae although they were so small that you can't see them in the picture. I had a very hard time identifying it– apparently the northwest is home to an insane variety of slug species– but I think it was a Giant Garden Slug.

I found a millipede that I couldn't identify either. I've never seen one like it here– I'm used to the ones that have yellow stripes going down on either end. but this one was jet black, with rounded segments in it's body. There were too many segments and leg pairs to count, but the way it moved was really interesting. It was quick, and it slid across the ground like water– effortless motion.

And Now, A Poem

Why do you hide?

I see you

Absurd cave

cosmopalongo

you have nothing to fear

I listen

of
conversion,
subduction;

all you knew was foam

all you knew was hate,

and
knowing foam

as insulation

as isolation

You can't stay
away

You know
foam

and thats all you know

of white

and white

and maybe that is

wrong
but

you are safe

and that is all that matters

Week 6
Wednesday, May 11th
6:15 pm
Sunny, 77˚

 It's been a while since I last visited and things are very different. Everyone has finally gotten with the program– there aren't any plants without leaves and the undergrowth is so thick that I can hardly walk down the little trail to get to my spot. It's an absolutely beautiful day, the temperature is perfect and it smells like my childhood.

Progress has definitely been made by the plant community. The Red Huckleberry by my spot has finally bloomed little globe shaped pink flowers. The other plant that I can't seem to identify has bloomed as well– 5 petaled pink/white flowers. It's driving me crazy, it's got tiny, ovular, serrated leaves, with thorns on it's stem and I can't seem to figure out what it is! My picture taking game was very off point today, my phone screen cracked and my camera became impossible to use but I got a very blurry picture of the Salmonberry plant, whose berries are starting to really take shape.

baby salmonberry

The birds were refusing to cooperate. I spent like 45 minutes desperately searching and I only saw a few and just two that stayed in one place long enough to draw and observe. I glimpsed a hummingbird briefly– it's wings nothing but blurs as it magically suspended itself motionless in the air. It appeared and disappeared before I could really get a good look, but it's head looked an odd metallic blue/green, and I was struck by how small it was.

downy woodpecker

The first bird I really saw was a Downy Woodpecker. It took forever to locate it, playing hot and cold, blindly following the tapping sound through the forest, but I finally saw it– about two stories up a huge red alder tree towards the top of the hill. I've seen one here before, but it was still very beautiful. It's breast was white, and it's wings were black with spectacular speckles lining the feathers. There was a distinctive white smudge on the back, and a red patch on the head looked like a silly little baseball cap. The red splotch made me think it was a pileated woodpecker, but randomly bird-wise little brother put me in my place after I showed him the picture. The woodpecker would tap vigorously at one spot on the tree, then wait for a moment, and tap the spot again. After 2 or 3 rounds it would hop to another spot on the bark and try again. A couple times I saw it dig in and pull back like it had caught something, but it was too far away to tell if he (and it is a he, only the males have the distinctive red patch) was actually eating anything. This went on for about 10 minutes and I was about to leave out of boredom, but he beat me to it with a sudden leap. He glided down the canopy, straight towards me and over my head, and then off into the canopy behind me where I couldn't see him. I got a quick gesture sketch of the flight and filled in the details later after looking at my pictures.

The second bird I really saw was much less interesting. A crow found it's way to a perch in a Douglas fir right next to my spot. I couldn't figure out what it was doing there. It just sort of looked around manically, readjusting its grip on the branch and occasionally unleashing an obnoxious "CAW CAW CAW" (at me maybe?) After about a minute the crow got up and glided across the ravine to a tree on the other side and proceeded to do the same thing. After a minute there it moved again, and again, and then right back to the same tree it started at. This whole process took about 10 minutes and it was very confusing for, the crow seemed anxious, like it was waiting for a date and was starting to get the feeling that it had been stood up. Finally the crow called it quits and abandoned it's post, soared up above the canopy and landed on a telephone post back by the road. I'd been looking for birds for long enough anyways so I followed it down the street, where it continued to pick a perch, nervously caw for a minute or two, then glide over to the next one. At some point I realized that this crow was exactly as aware of me as I was of it, and I started to question who was following who (the crow just happened to be leading me back to my parents house in this weird way.) This is sort of how crows are, though, sometimes you have to wonder if it's just our human egos that makes us feel like we're the smart ones making all the calls.

WEEK 4: Olympic Peninsula!

This entire trip consumed me with an eery and unexpected nostalgia– my senior year of high school my AP environmental science class went on a field trip to nature bridge to study the Elwha dam removal project, and I had visited Salt Creek three times for an annual cross country meet with my school's team. This personal nostalgia only added to the kind of cosmic nostalgia that is instinctive for any human being who finds themselves in a place like this. I vividly remember the first time I visited this old growth forest, the first time I saw what a Douglas Fir or a Red Cedar could look like if allowed a space to exist apart from the poisonous touch of man. I'm so glad I had the chance to see them again– so large as to defy belief, towering into infinity and impossibly thick with the wisdom that comes from age. I can't help but think of the trees in my front yard, those of the same species that I climbed and loved as a child, whose size inspired my imagination for as long as I can remember– I can't help but think about how those babies would cower before these elders, begging for mercy.

This place is magical. There's no other word for it in my vocabulary. The enormous Big Leaf Maples, caked in regal fur cloaks of dark green moss, Licorice Ferns and spectacular Dragon Skin Lichen look like something straight out of Miyazaki's "Princess Mononoke." The towering Red Alder trees are the comic relief characters of the old growth– they apparently get no less skinny with age and end up looking like that 6 foot 8 white dude at the party who keeps knocking in to things like he doesn't have a clue how tall he is. We also saw an enormous Grand Fir, distinct in the configuration of it's needles which alternate between small and large. I was told that it's the largest of it's kind in the area.

But big trees are just one ingredient of the old growth, what's really magical about the place is the honest diversity. It's the ancient coexisting in the same space as the brand new, it's the constant, endless micro narratives that are taking place among the flora and fauna. I saw a baby Cedar, barely 15 feet tall, growing up against a massive Doug Fir, it hurt me a bit to know that it was drastically losing the competition for water and light and it didn't have much longer to live. So young... Perpetuating the Mononoke feel is the fact that the extremely dense (but uneven) canopy leaves the forest floor far less dense than that of the second growth I'm used to in the cascades– so one can see very far in every direction (almost like the deciduous forests of Massachusetts.) Right after we started our harrowing ascent of Mt. Stormking, we saw a large female Black Tailed Deer off in the distance, far enough away that one needed binoculars to see properly.

We saw all kinds of stuff, some a lot more interesting than others. Joe, who was leading our group with the unbelievably hilarious mantra "Neature is Neat! quizzed us as he pointed out Dull Oregon Grape, Salal, Artist's Conk (I knew that one), Red Huckleberry, and a bunch of other things that are equally boring (am I allowed to say that?) Some highlights were the budding Devil's Club that looked like something out of a science fiction nightmare, covered in huge spines and curled leaves emerging from the end of 6 foot tall, thick green stems. I also always love Madrone trees with their beautiful skin condition– their enormous crimson dandruff flakes that reveal perfectly smooth light brown wood. They were thriving on the drier West side of the already very steep hill, which retains little water as is. The hike was way harder than advertised, and somehow I got sucked into the leading pack. By the time we got to the top I looked like a self conscious fat kid at a water park with my shirt soaking wet, but the view was worth it. The trees We saw a really interesting new shrub, that I did an illustration of: the Hairy Manzanita. It was like a miniature Madrone with crimson bark and spastic curling branches. There were birds up there too, we saw a Grey Jay, a Stellar Jay, and what Jorge later refused to believe was a Golden Eagle. We stayed on top for a while, long enough to observe the weather patterns– dense fog rolled in from the South West, and, right after I made a comment about how lucky we were that it was dry, it of course began pouring. I forgot my rain jacket in my cabin...

I was up all night for no reason just like always, and I slept in literally until the very last second, catching breakfast as the kitchen staff were just about to close up. I was really excited for the tidepools, I knew they were fantastic but the tide was never low during the cross country meet so we never got to check them out. I was not disappointed. I felt like a five year old out there (or Tim), perfectly content to gaze into one pool for 15 minutes at a time, lifting rocks and poking things to see what they felt like. They were maybe the most beautiful things I had ever seen. The colors were magnificent. The spooky greens of the Giant Green Anemone, the deep purples of the Purple Sea Urchin, the vibrant reds of the Blood Star, all surrounded by a stupid variety of algaes and kelps on a canvas of Muscles and Barnacles. Because of the on going Sea Star plague there was a depressingly low amount of interesting larger species but I saw a pretty fat orange-yellow thing that I'm going to tentatively label a Mottled Star. There was constant motion in the pools. Hermit Crabs scuttled about, along with the victims of their theft, the Sea Snails. I saw a ton of different species of crabs, but didn't take close enough observations to ID any of them, except for one with disproportionately large turquoise claws that I believe was a Green Shore crab. There were tiny black and grey Tide Pool Sculpin that would have had great camouflage if they weren't darting all over the place like idiots. The very ground I was walking on was covered in strange discoveries– the Gooseneck Barnacle was particular odd, with it's long, narrow shafts. My favorite discovery was a weird little guy, maybe an inch across, that looked like an incredibly skinny sea star, but was moving around as almost as fast as a crab. I took it out of the water and it crawled around my hand, it's motion reminded me of an inch worm– when it got to the edge its arms grasped at thin air like it really wanted to keep going. Tim said it was pretty rare and called it a Brittle Star.

All in all it was a fantastic trip, and I'm really glad I got to see what I saw.

Brittle Star

Blood Star

Tidepool with green anemone and purple sea urchin

Gooseneck barnacles

Forest Spiritesque Big Leaf Maple

Enormous Douglas Fir

Silly ass Red Alder

Grey Jay

Hairy Manzanita

View of Lake Crescent from the top of Storm King– the tree to the right is a young Doug Fir, and the plants with entire leaves on the left are Salal 

Hairy Manzanita, Zoom out Zoom in sketch

Thumbnail looking across the Elwha to the Red Alders (among other trees) on the other side