Lake June

We have been to the Ape Caves at Mt. St. Helens many times, but never went further down the road to visit Lake June.  We decided it was overdue for an exploration.  The hike is an easy one, and the lake is truly lovely.  Summer is well underway in Portland, but up here, spring is still lingering.  The lake itself is shallow, and I am guessing it freezes solid for much of the year.  It was packed with millions of caddis fly larvae, slowly moving around in interesting homes apparently made of leaves.  And the lake was crawling with medium-sized frogs of a species we had never encountered before.  They turned out to be Cascades frogs.  

What amazed me almost more than the frogs, was the reaction of fellow hikers to them.  Or lack thereof.  We picnicked at the lake, and as hikers came and went, none of the adults seemed even remotely interested in the frogs.  Jasper showed one of the frogs he caught to a five year old boy, who was thrilled.  His parents seemed pleased that their child was interested, but perhaps more concerned that he might follow Jasper's example and try to catch them, which would create a risk of getting wet.  The adults were all people who clearly enjoy nature, yet I can't help imagine they've lost some of their sense of wonder along the way.  I hope I'm never in so much of a hurry to get somewhere that I completely miss the beauty of where I am.  And the beauty is often in the details.

This is a club lichen called "lipstick cladonia".  It's pretty cool looking!  Lichens are not plants at all, but  fungi living cooperatively with algae, a protist.  

Maple tree flowers.

Star-flowered false Solomon's seal.

Red elderberry.

Rosy twistedstalk.

Caddis fly larvae.  They've all retreated into their shells.

I always thought these were pinecones when I found them on the ground.
These cones actually come from the Sitka alder.

Jasper catching his first frog.  

After Jasper bid it farewell, it swam away leisurely.

This formidable bug appears to be a mayfly.

I rescued it from the water.  They only live a few minutes to a few days after metamorphosizing, so my rescue was likely in vain.

Caddis fly in a leafy shell.

Trillium, one of the earliest spring wildflowers in our region, still in bloom in July!

Mt. St. Helens.

We stopped to see the Trail of Two Forests.  It's a place where large lava flows cooled even as they burned away the immense trees that stood there, leaving tree casts in the stone. If you have any desire to see this amazing place, now is the time.  A park ranger warned that this site and the Ape Cave will be closed permanently should bat white-nose syndrome  (which is highly contagious)  appear in the west.

A hole left by cooling lava that once surrounded a living tree.

Jasper was crawling through a tree cast with his caving light on. Visitors are permitted to check this one out firsthand.

Out he comes!