Lime Kiln Trail, 10-22-11

Even on a rainy misty day, get out there and let the drippy green dark northwest woods enchant you!  Adventure Dog and I felt like we were scuba diving for much of our hike, but it was a really fun day out! We did the Lime Kiln trail for the billionth time, and it was lovely.  It wasn’t all overgrown like when I took my Mom on it, and the abundant maples were dropping big gold and brown leaves all over.  The trail was carpeted with a variety of fall leaves.

The Lime Kiln trail was actually featured as the WTA’s trail of the week, so it was pretty busy despite the rain.  One of the things that led them to feature it is the abundance of fungi.  I had a great time noticing all the mushrooms.  Here are a few (not including the 5 chantrelles I brought home for lunch!)

Orange peel fungus:

Coral of some type:

Possibly a hydnellum:

Probably a type of oyster mushroom:

This one was cool, growing on a sign:

Not sure what these are:

Nor this, and sorry it’s blurry, but I decided to include it here because I couldn’t even find something like it in the mushroom ID book:

The lime kiln and the various relics around there were lovely in the moss and decorated with autumn leaves.  Of course Cedar had to check out everything.  : )

I was surprised that the Stillaguamish was swollen and churning after the rain.  There were barely any rocks to have our lunch on. 

As I was eating, a heron of some sort flew slowly and tauntingly up the gray-green river with the fall leaves behind it.  I struggled for my camera without dropping my sandwich.  My case stuck in my pocket.  I swore softly.  The heron was now directly in front of me, flying in beautiful slow motion.  I ripped the camera out of its case… the heron was a bit up river… the camera turned on, and I lifted it… and the heron was gone. 

I hoped it would fly back down the river, and it did, but too high up for a great picture.  Then it landed right above my head in a tall tree!  So I got its silhouette anyway.  lol

It was after this that I discovered the chanterelles and I got so distracted greedily searching for more, that I nearly went around the loop twice.  An Asian man I had seen earlier though started laughing at me and made a twirling motion with his finger and said, “Go in circle.  Haha.” 

On the way back I stopped at a hive that I had moved under a log.  On the way in, it was laying all squished in the trail and as I looked at it and poked at it with my fingers, I was surprised that there were still wasps or hornets in it of some sort.  I told a couple boys that were going by to be careful of it because it still had residents and one started to run and said he was allergic to bees.  I used a couple sticks and moved it under the log.  The poor insects looked pretty soggy and not long for this world.  They didn’t look much better when I stopped again, but it was interesting to see the honeycomb.

Happy hiking!