RHH's photos with the keyword: skykomish

One of many falls around the world with this name, these falls are in the North Cascades along the trail to Lake Serene. The photo was taken on a hike to Lake Serene with friends with whom we also hiked the trail to the falls.

ThIS is not the famous Crater Lake in Oregon but a small alpine lake in Washington in the North Cascades near Skykomish. The photo was taken on a recent hike to the lake with several friends.

My apologies for being so late with comments today, but we were underground. My wife and I and three friends explored the Damon and Pythias Mine in the Skykomish area of the North Cascades. We had been told about this mine by an Ipernity friend who knew the area and had been in the mine and we went there first and then went on and bushwacked our way to Crater Lake, a small alpine lake in the same area. We had beautiful weather and an amazing day. The Damon and Pythias Mine was a gold mine that was opened in the late nineteenth century and operated sporadically until the late nineteenth century. Silver, lead and arsenic were taken from the mine which is a series of horizontal shafts with much of the old track for the ore cars and other equipment still in the mine. I'm not sure what the tank was used for but an old ore chute and shaft are just to the right and two other shafts to the left and straight ahead.

Photographed near Lake Elizabeth in Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest in the area of Skykomish, Washington. Keys to the identification of this species are the inflated spur and yellowish lip. This was published in the April, 2011, issue of Orchids, the magazine of the American Orchid Society, in an article titled "Taking Aim."

Last week Saturday we went on a hike with the Washington Native Orchid Society, looking for a very rare native orchid that was reported to grow near Lake Elizabeth, a small mountain lake south of Skykomish, Washington. We did not find the orchid but we did find this beautiful butterfly whose common name and scientific name are almost exactly the same. The butterfly is a Clodius Parnassian or Parnassius clodius. The story of our hike can be found here along with more pictures: ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2010/08/lake-elizab...

Photographed last summer on the Lake Elizabeth trail in the North Cascades: ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/search/label/lake%2... .

This photo was taken by my wife on a cloudy day (there don't seem to be many sunny days at Lake Elizabeth) from the far side of this small alpine lake. I was busy looking for a tiny elusive orchid that grows there, and as a result did not get many landscape pictures, while she got some that are stunning, at least in my opinion. This photo shows the sedge mats that grow on the east side of the lake, a wonderful place for native orchids. We've found seven or eight different species of orchids there at different times of the year. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2012/09/another-vis...

This is a close up of the native orchid I posted a few days ago. Listera banksiana or caurina, the Northwestern Twayblade, has flowers around a half inch (1.5 cm) in size. The species is common here in the northwest, but because is small with small green flowers it often passes unnoticed. This example was photographed at Lake Elizabeth. nativeorchidsofthepacificnorthwest.blogspot.com/2010/11/n...

This was taken at Lake Elizabeth in the North Cascades on one of several visits there last summer. The lake is at 3000 feet in the Skykomish District of the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest and is rich in native plants and native orchids. The Western False Asphodel or Sticky False Asphodel blooms during the summer with a head of white flowers followed by these attractive seed capsules. It grows primarily in bogs and wet meadows and is native to Washington, Oregon and BC. The photo was taken by my wife as were many of the photos on our trips to Lake Elizabeth, in this case because I was busy hunting for a rare native orchid. She usually gets better photos than I do, in any case. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2012/09/another-vis...

This is another of my wife's photos from Lake Elizabeth. The lilies are Yellow Pond Lilies, Nuphar polysepala, also known as Spatterdock or Cow-lily, one of our native wildflowers. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2012/09/another-vis...

Another photograph from Lake Elizabeth, but taken earlier in the summer and on a better day than the previous photos. The Western Tiger Swallowtail is Papilio rutulus. In eastern North America it is replaced by the very similar Papilio glaucus, the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2012/08/lake-elizab...

One more of my wife's pictures from Lake Elizabeth. She managed on one of our excursions to get a whole set of these stunning shots, and that in spite of it being a cloudy and dull day. This is the south end of the lake. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2012/09/another-vis...

This is another photo from Lake Elizabeth, this time of one of our native orchids, the Hooded Ladies' Tresses, Spiranthese romanzoffiana. The braided appearance of the flower spikes is the reason for the name "Ladies' Tresses" and these flowers are also distinctly "hooded." The plant flowers late in the summer and there were an abundance of them at Lake Elizabeth this past summer, though I've been told that in other years they are hard to find. nativeorchidsofthepacificnorthwest.blogspot.com/2012/09/c...

This photo was taken by my wife. She took most of the landscape shots the times we were at the lake. I was too busy looking for a rare orchid to bother with a lot of photography, though later I was sorry I hadn't taken more, especially because she was able to get some very beautiful shots. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2012/09/another-vis...

This is one of the few landscape shots I took on our visits to Lake Elizabeth. I was so busy hunting for a rare orchid, I didn't do much photography. This is taken from the far side of the lake and looks to the southeast. There is a rough forest service road in the line of trees at the left of the picture, the only access to the lake, and the sedge mat where most of the orchids grow is open green area on the right of the picture. ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2012/08/lake-elizab...

Listera banksiana, the Northwestern Twayblade, is another of our rather nondescript native orchids. The plant is six inches to a foot tall and the flowers are around half an inch. It is quite common in the northwest, though this is a rare three-leaved form. Almost always it has two opposite leaves and I have not even seen a notice of a three-leaved form. This, too, was photographed at Lake Elizabeth in the North Cascades. nativeorchidsofthepacificnorthwest.blogspot.com/2012/08/t...

This interesting flower was photographed on a hike to Lake Elizabeth in July of 2010. At that time the Forest Service road was washed out and access to the lake required a twelve mile round-trip hike. This is the flower of a bush that was growing along the road near the lake and I had never been able to find it my references and posted it hoping to find out what it was. I was told it was a Rhododendron and the leaves look like that family, but that had not helped me find it. Since posting it, however, I have found it in the University of Washington herbarium and it is related to Rhododendron, but is called Copperbush, Elliottia pyroliflora, a shrub that is native to the Pacific Northwest from Alaska to Oregon and that grows in moist areas from mid to high elevations. It is not, however, listed in my wildflower book for our area. biology.burke.washington.edu/herbarium/imagecollection.ph... ronaldhanko-orchidhunter.blogspot.com/2010/08/lake-elizab...

The Western Heart-leaved Twayblade, Listera cordata var. nephrophylla, is one of our smallest native orchids. It is found in two forms, the ordinary green form and a reddish form, fma. rubescens, often found growing together as they are here. The flowers are around half an inch in size, so small as to go unnoticed by most, though the plant is quite common. The plant has two heart-shaped, opposite leaves half-way up the stem which can be seen in some of the pictures at the link below. This example was photographed at Lake Elizabeth in the North Cascades. nativeorchidsofthepacificnorthwest.blogspot.com/2012/08/t...