We just got back from a weekend overnight to Snowgrass Flats and Goat Lake in the Goat Rocks Wilderness/Gifford Pinchot Nat'l Park.

It was an amazing trip full of wildflowers, butterflies, mountain goats, and pika squeaks.

My hiking partner and I aren't very knowledgeable about wildflowers and didn't have a field guide with us... I was hoping you guys would be able to quickly ID a few flowers for us. The blooms up there right now are just lovely.

I hope these pictures work...

#1:



We called these the "muppet plants" because they looked like they might burst into head-bopping song at any moment!

#2:



I was guessing some type of alpine violet? Johnny jump-up, maybe? They were very small... dime-sized at MAX.

#3:



These purple guys liked to grow on ROCK, and would grow in big flat clumps all over the place.

#4:



Growing in the meadows and near the streams.

Finally, we saw these EVERYWHERE. As little internet sleuthing leads me to think they're pocket gopher tunnels, or "eskers"? Is this way off? One of the sites said that these are their tunnels that they dig under the snow during the winter? We saw lots of droppings that looked like they'd been "pushed" out of the end of the tunnels onto the trail in big clumps. The droppings looked like mouse or rodent variety.



Thanks for all your help!

-Ariel

Arielamandah:

#1: We called these the "muppet plants" because they looked like they might burst into head-bopping song at any moment!

Western pasqueflower.  What you see there are the seedheads.

#2: I was guessing some type of alpine violet? Johnny jump-up, maybe? They were very small... dime-sized at MAX.

Yes, they're violets -- probably hooked violets, a.k.a. early blue violets.

#3: These purple guys liked to grow on ROCK, and would grow in big flat clumps all over the place.

That's phlox -- either spreading phlox or Hood's phlox, it's hard to tell the difference.  Sometimes it's white.

#4: Growing in the meadows and near the streams.

That's Western pasqueflower again, but the flowers this time.  You probably saw these at higher elevation than the ones that had gone to seed?

Finally, we saw these EVERYWHERE. As little internet sleuthing leads me to think they're pocket gopher tunnels, or "eskers"? Is this way off? One of the sites said that these are their tunnels that they dig under the snow during the winter? We saw lots of droppings that looked like they'd been "pushed" out of the end of the tunnels onto the trail in big clumps. The droppings looked like mouse or rodent variety.

I'd like to know what those are myself!  I saw tons of them on Mt. Hood last week.  My first thought was that they're from animal tunnels, but they seem to be completely solid... so I started wondering whether they were just a weird artifact of melting snow.  I like the theory about some critters digging those UNDER the snow; somehow that seems to fit.  Maybe they dig tunnels in the bottom of the snowpack, and then when the snow starts melting, the tunnels fill up with silt carried in the meltwater? [EDIT: I've done some google searches on the topic now, and it seems the gophers try to clear out their underground tunnels as summer approaches, and they stuff the extra dirt into the snow tunnels.]

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adamschneider.net
www.gpsvisualizer.com

Here is a link to the site on which I read the description of the "eskers"...

http://www.schmoker.org/TundraLife/BurrowBelow.html

Of course, the description given is for Pocket Gophers on the tundara and not at our latitude, so it might be a whole different story... but they look similar!

Here is another reference on this page to "eskers" and Pocket Gophers. Scroll down to #36 and #37. I'm thinking that's what they were. Strange-looking little things!

http://www.tarleton.edu/~range/Alpine/alpine-slides.htm

We love to call the Pasqueflower seed pods...."Truffula Trees" from the Dr. Seuss book "The Lorax" that's what they remind my girls of.

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"Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter."....Ansel Adams (1902 - 1984 US Nature Photographer)

meana39:

We love to call the Pasqueflower seed pods...."Truffula Trees" from the Dr. Seuss book "The Lorax" that's what they remind my girls of.

 

That's what my little bears in their barbalute suits were thinking as well! 

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Jeff - Site Admin

Someday you'll take me home to live forever....up on the mountain
S. Chapman

On the annual trip to Elk Cove for me and Greg Lief, they are "Muppets of the Mountain", and generally trigger the theme from "The Muppet Show".... ba-da-ba-da-daa-daa-daa...

Definitely rodent tunnels. If they're solid, they could just be feeding tunnels that are filled in behind the creatures as they search for food.

-Tom

Your first and fourth pictures are western anemone (Anemone occidentalis). Often late snow patches will delay flowering so plants in a hollow will be blooming while adjacent just up the slope they will be in seed. The seedheads have inspired many names - old man of the mountain, mouse on a stick, mousicle and dishmop. Its also called when in flower western pasque flower or windflower. According to Moore its a valuable herb for nervous insomnia.
The second is the blue violet (Viloa adunca) which usually is found in sunny, grassy meadows. It avoids the woods unlike some of its relatives. Very widespread yet rarely common-coast to coast.
The third is alpine phlox (probably Phlox difusa). Frequent just above and just below timberline.
Finally you are right - thems pocket gophers. They dispose of dirt from their winter underground diggings in snow tunnels, which then melt out.

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--Bryon

http://clackamas-outlook.blogspot.com/