Spring Creek in late summer

As usual for this time of year, the bed of Spring Creek in the TeePee/Spring Creek Roadless Area is dry at the trail head, but cold, robust and cascading down it’s canyon just a mile up the trail.

Cascades and Fairy Bells

Now that warmer weather has arrived, the mountain streams are running full from snow melt and the wildflowers are beginning to bloom. The flowers are late blooming this year and the early results seem to show that they are rather sparse and have suffered some effects of the turbulent weather. Still, it’s good to finally see them!

Fairy Bells, Hooker fairy-bells ~ Prosartes hookeri

Cascades on Spring Creek

Think cool!

Two miles up the Spring Creek trail on a hot summer day. Crystal clear, ice cold water cascading down a deep canyon under the canopy of tall, old-growth cedars…

The trail and the stream

The Spring Creek Trail welcomes a hiker into a rather crowded pine and fir forest, then enters a cedar canyon through which the creek cascades. Following are a few photos of both.

Violets along the trail

Violets have appeared along the Spring Creek Trail (USFS trail 370 into the TeePee/Spring Creek roadless area).

Early Blue Violet ~ Viola adunca

And yet the stream still flows

Yesterday the large area that has been closed for nearly two months because of the thirty square mile Copper King fire was re-opened and all access restrictions have been removed. Today I was able to hike into the Spring Creek canyon and found that the stream is still flowing just five miles downstream from the fire area and the water is still clear and cold. It was so good to see the stream and its canyon again! In the next week or so I will hike into the burned area and see what it now looks like there.