July 03, 2006
Mt St Helens Recovery
The drive to and up Mt St Helens offers quite a vista. It is a reminder of the awesome power of a volcano to see "matchsticks" laid out like a repeating pattern on the slopes only to discover up close that they are age-bleached trees - some twice as big around as telephone poles - blown down by the blast.
In some spots whole ecosystems are returning as whith this roadside colony of Erythronium.
For those following the subtheme on this year's North American liliy species, the Lilium columbianum on Route 131 at the base of Mt St Helens are about two weeks behind the colonies in Del Norte County, California and Mt Baker and Mt Rainier in Washington State.
Posted by rollingrains at July 3, 2006 01:18 AM