Mt Si Hike April 28

Transcribed from April 28 notes
time 11am-245pm

Hike on a mountain up to 4100ft elevation, located on a peak on the western perimeter of the cascade mountains, not far from interstate 90. Western hemlock vegetation, managed as part of washington department of natural resources. At the base of the mountain trees are dominated by a mix of large old coniferous and deciduous trees; primarily douglas fir, western hemlock, big leaf maple, and black cottonwood. Beginning of old growth classification. Very biodiverse and prevalent understory with vertical heterogeneity compared to higher elevation of the hike. As the top of the mountain was approached, tree diameter vastly decreased, and the prevalence of disturbance, fire, ligtning, and windthrow, was much more prevalent. The dominant tree species also changed drastically, with hardly any western redcedar present at the top, none beyond 15 years old. Budding of understory and deciduous trees was also far behind plants at the bottom of the mountain, huckleberry had no leaves and no forming berries as it did at the bottom, as a prime example. The snow level seemed to be just under 4000 ft on this mountain at this time of the year. Large presence of human hikers on the weekend encouraged the presence of gray jays and chipmunks, which dined on hiker snack food. also at the top were chickadees, a stellar jay, and a predatory bird of some kind-all black (see observations).

Posted on May 1, 2012 09:09 PM by robertmarsh