Trail of the Shadows @Mt. Rainier National Park (Longmire, WA)

On the second half of our first day at the field trip to Pack Forest our Natural History class visited Mt. Rainier National Park and took a walk through the Trail of the Shadows. As we drove into higher elevation there were more signs of snow, and it was a bit sunnier. However it was still fairly cold, temperatures being in the 40s, but the wind chill made it feel worse. Due to high elevation there was about 2 feet of snow on the trail making it slight difficult to walk in if you sank in.

Most of the forested area consisted of Douglas-Fir, Western Hemlock, and Western Red Cedar. Some of the uncommon trees that we observed on the trail were the Western Yew. In comparison to Pack Forest there were not many shrub-like plants in this area, probably due to the elevation and colder conditions. However the undergrowth of this area consisted of many nursery log areas that held a lot of young trees and also many different types of fungus and lichen growing on the fallen trees. The trail also goes through a marshy area where a few mallard ducks stayed and I also noticed some beaver dams near the stream that we bridged over. In the marsh area there were also some mini hot springs where the water was bubbling. Also due to high mineral deposits the mud in the marsh area was this rich bronze color, just like the copper colored stream seen earlier on the trail. After the marsh portion of the trail we walked through the last bit of the trail that was in a meadow area. Though we could not get a good sense of the vegetation in this area due to the high amounts of snow covering the ground.

Posted on May 1, 2012 07:45 PM by jinam22