May 7 - Wallace Falls State Park - then East

I was wide awake at 4:30, so got up and went to the office for breakfast of cold cereal with yogurt, a boiled egg and a banana.  Oh yeah, and coffee.

I drove on up to Wallace Falls State Park, to walk up to the lower falls to do a bit of birding.  It was sunny and warming from 55º to about 64º F by the time the walk was over.  I hadn’t known that the name "Wallace" is a corruption of the last name of Joe and Sarah Kwayaylsh, members of the Skykomish tribe, who were the first homesteaders in the area.  At the beginning of the trail, the path follows the access road to the transmission lines.

A black-tailed doe crossed the road in front of me, showing the minimum concern found in “park deer”.

She shows a bit of the "Hair Loss Disease"

Finally, the trail entered the second-growth forest.

Romantic words from Wm. Wordsworth

This property was obviously clear-cut, as the State purchased it from Weyerhaeuser in 1971.  There were signs of some "not-currently-allowed" logging practices, back in the day . . . such as cutting right up to the edge of a river.

Old-growth stump at the edge of the riparian zone

The main fork of the river was running a bit muddy, but the north fork was running clear.

I heard, then saw, a Hammond’s Flycatcher, for my ‘first-of-the-year’, but totally missed seeing a Tanager?  Ah, well, I’ll have to see one upon my return to the Pacific Northwest in July.  The trail to the lower falls is a bit uneven, but well worth the walk.  The forest was very pleasant this morning, and a walk in the woods always cheers my heart.

Large second-growth timber surrounds an old-growth stump

I didn't walk up to the Upper Falls, but had several good views of it from the lower trail.

Upper Wallace Falls

You can see the upper falls from the viewpoint for the lower falls

The Lower Falls is scenic, and apparently dangerous.

True, in many situations . . .

There were a few survey trees in the park.

The Department of Natural Resources marks trees where the roads or trails cross a section line.

I crossed Stevens Pass, which I had assumed was named for Washington Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens.  But I was wrong.  Rather, it was named for one John Frank Stevens, the first non-indigenous person to "discover" it.  He was the engineer who built the Great Northern Railway and the Panama Canal.  The local Native Americans, of course, knew all about the place.

John F Stevens - Taken from http://www.sil.si.edu/Exhibitions/Make-the-Dirt-Fly/stevens.html

I stayed on Highway 2, driving east.  As I passed through some nice sagebrush steppe on the Waterville Plateau, and tried for Grasshopper Sparrows, as I wasn’t certain whether I’d find them out in the Midwest prairies.  I found some nice views of other sparrows, but no Grasshoppers or Sagebrush Sparrows.

Back on the highway to make some miles, I continued through Spokane, making it as far as Coeur d’Alene and checked into the Budget Saver Motel for the evening.  This was an inexpensive, but pretty nice little motel & I would stay here again.

Deer Fern fiddlehead

Wallace Falls State Park eBird Checklist is Here

Stevens Pass eBird Checklist is Here

Waterville Plateau eBird Checklist is Here