Pacific Northwest 2000

Friday, August 25
As I mentioned earlier, I had checked the weather at Whistler the week before we left and the temperature had ranged from 30 to about 55 each day. Although there were some clouds the first two days, they were the beautiful, dramatic kind. The temperature in the daytime was in the 80s also. We were planning on taking the gondola up Whistler Mountain on Thursday but changed that to Friday. I kind of thought we should have taken it on a day that we knew was going to be good (Thursday) but the others wanted to do it on Friday.

Friday dawned cloudy, drizzly, and cold. We went for a morning nature walk on the same trail again. This time we went with Joan's Seattle sister, Joyce, and we took the littler niece with us. We again saw the Osprey (and later its mate) and the Orange-crowned Warbler. Also added a Fox Sparrow to our sightings. The niece got so excited when she saw a little red squirrel going into and out of different holes in the ground. I really enjoyed her enthusiasm.

The others decided that they were not going to go up the mountain that day. I still wanted to, so Joan and I went into town. We saw a strange bird that we had trouble identifying and finally decided it was an immature Brown-headed Cowbird. Thrills. We had lunch and then took the gondola up Whistler Mountain. As we got out of the gondola, it started to rain lightly. We saw Oregon Juncos, Gray Jays, and a Clark's Nutcracker right away. Then it started raining fairly heavily. We went inside for a little while and then started a hike. We originally had planned on walking further up the mountain, but changed our minds because of the weather. Higher up would not have given us much of a view since clouds covered a good part of it.

By going down, we saw many wonderful wildflowers and other plants. Fireweed, Indian Paintbrush, Alpine Arnica, and lavender heather among others. Beautiful (there I go again) colors and lots of other greenery. A variety of trees—mostly evergreens—spruce and others. Walked down to a little lake.

On the way up, we heard a strange, soft sound and weren't sure what it was. Joan mimicked it and a Blue Grouse came out and then another. One of them stayed out for about 10-15 minutes and was at a distance of about fifteen feet. Took a lot of pictures but the lighting was not bright enough, so there some camera shake and the pictures did not come out good. This was a lifer for both us. Good spotting by Joan again.

Enjoyed more wildflowers as we went back to the top and a Gray Jay once we got there.