A sunny day shining out in a sea of rain, so time for a hike. For some reason, I haven’t been to Lake Annette before and was surprised how close it is to Tinkham and Silver Peaks. The road is fine – plenty of potholes but nothing too deep for my Corolla. Got to the trailhead at 9:30 – late but plenty of spaces left. The autumn colors were still out in force in the I90 corridor, but the recent winds seem to have taken out most of the nicest foliage on this trail. There was some snow on the trail earlier in the week, but it’s gone now.
It’s a nice, easy walk but last week’s rain has made it really wet. There’s nothing deep but your boots need to be waterproof. The rain has also brought out a huge variety of edible fungi, from tender little oyster mushrooms to huge boletes. I’m confident enough with those, but there were a few oddities today. I have added a picture of a coral fungus – I’m not sure if it’s Clustered Coral (Ramaria botrytis), Bear’s Head (Hericium abietis) or something else. Both of those are allegedly delicious but I’m not expert enough to take the plunge. It was growing on dead conifers - Douglas Fir, I think. If anyone can help with that, I’d be grateful.
When you get to the lake, the campsites are on the fork to the right. To get to them, you need to cross the outflow stream. Until recently, it was easy to cross the logjam but the rain has raised the level of the lake and the logs are now floating. I realize that some people with full packs managed to hop athletically across the jam this morning, but I didn’t. I rolled two of the logs and ended up in the creek. Cold. If you go about 20 feet away from the lake, the logs are stable and it’s safe. When you see a log with a surface that has been flattened and ridged for traction, you’ve reached the safe crossing.
After about 11, the sun came out and foot traffic increased enormously. Every group seemed to have a dog – all well-behaved. I got back to the trailhead at about 12:30 and the cars were overflowing down the access road.
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