Vine maple color; Sitka Mountain-ash berries

Photo of vine maples by Yaquina, Flickr Creative Commons license.
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Sunday’s hike was golden in many ways. Its drive was overly long, and a foot was sprained on root-y trails. But it involved an isolated alpine lake, fall color bursting from rocky slopes, and the round, un-glossy delights of farm-stand apples brought from the town of Sultan.

The hike was to Hope Lake, in the Cascades near Stevens Pass. In less than two miles each way, we climbed over 1400 feet in elevation.  This meant it was fairly steep, and traversed narrow stretches of eroding trail above steep hillsides.

The colors were startling, though. On hillsides above us, vine maples raced across the landscape in yellow and red.

Photo of vine maples against forest by David Patte, USFW, Flickr Creative Commons license.
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Expecting the dense, dark woods of the typical Northwest hike, I’d forgotten that we might be dazzled by the light and color changes of autumn. Some ferns and airy huckleberry bushes had also turned vividly yellow and orange.

As we hiked the narrow incline, we passed out-of-season bushes bare of thimbleberries and salmonberries, and I noted them for later. That said, those two are nearly everywhere in the region. But the raspberry-like thimbleberries are especially nice. I also like them because they remind me of the flat, wide buttons on 1950s coats.

Along the ground, bunchberry plants bore their red berries atop the four leaves. I ate one – only my second ever – and noted that this time, the grainy taste went down easier. This one tasted deeper and more sun-warmed, and I thought to myself that they'd be fine added to other berries to make jam.

Photo of bunchberries in dew by Pellaea, Flickr Creative Commons license.
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In Samuel Thayer’s book Nature’s Garden, one of my favorite foraging guides, he talks fondly of bunchberry. The berries grow in cool, northern forests, including Thayer's native Great Lakes region.

We reached Hope Lake, which is really a pond. It appears shallow, and is backed by tall evergreens  -- probably hemlocks and Douglas-firs. Hope seemed more peaceful than the other lakes I’d seen in the Cascades’ Alpine Lakes Wilderness. This was the first time that the lakeshore was silent; no one was there, nor calling out as they ate their lunches.

Lakes in the backcountry of Yellowstone are quiet like this, too. This pond in the Cascades was like Grebe Lake or others circled by huckleberry bushes that I saw when I was a new hiker, a kid from a hot climate working at the park during college summers.  At the time, my heart raced when I saw fields of berries at a remote lake. Where were the bears? Were they watching?

Photo of Sitka mountain-ash turning color, by heystax, Flickr Creative Commons license.
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At Hope Lake, two weeks had passed since I'd been to one of the Alpine Lakes. Before, we'd seen only green and somber woods, but now, red and yellow huckleberry bushes and Sitka mountain-ash crowded the lakeshore, their colors splashed across the water surface.

Even late in the season, when most of the huckleberries had been picked clean of their fairy bushes, the mountain-ash was laden with bunches of red berries.

Sitka mountain-ash berries can make wine, I hear -- alhough I haven't tried it yet. It was great to see such plenty, to know that for every departed salmonberry, thimbleberry, or huckleberry, something new came with fall: something bright and wonderful.

   

 Photo of Sitka mountain-ash by Tim Green, Flickr Creative Commons.
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Found: Berries and Salal on trail to Annette Lake

 

Photo of mountain lake by Henofthewood on Flickr Creative Commons license.
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Saturday, a hike to Annette Lake in the Cascades with my friend E. We snacked along the way on clustered salal berries – and the occasional dusky blue or lightly red huckleberry on airy bushes.

The day was glorious: The last weekend in September, and still dry and sunny. This is unusual in the Northwest, but we’ll take it!

Back to berries, though. Admission: Until now, I’ve never really valued salal. Apparently that’s because I’d never had them fully, tip-top ripened to a dark navy, and on a sunny Cascade hillside.

They're an acquired taste: I asked E. what she thought, and she said questioningly, “Grainy, rough?”

Salal aren’t blueberries, I had to admit. They lack the easy charisma and bright flavor of more popular berries.

 

But in this case, to me, they were downright flavorful. There was a depth to them, a sun-warmed richness. I wanted pots full of them, I wanted pies and crumbles.

 

I was content with snacking, though. I gathered handfuls, each with its slightly hairy bulb and knobby end.

 

They were ugly enough to be left on their leathery leaf-branches for me to find on a sunny fall hike, and I loved them for it.

Photo of salal berries by Nordique on Flickr Creative Commons license
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The berries provided moisture, Vitamins C and A, and the usual antioxidants as we headed up the 1600 feet of elevation change between the trail head and Annette Lake.

 

I found them refreshing, and I was grateful: When I arrived in Washington state, I often walked past these and other berries, not knowing what they were. My past is full of the slight irritation of not knowing berries or fruits on trees, of feeling as I pass them that I could be wasting something valuable that will go bad on the branch.

Eating the berries gave me the “I’m a hardy hiker, I’m like Heidi with the goats in the Swiss mountains,” thought pattern that I alternate with “I’m like Grizzly Adams; I can survive!” when I’m flattering myself. And yet, it was a little bit true.

After a good many switchbacks and walking past many majestic firs and spruce, E. and I made it to Annette Lake. It is a lovely lake, surrounded by wooded hillsides. I always like the peace of arriving at a mountain lake after a long hike, finding the cove in the woods that opens with light, spotlighted by the sun as a rare place, a place of water that attracts all of us: animals, humans, birds.

We had our lunches there, E. with her tuna sandwich and shelled pistachios and fruit leather, and me with my peanut-butter-and-banana pita, HoneyCrisp apple, and dark chocolate squares.

We sat in the sun on the grainy beach, facing the light of the water, watching circles form on the surface and talking about relationships and life and work, and listening to the calling voices of the fewer than 10 other people on other shores of the lake as they threw balls to retrievers and talked about we knew not what.

The water, just to fill you in, was probably pretty cold. Maybe surprisingly, I didn’t go in!

The sky was overcast when we arrived, and I had the recent memory of swimming two weeks ago in Mason Lake here in the Cascades, and finding that the water was not just limpid and chill, but downright bone-chilling.

I’d learned that although I’ll swim in large bodies of water in any temperature, in mountain lakes I prefer to dip when they are sun-warmed and it is high summer. Call me particular, call me someone who doesn't want to be chilled before a long hike in falling light, and you will be right.

Another thing we found: A king bolete mushroom, or porcini. Not exactly a feast, but we also talked to the Forest Service officers about logging roads that are handy for berries (and presumably for mushrooms).

There will be return trips, after all!