New Lens and a Cold, Windy Ride

We took a weekend off of the trail weekend.  We had some things to do and we needed to get a bike ride in.  Last week I ordered a new macro lens for my camera, which arrived on Friday.  The surprise nice weather Saturday afternoon presented an opportunity to go down to Rock Creek Park to test it out.  The only native wildflowers out were Simplocarpus foetidus (Skunk Cabbage) and Claytonia virginica (Spring Beauty), but there were a number of pretty non-native plants blooming.

We have started training for this year's Garrett County Gran Fondo's Savage Century.  I'm not sure, after last year's experience, what convinced us to sign up again, but signed up, we are.  Yesterday, we got out for a ride in northern Montgomery County:  43 miles of cold wind.  It wasn't the strongest ride I've ever had, but it certainly wasn't the worst.  I feel like I am starting from a better base than I had at this point last year.  We have four months to get ready, so...how bad can it be??? (famous last words).

Pictures (click to enlarge):

An invasive buttercup in Rock Creek Park.  This photo has a depth-of-field problem, but I liked the detail on the flower's center.

Crocuses blooming in a yard near Rock Creek Park.

A daffodil blooming in front of a house.

I took a few pictures of one of our Phalaenopsis orchids to test out the lens. 

Spring Flowers: Bloodroot

Sanguinaria canadensis (Bloodroot) has started to bloom in Rock Creek Park.  It is one of the first showy flowers of spring.  It emerges and blooms before nearly everything else.  The flowers only last a few days, but since there is little competition from other flowers, that is enough time for insects to pollinate the flowers.  While in bloom, the leaves clasp the stem of the flower.  Both the common and scientific names stem from the bright orange-red color of the sap in its roots.  Native Americans and early American colonists once used the root to produce dye. 

S. canadensis is the only member of its genus in the world.  It is a member of the Poppy Family (Papaveraceae) and its closest living relative is the Eomecon chionantha (snow poppy) in eastern China.  It is found throughout the eastern United States from Nova Scotia to Florida.

Some pictures from yesterday's walk in the park (click to enlarge):

S. canadensis

A cluster of four S. canadensis

Trillium sessile that's not quite ready to bloom.

Some hyacinths in the woods

Two mallards in an area fenced to protect breeding amphibians.  Although we stayed behind the fence, the drake was pretty concerned about our approach.  He turned and watched us intently while the hen continued to feed.

A forsythia bush on the way back.

More Signs of Spring - Skunk Cabbage

I'm giving the ankle another week to rest, but we took a walk down to Rock Creek Park today.  The warm sun was a nice change from the cold rain of the past few days.  The park is so much greener than it was just a few weeks ago.

The first, if not the most attractive, wildflowers of the spring, Simplocarpus feotidus (Skunk Cabbage) were out in full force in the boggy area that the Valley Trail passes through near 17th street.  Some of the flowers had already faded.  Once the large leaves begin to emerge, the flowers quickly die off.  The skunk cabbage flower is typical of many burgundy flowers:  It is a carrion flower.  Carrion flowers emit an odor of decaying matter to attract insects for pollination.  The plants also warm the soil around them through a chemical reaction to both thaw the soil so they can emerge earlier than competing plants and to attract insects.  Pretty remarkable for such an odd looking little flower.

Pictures (click to enlarge):

S. foetidus (Skunk cabbage) along the Valley Trail in Rock Creek Park.

S. foetidus in its favorite habitat:  a mucky bog.

An interesting fungus

Crocuses growing along Beach Drive.

Early Morning Snowshoeing

The snow hole that the DC area has been in all season finally closed.  We got about 6 inches of really wet, heavy snow last night.  I got up before dawn this morning for a quick snowshoe through Rock Creek Park.  I was out before most people had begun to shovel their walks, so I was able to snowshoe right on the sidewalks all the way down to the park.  The park was nearly silent except for the occasional call of a pileated woodpecker and, as it warmed up, water dripping off the trees.

Pictures (click to enlarge):

 Rock Creek as the sun was coming up.

Mallards feeding in the creek. 

The Valley Spring Bridge over the creek

An oak leaf covered in snow.

 Snow "flowers" on a cherry tree.

Fresh tracks on the Valley Trail.

A Weekend Off and a New Flower

We took the weekend off from hiking for two reasons:  We are training for a metric century (100 km or 62 miles) bike ride that is happening in a couple of weeks and I strained a muscle in my calf, so I am giving it a chance to heal.  That doesn't mean we didn't get outside.  We did a 52 mile bike ride yesterday in western Montgomery County. It was a great ride.  The weather was perfect and we encountered very little traffic on most of the roads. 

Today, we went for a short walk in Rock Creek Park, where I saw a flower I had never seen before:  Mimulus alatus (Winged Monkey Flower).  M. alatus is a member of the Figwort family that blooms in late summer in damp places.  It is very similar to Mimulus ringens (Monkey Flower).  M. alatus has leaves with short stalks, while M. ringens' leaves are stalkless.

We'll be back out there next weekend.

M. alatus in Rock Creek Park.

Rainy Weekend - Patuxent Wildlife Refuge and the first spring flowers

The weather this weekend kept us from driving long distances to go for a long hike.  Yesterday, it rained hard most of the day.  The forecast for today was more of the same.  We decided to go for a four mile walk in Patuxent Wildlife Refuge in Laurel, MD just to get outside.  We piled three people and two dogs into our little car and drove over there in the rain.  This only works for short drives.  Once there, the rain stopped and we started the loop with the Fire Road Trail.  It was no surprise that standing water covered the trail in some places; in others, the trail became a running stream.  There is a lot of storm damage, particularly the holly trees, which did not take the heavy snow well.  The outlet stream from Cash Lake was over its banks, creating a second pond beneath the lake.  We saw several geese and a pair of ducks on the lake.  We had the trails completely to ourselves at what is normally a very busy park.

Pictures (click to enlarge):

The trail had become a full running stream in a lot of places.

An interesting fungus on a pine tree.  I don't know fungi very well, so I don't know what kind it is.  It is about the size of a golf ball.

Spring Flowers
Spring flowers are starting to emerge from the ground.   We found Simplocarpus foetidus, the aptly named skunk cabbage, in Rock Creek Park.  It is not the prettiest flower, by any measure, but it is one of the very first wildflowers to emerge in the spring.  Its odor and structure are adapted to drawing ground dwelling insects.  They crawl inside the flower seeking carrion and pollinate the flowers.

Simplocarpus feotidus in Rock Creek Park.

Snowdrops, one of the earliest emerging cultivated flowers, are also popping up everywhere.  Crocuses won't be far behind.

Snowed In

There was a plan to spend the weekend with friends in the mountains in Virginia and do a long hike in the George Washington National Forest on Sunday, but the snowstorm had other ideas.  It started falling Saturday morning around 10 a.m. and we had four inches by early afternoon, which was just enough to snowshoe in Rock Creek Park.  After the big storm in December we were able to snowshoe twice in the park, the first two times we've had enough snow to do that in the five years we've been in Silver Spring.  It is quite a treat to be able to do that and I was happy to get another chance this year. 

On Sunday, I was able to try out my microspikes running in Rock Creek Park.  They worked quite well.  As I ran by, I did get some strange looks from people who were carefully picking their way down the trail, trying not to slip. 

Hopefully, next week, we'll be back on trail.

Rock Creek Park in the Snow

We had planned to go hiking today, but last night a massive snowstorm arrived in the Washington, DC area.  By this afternoon, there was over a foot of snow and it was still falling fast.  Even the DC Metro system had to close all of their above-ground stations because the snow was too deep on the tracks.  Since we couldn't drive or Metro anywhere, we decided to go snowshoeing in Rock Creek Park.

Initially, we thought we would have to carry our snowshoes down to the park, but the snow was falling so fast, most of the sidewalks that had been shoveled in the morning were covered in several inches of new snow.  The major streets in the area, Colesville and 16th were as quiet as I've ever seen them. Once we crossed 16th, we just walked in the street, which had plenty of snow for the snowshoes.  There wasn't any traffic anyway.

The snow became a lot deeper in the park, where it hadn't been packed down.  We walked through drifts over the knee.  Rock Creek was partially covered in ice, which is also a rare event.  We hiked along the valley trail, to the spur trail to 16th street.  Just before 16th street, we turned onto the Holly Trail.  Only one set of tracks preceded us on it, making the going a little slower.  We were breaking trail through 12-15 inches of snow.  Our friend's dog tried to convince us to follow every set of deer tracks we passed.  We saw a number of little birds with their feathers puffed out to stay warm.

We returned along the Valley trail to the spur that comes out of the park on 17th street.  Orchid Street wasn't plowed, so we just walked in the middle of it. We were able to get nearly three hours of snowshoeing in and cover a little over 4 miles.  A few pictures:

The bridge near Beach Drive.

Rock Creek from the Valley Trail

On the Valley Trail

The Valley Trail

Orchid Street hadn't been plowed