up the back side of Mt Finlayson

trail heading up Mt finlayson

Yesterday I hoofed it up the back side of the mountain for first time in a while. It was overcast but was hoping it would clear when I got to the top. The ground was wet, and it had rained over night so the trees were still dripping abit with the previous nights rain. Lots of mushrooms along the way, one good one, a Cauliflower mushroom, good eatin'. A Witch's Hat mushroom suitable for the time of year.

gomphus floccossus

Clavariadelphus truncatus, club coral fungus

witch's hat

At the top the rain stayed away but the sun did also. Made it up from the road in 28 minutes, not bad for me.

It was pretty much quiet with the birds on the way up, only Kinglets could be heard. After a few minutes at the top a single bird flew from the south. I thought it was a pine grosbeak at first but the call was different and it was flying with a deep undulation and a "cheeup" call. Unknown to me. it did a figure 8 over my head as a silhoette and then dove with is odd flight pattern down over the front face of the mountain. no wing bars, grosbeak sized, fair length tail and wings, quite dark, when it went below the horizon, i thought i saw maybe some colour on the side of the head. after looking it up books and listening to some calls on the internet at home, i thought it must be a Gray-crowned Rosy Finch. I will have to head up again in the next few days to see if i can find it.

Suprisingly there was quite a bit of arbutus berries in the trees here. All the other mountains in the area have very few to no berries. I guess I will be climbing this mountian more often this winter to see what turns up.

southwards from the top looking through the fog rising from  far below

some of the trail has built in stairs