Another new trail

I've been meaning to try out a trail along the Stamp River that was completed last year.

The Angler's Trail, or Sayachlas ta saa nim as it's known in Nuu-chah-nulth, follows the water for about 7.5km. The guide says it has fawn lilies. It does.



There are 29 species of fawn lily in North America. They are also called trout lilies, glacier lilies and dog's tooth violets.

I believe the ones on the open sunny edges of this path are Erythronium oregonum, aka giant white fawn lily.


For this trail it's best to park a car at either end and go in one direction. I was on my own, so didn't have that option.







Round about six kilometers in, as I realized I didn't want to do the route again in reverse, I wondered why I hadn't put my bike at one end.

Didn't turn out to be a problem. I went out to the road at the north end and picked up a ride from a nice young woman.
She lives by the trailhead and said she didn't even know it was there.
She says there're wolves in the area. She hears them at night. I saw some wolfish looking scat on the road near her house. Cool.

Heard lots of birds. Spotted a few. The white-crowned sparrows stood out. Didn't stick around for a portrait though.

This red-breasted sapsucker did. Busy drilling the big old Douglas fir, it hardly noticed me snapping away. The north end of the trail goes though a decadent forest. The kind that wants to make you weep at the feet of the giant firs and cedars.



Near the end of the trail I spotted this red beetle hanging in the air. Then it settled on a cedar branch.



It's a netwing beetle, specifically (sorry folks, I can't stop myself) Dictyopterous simplicipes. It's a species of the north Pacific lowlands. Adults feed on sap and are active in April and May. Young feed on the bark of dead trees.