What turned out to be a stormy and rainy and windy day, ended up pleasant. We got a nice showing of early wildflowers. At Catherine Creek we saw flowers that were peaking about 2 weeks later than last year. It has been a long winter.
The Columbia river gorge is probably the most spectacular place on earth that I've been. After travelling around the world for 9 months, I came back to the gorge and found it to be so amazing. It's like you are in Alaska, with a massive river, huge waterfalls and trails and flowers everywhere. The view from the cliff at Tom McCall is amazing and it looks better with the Lomatium columbianum flowering (a gorge endemic below). After braving over 50 mph winds, we went searching for a prairie up a lonely logging road and only found lots of cut trees, and ended up almost getting stuck in the snow. Needless to say, we turned around and had a couple pints. Plant list for the day: 3/31/09: Olysinium douglassii, Saxafraga occidentalis, Frittilaria pudica, Crocidium multicale"Gold Stars", Ranunculus occidentalis, Delphinium nuttallianum, Dicentra cucullaria, Montia sibirica, Cardamine pulcherima var. pulcherima, Lomatium macrocarpum, Lomatium columbianum, Mimulus alsinoides, and Dodecatheon poeticum.
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