Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge

We drove to Sequim to hike out to the Lighthouse on the Dungeness Spit in the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge an 11 mile round trip hike.

It was recommended to take the Primitive Trail down to the beach (and the wider trail back up) to help with social distancing.

There was lots of vanilla leaf in bloom along with some other wildflowers along the Primitive Trail.

Looking out over the Dungeness Spit from the viewpoint. (Lighthouse is off to the right)

In the morning, the view to the Olympic Mountains to the south was clear.










We had fun watching the waves crashing against the shore.
We only saw 5 other people as we hiked out to the lighthouse.

small shore birds

seagull ready to take flight from a large piece of driftwood.

enjoying the beach hike

lighthouse near the far end of the spit

lots of yellow sand-verbal along the path to the lighthouse

We choose Serenity at the lighthouse

short interpretive trail in front of the lighthouse

bald eagle on a large sign near the lighthouse

view of the lighthouse from an interpretive trail behind the lighthouse

The colors in the water went from clear to gray to green to deep blue in the late morning.

sea star

red kelp

sea gull on driftwood

small shorebirds taking flight as the waves came in

We saw many people out on the spit as we returned, there was plenty of room on the beach to make social distancing easy.

a little beach love

some other wildflowers seen along the trail today:

Yellow Hill

We drove out to the Teanaway Community Forest to hike up to Yellow Hill, 7.5 miles round trip with 2,800' of gain.
This was a wonderful wildflower hike on a cloudy day.
This meadow filled with paintbrush was near the parking area.

The trail starts by going up a forest road that is closed to cars, but open to motorbikes in the summer. There were many blooms along this road.
Lupine

asters and peas

The densest batch of asters I have seen.

This area was burned in the Jolly Mountain Fire a few years back, it is nice to see the wildflowers coming back so strongly.

Maybe a mile or so up the road, the trail to Yellow Hill branches off to the right and the trail becomes steeper.

We would see balsamroot in bloom as well.

Phlox and more paintbrush among the rocks

Below the clouds, we could see some of the Teanaway Peaks in the distance.


















Looking ahead towards the ridge that Yellow Hill is on. Here the trail would descend and rise and descend and rise a bit, before continuing up Yellow Hill.

Right next to the trail we saw these Steer's Head, this is the first time I have seen these flowers.

The last half mile or so was going around and up a snowy slope that was about 2 feet deep.
















The top of Yellow Hill was bare of snow at 5,527 ft.

Here there was a large field of avalanche lilies.














Through the trees, we had a peek of Mount Stuart and another peak.















some of the wildflowers we saw along the trail today: