Mount Hood 2025 Part Two

    Our second day on Mount Hood, departing around 9 AM from the Withering Woods Resort in Welches, gave us the opportunity to put Mount Hood Meadows at the top of the list.  The gate at the ski resort, which opens into a huge parking lot, had a large sign saying that the lot was closed but that we were welcome to use the trails.  Seeing a line of parked cars up by the lodge, roughly one hundred yards away, we drove into the lot regardless of the warning and found a sign in the middle of the lot advertising events, such as wildflower walks that were to occur over the next few days.  And so we proceeded up to the line of cars near the lodge and parked.

Mount Hood Meadows  Summer butterfly parking up by the lodge!

    The lodge was locked, which only limited access to restrooms.   Back in the enormous parking lot, I found a nice young lady a few cars down the line.  She was preparing to go on a hike with her small terrier, showed me her prospective route on her cell phone and reinforced the idea that no one was going to bother our car.  

   Our newly found friend disappeared up a dirt road on the north edge of the lot and in a couple minutes Sandra and I headed that way.   This road was familiar to us.  About five years ago, when we were in our infancy as butterfly hunters, we successfully netted a Hoary Comma on the shoulder of this road only 100 yards in.  This is a magnificent butterfly, big and colorful with the oddly shaped wings distinctive to its ilk.  We didn't know what to do with it, so we attempted to take its picture inside a jar, which aided identification but was far from perfect.  Ever since then we have checked out this road, never with much success.

Blue Bells or similar, Mount Hood Meadows

   As we started up the road, we passed an Asian lady with four young children standing cheek by jowl in one of those plastic wagons that are now so common.  One of the children commented on our nets (she might have said, "What the f*** are they doing with the nets?) and as we walked away their mother  (I mean, why in God's green earth would you have four children in a wagon if they weren't your children?) was explaining about catching butterflies. 

   Enough with the F bombs.   Not too far up the dirt road, which, as we will see, is used for ski lift maintenance, we happened upon a patch of wildflowers.  Lo and behold, there was a fritillary butterfly in the flowers and I netted him.  The bag I pulled from my pocket was one of those soft green suckers that are designed to indicate organic vegetables.  They may decompose when allowed to molder with rotting vegetables, but it wasn't our intent to keep the butterfly in the bag so long that it started to rot.  So from that point, decomposing bags, we were probably OK.  Of course, these bags are more or less opaque, so we had little chance of identifying the butterfly by looking at the bag.  Note to self...bring clear bags.  

    Anyway, I stuffed our organic butterfly in my knapsack and we headed up the trail.  Up, in this instance, is the operative word.  This is Mount Hood, after all, and so it was natural that the road would involve elevation gain.  This is not a highly sought feature on the gerontology ward.  And, sadly, in the words of Garfield the Cat, we are beginning to resemble that remark.

Butterfly Watching in Style

    We saw a few birds, identifying some Pine Siskins.  And, at one point, a couple hundred yards up the road, we stopped to photograph some charming, blue, bell-shaped flowers.  These may very well be called blue bells. 

    At this point I owe you a confession.  I inadvertently left my phone charging on the bathroom counter
back at Withering Woods.  Hence, the pictures you see, like the Blue Bells here, were taken with Sandra's phone.  They are perfectly good photographs, so why should you care?  Well, a month or so ago I loaded Google Photos onto sweetie's phone and it conspired to overload her memory. Choosing to avoid the fuss, she had me remove Google Photos.  Thus, on this montane morning, my career as a budding botanist suffered a setback.  The Microsoft tool, which is what we are left with, is not nearly so precise as GP.  Hence, I think they are Blue Bells.  But who the f*** knows for sure.  Whoops.

    About this time we were passed by a nice young man toting a large camera and tripod and accompanied by a rambunctious dog.  Sandra was permitted to throw a stick for the frisky quadruped, making both her and Fido happy.  

Mormon Frit on Goldenrod, July,  Mount Hood Meadows

    As the man and the dog romped their way up the trail we heard a rumbling.  In short order we saw an approaching tractor.  We stepped out of the roadway and soon he was passing us, going downhill, with a trailer full of ski lift chairs in tow.  Sandra looked longingly after the trailer full of ski lift chairs.  Much like Toad in Wind in the Willows, having his Gypsy Cart upset by a passing motor car (or in this instance a ski lift repair tractor) my sweetie had a new desire, which was to go in the direction dictated by gravity.  

    "Poop, poop ,poop," said the Toad. 

    "Down, down, down." Said Sweet Sandra.

    As we descended, we stopped for a moment to enjoy a pair of Gray Jays cavorting in the spruce.  Had we come for bird watching this would have been more satisfying.  But for most of this hike, from the standpoint of flutterbies, we were bereft.

    Finally we made it to the spot where the road leveled out, with that patch of wildflowers where we had nabbed the hydaspe just ahead.  To our right, on the mauka side of the road, there was another patch of wildflowers, leaning heavily towards the dreaded Goldenrod.  Among those gilded blossoms I spied another hydaspe frit.  

Let's fly somewhere. Say Salt Lake City?

   Since I already had one in the organic vegetable bag, I borrowed the Sandraphone, and snapped a few pictures.  Isn't it amazing how a given butterfly can be so cooperative when they want to be?  If I do say so myself, these pictures turned out pretty darn good.  

    We admired our handiwork, completed our ramble in the woods and trudged across the enormous parking lot to the car.  Soon we were back at Withering Woods with our organic butterfly contemplating his sins in the refrigerator.  "If only Father O'Brien were here," I heard the butterfly mutter, "he would give me the wafer and the wine, my sins would be absolved, and I would merit a reprieve."

   As it was, sweetie wanted to take full advantage of the high life that Withering Woods might afford her.  Thus, after a few minutes and a short walk down a small parking lot, I found myself immersed in the hot tub.  There, up to my Adam's apple in hot water, I sat and listened to two gas bags discuss, at infinite length, the multiple strategies involved in getting the most out of time share points, memberships, ownerships and who gives a f***?  Now I knew how the butterfly felt.   

Hydaspe Fritillary, Mount Hood Meadows July 2025

    A short time later, after a well deserved nap, Sandra and I were looking at our pictures.  I should have said something really clever, like, "Do you hear the Angel Moroni's trumpet?"  But instead, we just got a little excited and forwarded the pictures to our Inquisitor back in Longview.   In short order, Caitlin gave us two heavenly words...Mormon Frit.  

   So that impulse back at Mount Hood Meadows had paid off big time.  And we could hardly wait to see what was in the organic vegetable bag.  Sadly, the organic butterfly had not yet consumed enough sacramental wine and wouldn't hold still for a picture.  This was a big mistake on his part.  He could have, after all, been released at Withering Woods.  But no!  

 His is recalcitrant behavior earned him a trip to the Vancouver, Washington laboratory. 

    It was just before lunch the following morning when our organic buddy emerged from the cooler.  He was a little floppy, but I barricaded him in and he sat for a great number of pictures.  In fact, after the José Jalapeño routine (on a stick) he allowed himself to be taken outside where, perched on a rhododendron leaf he posed for another half hour. 

Hydaspe Frit, Mount Hood Meadows Dorsal.

 

   The day before I had tallied our frits.  At first, I thought we had seen and photographed all the frits in our area in 2025.  After a while, however, I realized that we were missing the Coronis.  Rats!  So, in looking at these pictures, I was dwelling on all the white in the wings, both ventral and dorsal.  And this butterfly was a lot lighter than the hydaspe we had procured at Alpine, photographed and adjudicated as Hydaspe.  Obviously, there is an ocean of difference between chestnut brown and yellowish orange, the portion of the palette that Pyle and LaBar use to describe the dorsal Coronis.  As far as the ventral ground color goes, they say it is highly variable and location dependent. 

   It ain't for nothin' that the expert lepidopterist, Jeffrey Pippen, had Bob Pyle identify his frits when he butterflied Mt. Rainier. 

    Suffice it to say, we sent Cait numerous pictures, but she sent us only one answer:  all the pictures are Hydaspe Frit.  

    It's a fair jaunt from Timberline Lodge to Mount Hood Meadows, 17 miles and a combined elevation loss and gain of about 4500 feet taking over half an hour by Mr. Toad's motor car.    In actual miles, say as the gray jay might fly, it's less than three miles.  At that altitude three miles gets you about a quarter of the way around the mountain, from a southern exposure to an eastern.  It's sort of interesting how much difference we found between our two Hydapspe frits. found so close together on the mountain.   As for the Coronis, there is always next year.

jeff