Crofton Ridge, August 26, 2026
I drove two and a half hours, the last half hour through sadly beautiful burned forests, up the south side of Mt Adams to Crofton Ridge trailhead. This trailhead is no longer marked, but it is just south of Morrison Creek campground and trailhead. There is a little pull off, an outhouse and a fallen down sign, leaning on some pines. The sign does not say that this is Crofton Ridge trailhead, and it was out of Wilderness permits, though there was a box for them.
This trail now takes you through burned forest that is in resurgence. It was a warmish late summer day, the ground was dry and very dusty. And every time I would kneel down to take flower photos, my hands would come up dirty and often with some charcoal on them. I wear kneepads since I am up and down so much, and the dirt and charcoal found their ways under the kneepads. By the time I was done hiking, I was a mess, literally.
And yet, the burned trees, both standing and downed, had a beauty of their own.
Click on any image to enlarge it.
The elevation here is about 4500 feet. You can make out the road in the foreground of this photo.
The most prevalent wildflower growing was Fireweed. These were not as tall as some I have seen, many of them were short, maybe a foot off the ground. And many were going to seed as the photo on the right shows. Also there were many, many Pearly Everlasting. And a close relative, Northwestern Rabbit-Tobacco, sometimes called Slender Cudweed, were also in great numbers. Pearly Everlasting and Northwestern Rabbit-Tobacco are both members of the Aster family.
Scattered around in the burnt logs were Silverleaf Phacelia, some with flowers still blooming and some with flowers no more.
This bee flitted around this one bloom for a couple of minutes while I was attempting to get a good photo of the flowers alone. But I ended up with the bee anyway.
There were a few downed trees that had not burned, but must have been blown down; they lost their bark, but had an interesting pattern of the cambrium layer.
Other flowers I found along the trail were Scarlet Gilia and Littleflower Penstemon.
The Scarlet Gilia were close to gone and many of the Penstemons were also gone, but there were some still vividly standing out.
All in all a good day out on the trail.
