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28 II 2025: Laurel warned me that some field weather was near, and we both decided on the Randle area (White Pass Highway, eastern Lewis County), where I had a trip plan and 10 old records as a head start. We went south the "back way" through Elbe and arrived on schedule; I had 4 pre-selected sites E and SE of the town, and we started with Silver Creek Cemetery. Laurel got 7 identifiable species in grave vases, I added 6 from conifer foliage, and we both checked out service sheds for 3 more. Laurel's shed had wasps on it, while mine had western boxelder bugs! Then ho for a giant grassy field around tiny Gibbs Lake, SE of Randle. Alas, at this season the field is a marsh! I added 3 species sweeping grass (and dodging cutleaf blackberry) right at the less-wet fringe; Laurel added 3 more from a rock outcrop across the road. Up a side road, I found a little more good conifer foliage (though a promising tree farm was posted), adding 4 for a total so-far of 26. By this time we were getting decidedly warm; fortunately our next stop was shady.
          Not far north of our marsh, a side road went between the Cowlitz River and a rocky bluff, giving access to a delightfully mossy and leaf-littery fringe of maple with some alder. I sifted 9 species from the litter (including a Walckenaeria I don't recognize), while Laurel got 13 species sifting moss at the other end of the car. Ferns on the bluff face and webs on the guardrail added respectively 2 and 1 that were different. We now had 46 species!
          I had one preselected site left, north of the road to the cemetery on national forest land, where I hoped to find better conifer foliage. No such luck, but Laurel added Theridion californicum from salal. On our way out, we stopped at the local high school where we each added one species from window frames, Laurel's being a Phidippus she had to rear. This winter trip netted us 49 species, and 9 of the 10 old records were different, making 58! And now it was time for a pilgrimage. In the latter part of the 1980s Mt. St. Helens project, our team often drove in to the Pumice Plain from Randle, and stopped to eat on the way home at an out-of-town burger joint, the Huff-n-Puff. It's still there! And the burgers are OK, too, with delicious shakes.

5 IV 2025: At the end of last summer's Skate Creek trip, Laurel and I stopped at Evergreen (Packwood) Cemetery, in an adjacent gridspace, for an 8-species head start on a future visit, but didn't get the "grave vase spider." Today was the future visit (with Kathy added to the mix), and Laurel wanted to confirm whether that species was really there. She found it! At the cemetery, the three of us added 10 species to the previous 8.
          Our main collecting for the day was at nearby Skate Creek Park, 700-odd acres on lower Skate Creek once planned for a state park, but somehow never made the cut; it's now managed by a local group of "friends." The area near the tiny north-end parking lot had both moss and cottonwood litter. My litter sift added only 3 species, but Laurel's moss sift added 11 more including an amazing male segestriid that almost has to be Segestria, but sure doesn't look like one; obviously new! I headed downstream to a second site, where Kathy was productively tapping cones and beating Douglas-fir foliage, adding 5 more. Later I tried to sift maple litter at this site and added only one.
          Farther downstream still, I found the habitat I was aiming for, an apparent "old gravel bar" area from before a shift of the streamcourse, but so rocky it's still mostly open. The field-layer of grass and herbs here is so sparse it's barely visible, but sweeping it still got me 5 species including rare Misumenops importunus! I also got an active wolf spider (saw others that evaded me), and added 5 more from conifers in the open. Laurel passed me and stopped in somewhat similar habitat on a gravel "island" where she found large Pardosa lowriei (which she had to rear) and 3 more species additions. Back near the picnic table Kathy had taken a bunch of Neriene radiata from sun-highlighted webs, and I swept a few others from sparse understory. Our day's total was 42, making 47 with the species from last summer. And Kathy was willing to stop for milkshakes (which impressed her mightily) at the Huff-n-Puff.

14 IV 2025: Spring was much in evidence when Kathy, Laurel and I came to an area of mostly timber company land south of the Cowlitz River. We stopped first at Lone Hill Cemetery (perched at the end of a high ridge with a panoramic view), where Laurel got her grave-vase spider but not much else. Then on to our main site where Otter Creek crosses Evans Road a mile or 2 before it stops at a Weyerhaeuser gate. The creekside land belongs to friendly Port Blakely Tree Farms. The creek looked oddly muddy or turbid, not what I'd expect of otter (or even salmon) habitat, but the riparian woods had reasonably decent spiders. I sifted litter and beat salal; Laurel sifted moss and swept along the creek; Kathy chased wolf spiders, beat understory, and tapped 50 Douglas-fir cones. In all, the site produced 26 species, least common being Bathyphante gracilis from litter.
          Our second site was farther along Evans road (its end in sight), belonging to Skykomish Resources which also allows access. A gated road was lined with rather thin but still productive Douglas-firs that produced no less than 17 species for my and Kathy's beating, notable finds including Rhomphaea fictilium and Dismodicus sp. #1 (which is not all that rare but seldom found mature). Laurel swept roadside ditches, getting among others, rare Clubiona kastoni, a first for her. She and I beat Scots broom which, besides the usual Theridion simile, had a number of Cyclosa conica and a few Ceraticelus fissiceps. I beat hanging ferns on a bank, adding another Clubiona species and a mature Ozyptila. Between our two main sites we had a fine 43 species for the day.
          On our way back to the freeway, we made our burger stop at Betty's Place just outside Toledo, another of our favorites which we'd discovered on a 2019 trip. Traffic was lighter than usual going home.

23 IV 2025: With Laurel unavailable, it was Kathy, Jerry and I who tried for a spider sample in timber company land SSW of the small cluster of buildings called Wildwood. As I had hoped, the gated road (on Sierra Pacific land) was open to hiking. We crossed the South Fork of the Chehalis River on road 500, turned onto side road 530, and walked into exceptionally lovely early-Spring terrain that filled us all with delight. I stopped to collect from riparian habitats at a bridge across a substantial, but unnamed, tributary creek while the others continued a little further, seeking conifer forest.
          At the creek, I swept 3 species from roadside grass, and 3 bags of leaf litter produced 7 spider species and some non-spiders of interest; I caught one Pardosa species on the road and beat 4 additional web-makers from ferns. On Kathy's return, I set her to sampling from stumps, but what she found was all juvenile; however, she'd taken worthwhile species at a junction up the hill, from Douglas-fir foliage and cones. She headed back to the car for her nap, while I sifted 7 more species from moss, making 21-22 from this first site.
          At Kathy's junction, she'd added 7 more species which I supplemented with 2 more she'd missed on the tree foliage. Further along road 530, at the second bridge over a second nameless creek, she'd taken 5 species from guardrails, one of which added to the total. At this point, with the time limit approaching, I tried vainly to figure out where Jerry'd gone, then headed back to the car myself; fortunately Jerry caught up with me, having added 8 more species from grass, Douglas-fir and moss, plus a very nice active Tarentula kochii. We found Kathy hadn't had a very restful time; she'd encountered a talkative, not fully sober group of locals quite sure that all spiders belong to the only 2 species they'd ever heard of (neither of which lives in Lewis County). It's for such people that I made the spider myths website! Then homeward with no further adventures and 39-41 species.

4 V 2025: This time both Kathy and Laurel were unavailable, and I thought I'd try Sayna Parsi, who last managed a field trip in October 2023. By gum, she could go on Sunday with a good prediction for the Columbia Basin. We found our goal without trouble, a grove of Eleagnus or "Russian olive" along a shallow watercourse that becomes a gully farther south. Parking, we entered the grove and began to sift litter. The pickings seemed no better than fair at the time, but in the end this sift sample gave me 8 species, 6 of them more or less rare! The jumping spiders weren't Neon as I thought but Talavera minuta. There was Pocadicnemis occidentalis, Ebo evansae, and three dictynids: Dictyna minuta (seen once before), D. bicornis (twice), and Argenna obesa which I've never before personally collected!
          Our Eleagnus grove was by no means mosquito-free (there was at least one tick also), but I found no bites afterward, while Sayna complains of at least eight! Anyway, after sifting I swept one more species from grassy understory, beat another from tree foliage, and got two more by shaking tumbleweeds. Then I crossed the road where there was a marsh, too deep for my tennis shoes alas, and prospected the road guardrail for spiders, finding a nice male Phidippus audax — which managed to escape while I was chasing it around in my net, curses! The steppe around our grove was otherwise a wasteland of pre-tumbleweed thistle, so we now moved to a second site a short distance east.
          At the bend in the road where unpaved road 15 continues eastward we found much higher quality shrub-steppe habitat. Here I swept a tract of grass and herbs (that happened to be sagebrush-free) for 4 good species, including a male black widow. Much rock-turning, however, added only Psilochorus hesperus, and beating sagebrush, while it produced a number of specimens, added only Philodromus histrio. Our day's total of 18 species would have to be supplemented, but that proved easy to do on the next trip. That great sift sample made this day's work very worthwhile.

11 V 2025: When Laurel learned of our May 4 field site in Grant County, she decided she wanted to sample cemetery spiders at Royal City east of there. So the following Sunday saw us at the Royal City "Memorial Garden". My own first care was to beat sagebrush in a tract across the driveway from the actual cemetery, which got me at least five species. A post-church rush of cemetery visitors had arrived just after us, so Laurel occupied some time by collecting three species on the side of an equipment garage, then beating tall juniper shrubs along the east edge (4 species). A row of eastern white pines along the south edge had dropped their cones across the driveway in the sagebrush, and these produced three very interesting additions. The cemetery now being deserted, the grave vases yielded 8 good species, two of which (a Disembolus and a Meioneta) I haven't figured out yet!
          While Laurel did all this, I moved south to an Eleagnus grove owned by the school district, hoping to repeat last week's litter-sifting triumph; I didn't quite manage that, but did get 4 identifiable species. Then we moved a few blocks west to a complex of school buildings. I searched the walls of one for spiders, almost in vain (one spider!). Laurel had spotted a secondary irrigation canal just outside the school fence, where sweeping got her 5 species, and rock-turning, 3 more. We now had 32-33 species from Royal City, with a prior record adding one more. There'd been a 20% chance of showers, but it all fell east of us from ominous black clouds.
          Last on our agenda was a stop on Lower Crab Creek (at a bridge) to supplement last week's sample with at least 3 more species. It was a fine and scenic spot, just under the north wall of the Saddle Mountains, cast with ever-changing, impressive shadows by the sinking sun and scattered clouds. Sweeping and beating vegetation, plus plant-tip dictynid webs, brought the 6898 gridspace from 18 to 29 species, capped by a big mature Cheiracanthium inclusum that Laurel found in his retreat on green rabbitbrush. We started for home — or started to! Just past Beverly, something seemed amiss with our progress, and Laurel stopped to find the left front tire as flat as any pancake. What punctured it, we never knew. The AAA man arrived maybe 2 hours later, and the spare was only good for 50 mph, so we got home well after midnight…

23 V 2025: Now Laurel had a yen for cemetery samples from Naches (pronounced na-cheese) in the upper Yakima Valley. I was able to find two cemeteries, a partly-wild park, and a large DNR-owned sagebrush tract all in the 6706 gridspace. Kathy drove us, and we arrived at Naches Cemetery on schedule, but it's a good thing we had other sites; staff told Laurel the grounds had been sprayed (perhaps for Japanese Beetle?) and the vases cleaned lately! Laurel did get 2 (non-native) species from the vases and Kathy got Steatoda triangulosa from valve boxes, but I found zero spiders in foliage.
          Our second site, Cleman's View Sports Park, did have halfway decent spiders, even though a bit sparse. Despite the emphasis on lawns and playing fields, the riparian zone along the river offered grassland and woodland. I began by sifting cottonwood litter, for just a few tiny spiders; I was pleased later to find them mature Tachygyna sp. #2. Laurel and I did a lot of grass sweeping, both in the open and the shade, getting 12 species between us. Laurel made additions from pine foliage and pine cones; Kathy added 3 nice ones from willow shrubs and one more from buildings. At this point our running total was 23-24.
          Now, up Naches-Wenas Road to a square mile of state-owned shrub-steppe. We parked on a dirt road, and Laurel and I beat 8 more species from sagebrush. Kathy added two good ones sweeping grass and herbs, and Laurel found a Titanoeca under a board (having gone over a hill "to see what she could see"). Then for our last stop, Wenas Cemetery, with its impressive monument to a bull bison, founder of a local herd. Laurel added two more grave-vase species and Kathy got a so-far unidentified Grammonota from pine cones. We headed north and west for our Mountain High Hamburgers with 37-38 species in the vials.

31 V 2025: The one day this week Kathy and Laurel were available turned out to be the one day with a dodgy weather forecast. Oh well, we decided to go anyway, and in the end were glad we did. I picked the site with least chance of rain (20% when I checked, zero, or at least less than 10, when Laurel looked). To wit, Hog Island river access on the lower Cowlitz River. Our travel was straightforward, we found the site easily, and it was cloudy but dry at the lush riparian forest with grassy places. Seeing that grass gave all three of us the idea of sweeping it; between us we swept 13 species, but Laurel had the best luck, with both sexes of an apparently new Walckenaeria species! She also got a nice male Micaria pulicaria under charred wood in a fire ring. Kathy beat roadside shrubs, adding 5; Laurel found a vertical rock face that supported spider-rich foliage, and sifted a few from sparse, dry moss; I added several from litter plus a riverbank Pardosa. By this time, it was drizzling off and on, but never enough to get foliage really wet, and anyway we had 31 species from the site.
          For the second half of the trip we drove up Casey Road into state-owned timberland (not shut behind a gate, for a change) and found a recently planted clearcut with more Douglas-fir foliage than we could shake a net at. Kathy and I got 19 species from this (some duplicating the river site), including until-now rare Dictyna olympiana, also taken (in some numbers) in 3 other habitats here. The sun started to appear; a number of Pardosa wolf spiders were active, and I thought they might be diferent, but they were the same P. vancouveri as by the river. Then a black cloud followed the sun and it actually rained enough to make the ground wet. Luckily, the sun returned and dried it all off! Laurel beat broom, getting no species different from the trees; found one addition under dead wood; got one more (and a tick) on thistle heads; and swept clearcut grass, adding three including a juvenile that appears to be Oxyopes salticus, which once wasn't known north of Oregon. Kathy found a male Phidippus johnsonii, I believe her first of this spectacular jumping spider, and I got one more from ferns in adjacent forest. Our total from this gridspace, 48-49 species, despite the brief rain.
          Laurel wanted to get a proper sample from vases in the Toledo cemetery, and had us drop her off there while we got burgers at Betty's Place. Eight species from the cemetery, all but one additions for Toledo.

13 VI 2025: I'd discovered an unsampled area we could access by a short hike up a Sierra Pacific timber road, starting on Highway 7 between Elbe and Morton. Not far north of that is the little-known (because not on a highway) town of Mineral, featuring an unsampled cemetery, a sure drawing card for Laurel! With Kathy driving, the three of us arrived at Mineral Cemetery on a cool but dry day, and Laurel added three species from grave vases to that already well-sampled area. Then onward to SP Road 550, where it was a short stroll from the gate to Roundtop Creek, flowing north from a local divide. The riparian zone had lovely moss, stream cobbles in gravel bars, tall ferns, a concrete bridge, and extensive stands of very tall grass, enough to light up three spider collectors' eyes! Kathy began by sweeping grass, and got a fine 9-species sample including some unusual red color variants of species not usually that color. I didn't find very much leaf litter, but enough for a 5-species sample (but 3 of those were probably from included wads of moss).
          Alongside the creek ran an old logging railroad, still with tracks but clearly not usable by trains. But while I sifted, something colorful appeared far down the tracks. Closer and closer, resolving into a number of low-slung blue & yellow "rail cycles" pedaled by up to 4 people each, taking a forest tour starting and ending in Mineral. We had no idea such a thing existed! Anyway, our streamside collecting continued with moss-sifting (Laurel) and fern-beating (me). Laurel's cobble-turning produced the best species, rare Cybaeopsis spenceri, and others. Kathy beat streamside foliage and Laurel collected from the bridge. Our total catch from Roundtop Creek was 26 species.
          Past the creek, the roads continued through regrowth of diverse ages, where I hoped for a conifer foliage sample. Kathy and I both took a right turn up a side road, where she found a recent windfall to beat, but most other branches were hard to reach; a nearby open area (seen on aerial views) was down a very steep slope. But while she turned back, I continued a little further and found a 2013 clearcut with regrowth of just the right age. Here, I could beat Pseudotsuga and Abies to my heart's content, and kept getting more species, 14 eventually. There was also daisy-rich grass to sweep and some rocks to turn, the latter revealing uncommon Callilepis pluto.
          Laurel had sailed by our side road and continued to a younger (2018) clearcut on a ridge. Her beating there, and Kathy's windfall, both yielded species I didn't get, including (for the second trip in a row) formerly rare Dictyna olympiana. One wolf spider species became active late in the day. Our successful total, 41 species.

24 VI 2025: Back in 2018, Laurel and I had collected along the Centralia-Alpha Road, at the eastern, Alpha end. The western end (where I'd also prepared a trip plan) remained unsampled until today, but my 7-year-old plan still worked! Through a bit of wrong-way driving, we ended up visiting the planned sites out of sequence, beginning with a timber road that goes through 3 different companies' land, starting with Port Blakely which welcomes hikers. Through the initial clearcut (cut 2009), the sides of the road were rich with grass and daisies, backed by young Douglas-fir (and unfortunately, lots of invasive cutleaf blackberry). Laurel swept 6 species from the roadside, and I beat 8 from conifer foliage; then we continued up the road into Jorgensen Timber land which had a grove of large alders. There, I sifted a bit of leaf litter (adding one species) and Laurel did better with trunk moss, adding 7 species; then a nice male Micaria pulicaria ran across her sifting cloth. We had 21 species in all from this first site.
          Some distance farther west was a tract of established second growth forest where I expected to be able to stroll along an overgrown road. The tank trap blocking the old road is still intact, but the road itself had merged into the forest! However, this tract has a well-grown fern/salal understory that ultimately yielded 8 species to our beating nets. Laurel decided to tap wood from the rather numerous rotting stumps and got 6 more, but 2 of those were repeats of her earlier moss sample.
          Before heading for home, we wanted to visit one more of my original 6 projected sites in the area, and picked another Port Blakely clearcut (not very far east), the same age as the first one but with less blackberry. I got a better conifer foliage sample here, adding 4 species. Laurel swept the more extensive road-surface field, adding Erigone aletris and the season's first adult Philodromus josemitensis. The most interesting habitat proved to be some sheets of paper someone had littered the roadside with; under them were an adult Phrutotimpus, a juvenile Zelotes, and an adult Drassyllus depressus (usually taken only by pitfall), the day's most interesting species. I also found some tasty red huckleberries here! Our day's total for the new area was 35 species.
          I didn't mention earlier that we started the day with a revisit to Alpha Cemetery (sampled on the 2018 trip but we didn't know about grave vases then). The vases added 2 species to that area, including the undescribed linyphiid we are studying.

7 VII 2025: I'd made a trip plan for a lovely-looking cemetery, nestled in mid-forest south of Raymond and east of South Bend in Pacific County; one of many founded by the Odd Fellows. But Laurel determined she wouldn't be able to sample grave vases there, making it less attractive. Then, with Laurel and Kathy both traveling, a new potential volunteer called out of the blue: Dolly Owen. She, Jerry and I headed for the coast this warm Monday morning, and after considering options, decided on the isolated cemetery. We didn't get lost (much), and arrived at our goal in good time, where I began by sweeping tall grass at the edge of clearing and roads. Oddly, I got only 2 identifiable species; no Tibellus or Tetragnatha turned up all day! Next, we made our way to the lower end of the cemetery where there were some mossy trees in adjacent woods; sifting trunk moss added 4 species. Back near the car was forest with well developed salal-fern understory, which finally got us more spider diversity: 9 from salal, and 5 (adding one to the salal) from ferns. Meanwhile, Jerry had been beating conifer foliage, which brought our subtotal for the cemetery itself to 22 species.
          Then Dolly and I walked ahead on the dirt road, which skirted undeveloped cemetery property and entered commercial forest. Approaching a grassy intersection, I spotted something alive and moving on the ground; who should it be but Jerry! He had beaten conifers all along the road from the cemetery to this new locality (baaaad Jerry! scientific collectors keep distinct locations separate), adding no less than 7 species, which will take some head-scratching to assign to locality. But this new site was reasonably productive. Again, the grass produced very little, but Dolly swept a male Misumena vatia and I, a male Araniella displicata. Jerry and I both beat conifers here (specimens in fresh vials!), adding 5 further species; I set Dolly to beating ferns along a shady section of road, where she got our only Linyphantes anacortes. At this point we had 36 species.
          Just one more habitat: farther west in the same gridspace, I'd identified some potential tidal marshland on property owned by a group whose laudable purpose is to keep land open for hunters. So, a-hunting spiders we will go! The first stop was a washout because of invasive blackberry, but a gated-but-free-to-walking road led past a narrow inlet that I later found out is called Skidmore Slough. We walked a little way up the road until we could see attractive habitat below, then descended a wooded slope and emerged in perfect tall grass meadow, not too close to tidal channels but they're visible from the air. Jerry and I both swept but got nothing but juveniles! However, Dolly saved the day by spotting the double retreat of a salt-marsh jumping spider, known to me as Sitticus palustris but now called Attulus floricola. It was the day's last, and best, spider for 37 total.

12 VII 2025: I had a plan that seemed ideal for Kathy's SUV: a reputedly rough road (reached from the Stampede Pass exit, past Snoqualmie Pass near Keechelus Dam) that I hoped would take us to Meadow Pass, in an unsampled gridspace that's largely in the Cedar River Watershed. I had maps, photos and hiker directions, but the network of unsigned or confusingly signed roads still fooled us into being lost for an hour or so, until my GPS told us we were on the right road for the pass after all! And sure enough, it finally got us there. At Meadow Pass we saw nobody else but a couple of Russian-speaking motorcyclists! There was plenty of conifer foliage to beat, from which I got 6 species; Kathy got 3 of the same but also 3 others I didn't find. Other habitats disappointed, however; I found nothing but ants under forest rocks, and zero spiders from roadside sweeping.
          Kathy had found an informal trail that she hoped would lead down to nearby Stirrup Lake (for which the true trailhead is on a road we never found). I was a bit puzzled, since the map shows Stirrup Lake on the east side of the road we drove up on, while Kathy's trail is on the west side and never crossed the road! But Kathy did find a small lake (2 acres or so), and swept alder and huckleberry shrubs along the shoreline. This sample added males of Clubiona pacifica and Erigone dentosa, plus a harvestman.
          Meanwhile, I'd found a more official-looking trail on the correct side of the road, and was just preparing to leave Kathy a note telling her where I'd gone, when she returned from her little lake. So we both hiked down the real trail for about 20 minutes, and lo, the real Stirrup Lake! It's a lovely body of water, about 10-11 acres at this season. I swept the lake shore, adding one more species, then found a little area of the spider-friendly Sphagnum moss along the shore. Sifting two bags of this got me Eulaira arctoa, Halorates alascensis and Agyneta perspicua (day's best species), and while I sifted, a Neriene litigiosa ran onto the cloth! Our next order of business was to tap dead wood, which got me 16 specimens adding 3 more species. I'd set Kathy to doing the same but she got nothing — I still needed to teach her some wrinkles of technique. While Kathy returned to the car (stopping along the way at the third small lake, a lily pond), I beat some conifer foliage facing the lake shore and added 2 dictynid species, bringing us up to a basic, bare-bones 21-spider species sample for the day. Not spectacular, but not failure either, and we didn't even get lost on the way out.

27 VII 2025: It's always nice to have an Olympic Peninsula trip plan, and I'd made one for the area west of the NW corner of Lake Crescent, where forest service roads went to the upper Lyre River (outlet of the lake) and another one farther west to June Creek. We tried the river first — good thing! Our road reached the river bridge in short order, and stopped there at a gate (it's private timberland beyond). No Keep Out sign on the gate, though, so we felt free to walk on both banks. My first stop was the south bank (past the gate) where I gathered a bag of leaf litter on the steep ravine slope. The dome webs of Neriene litigiosa were everywhere, and I stopped to collect one. But my litter got me very little, and a nice little Usofila I thought I sifted, didn't make it into the vial! Meanwhile, Kathy concentrated on beating young conifers (present in abundance) until she had over 70 specimens of 12 species. Best was an adult male (I've never seen a male before!) of bizarre little Rhomphaea fictilium. She also beat Scots broom, adding a mature Evarcha.
          Now I wandered around north of the river and found a nice overgrown side road that parallels the stream. I swept the grassy verge for 4 species, beat salal for 5 and ferns for 2 more. Laurel got Ero canionis from dry trunk moss and I later got 3 species in slightly better moss in another grove. Laurel's best spiders were under stones and wood in an old fire ring: 5 species including a Castianeira and a Callilepis. She also got a mature Neon from ground moss.
          Kathy felt like trying another site, so we packed up and tried to find a route to the June Creek area. No such luck! Every possible route was blocked. No way to get to that area of National Forest from the east without a gate key. So, still having an hour of precious field time, back to the river for us! I sifted that moss, Laurel found some different salal to beat and inspected riverbank foliage (where she got an Eris militaris from a retreat on fern), and I turned over most of the rocks in a pile I'd found in the woods. Alas, all the spiders from my rocks were juvenile Calymmaria! Kathy harvested a bunch of varied berries for us; my favorites were the tart red huckleberries and thimbleberries, while she liked what she called wild blackcap raspberries (I found those bland). We had 27-29 species when we headed back to the ferry, to find that too many weekenders had the same idea! But we only missed one sailing, then got on just in time for good sunset pictures while heading home.

4 VIII 2025: Due to temporary traffic issues, we still needed to go north, so we tried Mineral Park Campground on the upper Cascade River (almost as far up that river as you can drive before entering North Cascades National Park). The day was mild and overcast. We trespassed on someone's reserved campsite just above the river (fortunately they never showed up), and I found a route to scramble down to river level, me to gather alder litter, Laurel to gather trunk moss and turn over gravel bar rocks. The litter (though it seemed nice and moist) got me only one mature species. Laurel did better from the moss (5 species including one already-mature crab spider she thought she'd have to rear), but the rocks (apparently submerged not long before) yielded only one good spider. Kathy and I tried beating conifer foliage (largely western hemlock with some true fir), getting spiders but not too many species; oddly, the greater number of the spiders were Hyptiotes gertschi. I eventually switched over to ferns and Kathy to huckleberry shrubs, getting more diversity.
          At the end of all this we had 20 species, so we tried a few different things. Laurel did a tour of all the camp outhouses, getting 5 species that included 2 good additions: funnel weaver Novalena intermedia, and pale specimens of large, usually-dark native orbweaver Araneus nordmanni. I found a developed trail from a campsite through varied riparian habitats, ending up at the road near a bridge over the North Fork Cascade; along the trail was some different moss that added another species. Laurel added 2 by sweeping along the river, though her survey of the bridge railings brought only more Hyptiotes! (See album). Kathy walked around plucking spiders from aerial webs; she got our only specimens of the two dome-weaving Neriene species and the only adult Cyclosa conica. I looked in several places for dead-wood habitat and finally found some near the camp entrance (also near some huge red cedars), but the only mature spider was a nice male of Cybaeus eutypus.
          In the end we had 25 species, plus Kathy's harvest of red and blue huckleberries, far too many for us to eat so they were left behind for the next person or a bear. We had hopes of making it to the Darrington Burger Barn by their closing time, but before we had phone signals to call in our order, it was clear we'd be too late.

21 VIII 2025: A moderate delay made it unlikely that we'd catch the ferry, so I pulled out a couple of far-north trip plans along the Mt. Baker highway. We ended up ascending Wells Creek Road (past amazing views of Baker), aiming at a bridge across Wells Creek. Well, I guess that "bridge" is more of a culvert, and we sailed right by it to stop finally at a real bridge (across Bar Creek) at the point where the road starts to ascend a mountain. This spot worked out very well for us.
          Beside our parking spot, a path down to the creek passed through an alder thicket where the leaf litter was really juicy! And it moreover produced 7 spider and 2 harvestman species. Laurel's moss sift added another 7, including both sexes of a Meioneta I don't recognize. And Kathy spotted a huge, normal-colored native orbweaver Araneus nordmanni just hanging in mid-air at her web's hub! Four more species came from Laurel's checking the bridge railings. Both Kathy and I beat the very accessible conifer foliage, adding 8 more. We all swept grassy roadside verge, adding another 3. Kathy found a surprisingly late-season Pardosa lowriei wolf spider (with eggs) active on the gravel bar, and even beat a fine male Evarcha jumping spider from thimbleberry. The subtotal from this first site was a very good 33 species.
          The one drawback of Bar Creek Bridge was lack of access to the forest interior; and even if we could have, there appeared to be little understory. So to complete our sample, we returned to the Wells Creek section of the road and a bit farther, stopping at the edge of a clearing, well above the creek. Below the road, on a steepish slope in mature forest, I found classic sword fern understory from which I beat 7 species (adding only one to the first site, however). Laurel and Kathy worked in the clearing, adding Neriene litigiosa from her dome web and a second large native orbweaver, Araneus gemma. Total for the day, 36, and largely lacking invasives: very nice!

3 IX 2025: Laurel was out of town, but Kathy was free and we followed optimum weather to the coast. Specifically, to the vicinity of Artic, a place (hardly a town) along U.S. 101 on its way to Raymond. Half a mile south, 101 crosses the North River and on the south side is the one public land tract I could discover in the whole area — under jurisdiction of the Department of Transportation according to the sign on the gate. It's not big, but a nice habitat with well-developed riparian alder forest that provided good litter and moss, both of which I sifted: 7 spider and 4 harvestman species from litter, 6 more spider species from moss. Kathy tried ferns, getting mostly the two common invasive orbweaver species. But in an aerial web Kathy (with a little help) captured a magnificent, solitary female of native Araneus marmoreus, which unfortunately nobody photographed. Kathy also swept lush grassy verge along the highway, adding 6 more including uncommon native orbweaver Neoscona arabesca! The bridge added nothing, but those 2 native orbweavers made our day.
          Just past the alder forest was a rough open field with a stand of Scots broom, a pile of logs, and some kind of big metal shed. There was nobody around, so we slipped in and carried off 4 more spider and 2 more harvestman species. Total so far, 29 spider species.
          Further south (2 miles past Artic) was a small tract that (according to the assessor's map) is part of the highway right-of-way. Along a powerline and a gated road there, we beat 10 species (plus another harvestman) from conifer foliage, and I got an Ero canionis from ferns. In all, we had 34 spider and 7 harvestman species, but had run out of accessible sites, so we left the area early, stopping near Artic for large milkshakes that we had to eat with spoons (they consisted mainly of home-made ice cream!).

17 IX 2025: Kathy, Laurel and I were set to do another Olympic Peninsula / Kingston Ferry trip. We got on the ferry with almost no delay, but although it wasn't that many miles to our destination, it took forever to get there thanks to slow vehicles ahead of us and an amazingly circuitous detour. We arrived at the South Fork Sol Duc River close to 2 pm, having abandoned plans to go even farther; to get a sample in little more than 2 hours, we'd have to try "speed collecting!" First I sifted 3 bags of alder and maple leaf litter, which turned out fine, 11 spider species plus other stuff. Laurel's moss sift added 7 more of the usual suspects. Kathy did better on fern beating than at Artic, adding a further 7 including a nice male of Wubana atypica.
          Laurel's descent from the bridge to river level was worthwhile, getting the usual Bathyphantes malkini and less-usual Calymmaria emertoni under river cobbles. There was nothing different on the bridge itself or in a riverbank sweep sample, but she found a female Misumena vatia guarding her eggs in a snazzy leaf nest.
          Kathy added 2 more species sweeping roadside grass, but the 6 species she beat from a moss-covered conifer were all repeats of previous habitats. Walking up the road a ways, I found a better conifer stand near where another forest visitor had parked; besides an interesting conversation, I got 13 spider species from the trees, 7 of them adding to our day's take. Leaving for home (a faster drive as it turned out), we had a more than adequate 37+ species. The best news was no invasive species whatever; but we also got no dome-weavers or araneid orbweavers. Perhaps the oddest thing is that the medium-sized sheet-weaver Helophora reducta, which we don't always find at all, was in six of the microhabitats sampled!

26 IX 2025: One more day trip before the planned expedition! We decided on Pluvius, a now-vanished "town" along the railroad that is now the Willapa Hills Trail, which we'd used to good effect on previous trips. We found our (informal) parking spot easily, and set off westward along the trail, the only ones using that section today. My plan was to start at a section where aerial views appeared to show big maple trees. They were there! It was easy to gather a couple of bags of rich maple litter and sift it, but litter fauna wasn't as advanced here as on the previous week's trip, starting me off with a mere 6 spider species. There was plenty of moss, but Laurel found that the best stuff was out of reach; it looked as if someone had "harvested" moss from the lower tree trunks. Nonetheless, sifting what she could get gave Laurel another 11 species. My best habitat at this site was ferns hanging down the banks; after each few whacks of the fern fronds, the net was simply loaded with spiders: many of them Coreorgonal monoceros, but 13 species in all.
          Just past the maple section was a more open, grassy stretch of trail, leading to a place where a logging road crossed. This road is forbiddingly gated at its highway end, but no signs at all mar the trail crossing! Kathy and I both swept some of the grass, for 7 species in all, though the 2 invasive orbweavers dominated. A few conifer branches were available at the road crossing, but beating them only got me one more species. Meanwhile, Laurel had climbed upward and southward from the maples, coming to a timber road (the one that crossed farther on) through a "toothpick" forest. Sweeping along this got her 12 species, adding 5. With one more spotted on our way back to the car, we now had 38.
          I was hoping to get a better conifer foliage sample in some state land above the highway. Amazingly, the road's gate was open, so we drove up Pluvius Hill to a stretch of roadside with reachable tree foliage. Here, Kathy and I got a fine conifer sample of 16 species! Included were uncommon Linyphantes eureka (my catch) and Rhomphaea fictilium, which Kathy seems to get amazingly often. Laurel also did some fern beating and grass sweeping here, and we went home with 44 spider species from the Pluvius area.

THE GREAT STEVENS COUNTY MINI-EXPEDITION: Kathy, Laurel and I had been planning this for some time. We got lodging with no cash outlay thanks to Kathy's spouse's vast collection of "travel points". After a 5+ hour drive, we checked in at Chewelah, then quickly proceeded toward Colville for our first day's field work! (Incidentally we had great weather throughout, though a bit chilly in the mornings).

5 X 2025: Our first stop was a cluster of cemeteries on a plateau at the NE corner of Colville. At the south edge was a steep slope (a cliff in places) where trees were denser and I was able to beat conifers, for 5 species. Sweeping grass got Kathy very little. Laurel finally found 30 grave vases at the farther end of the first cemetery, adding 4 species. We hoped for better things from our nearby second planned site!
          Turning off Aladdin Road onto Cole Road (one of those gravel roads with a sign warning they are "Primitive"), we soon crossed Mill Creek and parked on state land thanks to Kathy's new-minted discover pass. Laurel and Kathy swarmed over the bridge and added a very satisfactory 9 species. Then Kathy peered into a pump shed. In the shed was a bucket; in the bucket was an Agelenopsis pennsylvanica. I found access to the creek a bit upstream where there was a cottonwood thicket and a big gravel bar. Cottonwood litter added only 4 identifiable species. Laurel found the main gravel bar much trampled by local youth and almost spider-free, but a smaller bar forming an island had two under-rock species. Back on the main stream bank, just sunning himself on a rock was a big male Xysticus crab spider. He turned out to be wholly-unfamiliar X. elegans!
          Now, as the sun sank, we spread out into an attractive patchwork of grassy and forested habitats. Kathy swept grass (3 species) and beat snowberry (2 more, one of them Frontinella communis). She and I both beat conifers, getting several species but only 2 adding to the sample. Laurel got relatively little from creekside foliage and pine cones, but we ended the day with 27 species — 29 after adding some old records. We loaded everything into the car but my sifter, left in mid-parking lot (still there next morning) and were soon back at our Chewelah home base.

6 X 2025: Our destination Monday morning (after retrieving my sifter) was Smackout Valley, a mountain meadow (3000' elevation) just inside the national forest, partly used for grazing but with some peripheral areas cattle-free. My intention was to find a pond/wetland just north/downslope of the main meadow, marked by a side road. But we couldn't find the right side road! It's visible from the air but not from the car! A wrong side road near the south edge of the gridspace looked promising for habitat, so we stopped there first. Morning cold was upon the land, but conifer-beating was very productive, getting me 8 species including Frontinella and an unfamiliar yellow dictynid. Kathy and Laurel added 6 or 7 more sweeping, and Laurel tapped 50 pine cones but got nothing mature. By this time it was sunny and warm.
          Now we parked by a second wrong side road near the north end of the main Smackout meadow. (The right one lurked invisibly still farther north). An easy climb over a rail fence brought us to a traditional wooden corral with all the fixings; past that, downward toward Smackout Creek, the meadow transitioned from dry to marshy. Little clumps of alders had leaf litter. Laurel and Kathy swept 10 species from the main meadow here, including a female linyphiid I don't at all recognize, and uncommon Tmarus angulatus (Kathy). Laurel swept wetland specialist Hypselistes florens in the marshy grass. Alder litter produced 6 more; our grand total, 27-29, despite never finding the habitat I was originally seeking.

6 X 2025: Laurel's niece Robin and her two homeschooled boys happened to be only a reasonable drive away from us on this day, so Laurel planned to have them join us this afternoon for a spider lesson! The plan was for them to rendezvous with us at Big Meadow Lake, our day's second main sampling target, in Colville National Forest (officially "closed" by government shutdown, but nobody around to keep us out). They pulled into the parking lot on schedule, despite a big error in the Google directions we'd sent them. The family learning group visited the lake shore and the campground, while Kathy swept and I beat conifers (mainly Engelmann spruce and pine) for 6 species.
          Heading downstream from our parking lot was Meadow Creek Trail, paved initially! The whole area must have recently hosted a cattle herd, for cowpies were everywhere. I wanted to access a nearby wetland (the "big meadow" of the lake's name), so Kathy and I followed the main trail, then a side trail to a wooden tower providing a bird's-eye view for nature-watchers. This made a good collecting HQ. Surrounding was swampy alder-cottonwood woodland, blending into open marsh meadow. In the woodland was nice moist litter! I gathered a couple of bags of alder litter, and later Kathy returned with a net-full of cottonwood litter that felt deliciously spider-friendly; in all, I sifted 6 spider species (Cybaeopsis macarius the most interesting) and a harvestman. Kathy found a couple species on the tower, then beat forest conifers adding 4 more. I expected sweeping the vast sedge-grass marsh (parts of which were dry enough to walk) to be good; surprise, doing this got me zero spiders! And no bog habitat to be found. My last hurrah of the day was dead-wood sampling around some forest logs, which added Cicurina simplex and one mature wolf spider.
          Laurel and her great-nephew Archer had found one species in a fire ring, then swept a few from the lake shore. But Laurel made the find of the day when she happened on an area strewn with the big cones of western white pine. 100 of these cones yielded fully 12 species, several uncommon and one, Meioneta fabra, rare. We headed for our Chewelah home base with 29-30 species from here, in time to catch a post-sunset sky photo.

7 X 2025: We hoped to hit 3 areas today, starting with a short visit to Meyers Falls Cemetery in the town of Kettle Falls, where I had 2 prior species records. The place was easy to find, and right outside the gate was a grassy field (private property, but vacant and not posted) for Kathy to sweep! I headed straight for the cemetery's far corner, where there were conifers to beat (some native, plus a big planted juniper) and a handy bench to sort my catch. Result, 7 species. Kathy's sweep sample added 2 more. Laurel found 15 grave vases adding 3 further species, and 2 orbweavers on a shed. Our short time here got us 14 species, making 16 with the old records; we could easily have completed the sample at another site, but had other fish to fry!

          Back in September 2011, my friend Susan Wise-Eagle passed through this area and collected 17 spider species for me in a camground on Lake Pierre. Seeking a different spot to supplement this, I fixed on tiny First Thought Lake, that I thought might be a bog. The nearest road was likely rough, but we had Kathy's car! So, in the far north of the county, we left Orient Cutoff Road and headed into the wild on Road 100. I was on the lookout for a junction leading toward the little lake, but that road was closed so thoroughly it looked like nothing! We sailed by it and dead-ended at the summit of First Thought Mountain (an interesting spot, but on the wrong side of the line). So, back at the missed turn, we hiked north. Time was now so short we had to forego the long route to the lake, but stopped at the first place we could complete Susan's sample.
          Our spot (a fork in the abandoned road on the mountain's north ridge) was very open forest (maybe an old partial cut) with grass in between, shrub stands turning to fall color, and tons of conifer foliage! At the junction, a pile of what Laurel thinks are moose scats! My conifer beat added 6 species to the 2011 sample (including uncommon Metellina mimetoides), already more than enough to complete the numbers. Laurel and Kathy added 4 more from shrubs and grass, and we were ready to head back south to the day's last goal.

7 X 2025: Back through Kettle Falls, then south via a shortcut to Orin-Rice Road, and soon we were heading uphill on the gravel route to the subalpine summit ridge of state-owned Monumental Mountain. We made it with no serious wrong turns (even seeing a black bear on the way up), and parked on a side "road" at 5200 feet, in cooler but still pleasant weather. Vegetation sampling was our first order of business and the three of us managed 10 species from various conifers. Expecting evening chill, I wanted to sift litter while I still could, but managed only 2 species from vine maple litter. After hunting high and low for good cottonwood litter, in the end I added no more from that. My primary strategy for this site was to seek out dead wood in closed canopy forest, usually an outstanding habitat at treeline in Washington. I did finally find some; the forest was a little steep but not that bad, and I got some spiders from The Habitat — only to find later that they were the very same species I'd sifted from litter!
          Meanwhile, Laurel added two more from non-conifer foliage. Kathy wins a prize for getting the one and only adult Anyphaena pacifica taken on the whole trip, from dead wood in the open. Laurel wins two prizes for finding two unusual-looking Castianeira plus an adult Phidippus under rocks; and topped it off by adding our last two species, a Spirembolus and a Euryopis, from 100 Douglas-fir cones.
          As the sun neared the horizon, it became too cold for spiders to move, and alas, we only had 19 species from Monumental Mountain. But it was a nice try, and no doubt it will be possible to get a couple more some day. On the way down, Kathy saw what she's pretty sure was a bobcat (if not a lynx), but Laurel and I missed it. We got back to Chewelah by moonlight.

8 X 2025: For the expedition's last day, we planned to stick closer to Chewelah, making the long drive home a bit shorter. It worked out well in the end. But first we wanted a last cemetery sample, from Chewelah Pioneer Cemetery and the Catholic cemetery adjacent. Alas, Laurel found no productive grave vases here! However, I got 3 species from conifer foliage, Kathy added one more from shrubs and Laurel got the best 3 from pine cones.
          I'd planned the main event of the day to be near Mud Lake, two miles to the east and just within the National Forest. But as we drove past Mud Lake, we saw it was too far below the road to conveniently reach; and wasn't the attractive wetland I'd hoped, but, as its name implied, mud! Fortunately our road continued, descending into a sort of streamless canyon, where we parked at my backup site, Quartzite Mountain Trailhead (which has no sign on-site but is easy to find from hiker accounts). Here was tall grass, lots of conifer foliage, forest, rocks, wood, in fact everything!
          So Kathy and I beat conifer foliage for a very-nice-indeed 10 species. Kathy added Metellina mimetoides from snowberry. Laurel got a sample from shrubs and grass that was mostly Neriene radiata. A short distance down the road I found a dense mixed deciduous stand in the canyon bottom with leaf litter as deep as one could wish; the sift sample was one of the best of the trip. It included a number of the tiny mygalomorph Microhexura; Usofila of the pretty green abdomen; Hahnia arizonica; and an unknown linyphiid with a bizarre-shaped male palp, among others. Laurel found an unidentified Castianeira making her egg sac under a rock, and three good species under wood and bark pieces; while Kathy got the best dead-wood spider, Meioneta bucklei. Our take from this gridspace (our 5th completed one in 4 days) was 26 species, and Laurel reared an interesting Xysticus which is maturing as I write! Our long drive home was uneventful and even gave us a decent sunset.

Hold on to your hats, another field year continues!

This page last updated 29 November, 2025