Selected photos by Rod Crawford and Laurel Ramseyer from our 19 August 2021 spider collecting trip to the Peek-a-Boo Lake Trail, 9 miles south of Darrington, Snohomish County, Washington. We got a great head start of 20 species in mossy riparian forest above the Sauk River before taking the narrow, switch-backy, 5-mile road to the trailhead. We had no time to hike to the lake, but just went far enough that we were well into the mid-elevation old growth forest, where I went to town on dead-wood collecting, getting 9 identifiable species. Laurel added several more from understory and an unusually good (for western Washington) under-rock sample. The highly satisfactory result, 33 species.

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Peek-a-Boo Lake at bottom; our low & high collecting sites in red (Snohomish Co., 2017)	Our riparian collecting site at junction where road starts to climb        © Laurel Ramseyer
I got 5 species from roadside verge       © Rod Crawford	Productive ferns on roadcut bank               © Rod Crawford
Moss-covered trees abounded         © Rod Crawford	Teneral and darker females of moss spider Pelecopsis sculpta   © Rod Crawford
Ero tuberculata from moss             © Rod Crawford	Laurel prepares to sift another load of moss                © Rod Crawford
Beyond gate, riverside road becomes trail          © Rod Crawford	Gate of long standing blocks the lower road                   © Rod Crawford
Non-luminous lampyrid beetle, Ellychnia sp.     © Laurel Ramseyer	Farther along the decommissioned road              © Laurel Ramseyer
Pocket of maple leaf litter     © Rod Crawford	Another richly mossy maple tree                     © Laurel Ramseyer
The Peek-a-Boo Lake Trail begins      © Rod Crawford	True trailhead back in the seral forest                  © Laurel Ramseyer
Dead wood in seral forest near trailhead    © Rod Crawford	Before too long, the trail enters old growth          © Laurel Ramseyer
And old growth is the place for dead wood   © Rod Crawford	This looks like the right place for wood sampling             © Laurel Ramseyer
Dead wood habitat             © Rod Crawford	And more dead wood habitat; 50 specimens, 9 species         © Rod Crawford
Laurel got some good ones under rocks       © Rod Crawford	We were sorry to leave the magnficent old growth             © Rod Crawford
Trailside western toad             © Laurel Ramseyer	Trailside deer fern                     © Rod Crawford
Rich trailside understory          © Laurel Ramseyer	Dwarf dogwood with its red fruits                     © Rod Crawford
Barred owl seen on the way down    © Laurel Ramseyer	Laurel gets back to the trailhead first                 © Rod Crawford
Why did the ruffed grouse cross the road?  © Rod Crawford	…the answer is left as an exercise for the student         © Rod Crawford

This page last updated 22 August, 2021