Here are the flowers we saw along our hike at Coopers Rock today.

Trillium

Violets

I’m not telling you what this is–you have to guess. But it’s a plant that is far more interesting than most people suspect.

Sunday we hiked the Henry Clay Iron Furnace trail and then from there on the Mont Chateau Trail. Both were, of course, lovely.

Two types of flower pr0n today. A quick peek at my yard, and some flowers I saw on our hike at Coopers Rock.

It was cloudy for the first part of our hike, but there were still tons of flowers.

And here are the pictures taken around the house.

Here’s my herb garden–everything except the chives was planted in the past month.

I was shocked to see this rose bush is coming back. Not only was this a hard winter, but this bush was run over two years in a row, when cars ended up in our yard (and to be honest, I think a couple more times this winter, from cars that were stopped by the snow barrier).

And here is my lavender bed. When we cut everything back, one single plant was coming back from the roots. The others were dead. So I replanted, and managed to find about five different lavender cultivars. How exciting!

I’ve spent a great deal of time planting flowers and flowering shrubs in my yard, because I like flowers, and I like seeing them (there are a lot of flowers planted along my driveway, so I can see them every day, getting into and out of the car).

We had a flowering broom behind the house, but it died when we put in the parking space (it affected the drainage) we now have a Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida L.) which has survived in the spot.

The WV state flower: Rhododendron

Of course I have Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica)

This Japanese Andromeda (Pieris japonica Compacta) was Michael’s pick.

Tulips aren’t generally my favorite, but I love the color of this one:

This flowering quince (Chaenomeles speciosa) isn’t in my yard, but all along the alley behind my house.

The trillium bloomed, but isn’t particularly photogenic after the cold snaps. My lavender didn’t survive the winter, nor did the heather, which I planted when we first moved here. The white bleeding heart didn’t come back, and although the pink bleeding heart came back, the late freezes killed the buds–so no flowers.

There are several other plants I’m watching, but I fear didn’t survive this winter.

Saturday we biked along the rail trail, but stopped to hike through the Arboretum. There are an insane number of flowers out.

White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)

There were also lots of red trillium, but all the flowers were closed.

Trout lily (Erythronium americanum)

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)

Dwarf larkspur (Delphinium tricorne)

Bluebells/Cowslip (Mertensia virginica)

If you walk along the rail trail, the woods of the lower arboretum are covered with bluebells. It’s pretty amazing.

We even found mutants!

Friday was “Spring Holiday” for WVU, so Michael and I drove out to Coopers Rock for a hike. We hiked along the Rhododendron Trail and the Clay (?) Run trail.

My favorite: Water

Future Frogs!

If you’d like to find the wet spot with these frog eggs, the GPS coordinates are with the pictures. It was pretty close to where we parked, if you weren’t up for a long hike to possibly see peepers.

We hiked 4.8 miles according to the GPS, and our ascent was 949 feet. Which was the first part of how I got “100 flights of stairs” yesterday.

Let’s see if this works–here is (theoretically) a GPS map of our hike.

(I THINK IT WORKED!)

Cherry blossoms are blooming on the riverfront!

Also, we spent time Saturday cleaning up flower beds and, essentially, starting over with the herb garden. I lost a lot of plants this winter, so I decided to add in some new things, including raspberry bushes.

Here’s how things looked on the rail trail early this morning:

Here’s how things look at my house.

Forsythia were one of Grandmom’s favorite spring flowers. She had a giant bush outside her front door, and every time we’d trim it, we’d get lectured not to cut it back too hard, so it’d still bloom the following spring.

She also loved daffodils:

It looks like only one bleeding heart made it through the winter.

But I planted some new blubs around the bleeding heart, so perhaps next year it will have more company than the ferns.

I saw more flowers than I expected to. Of course there were daffodils–including ones that had naturalized and were the only signs of houses that are long gone.

But I also saw Anemones and even a couple bluebells (most were almost ready to bloom–there were only a few open flowers).

Telling secrets:

These were easy to spot from the trail riding by:

Which led me to find these:

Let me help you up Aunt Michelle!

Yes, I did give the camera to Michael, so you get somewhat rare pictures of me.

Except for the last picture, I am NOT in the last picture.

Saturday it rained all afternoon and evening, and Sunday we woke up to snow, so after quick walk around our beighborhood, we drove out to Coopers Rock to take the same hike we took last weekend. (Scott’s Run Trail)

Well, mostly the same. We hiked down into the valley and returned from whence we came. I had no desire to walk up the steep, rocky run-off bed in the snow.

Regardless, it was a gorgeous hike, even if my ankle is very sore now.

If you click through to Flickr, all photos are marked on the map with their GPS coordinates, which should give you the ability to compare last week to this week.

A very different walk from last week, but just as beautiful.

Data:
3.3 miles
292 feet elevation gain
Moving time: 1:52

Yup! It’s time for the first spring flowers!

Funny thing is the snow in town is already completely gone.

For our Saturday hike, Michael decided we should take the Scott’s Run Trail, which we had not taken before.

It was gorgeous.

It was also subtly educational, although I doubt most people would notice. We started from the main entrance and ended at the camp ground.

The beginning of the trail was, essentially, a muddy water run-off track. Some sections were muddier than others, and I’m glad I had my hiking stick, because the ground was often rocky and uneven.

Then, the run-off track turned into a small creek.

From here, to the bottom of the valley, the trail was mostly along the side of this creek (I’m guessing along an old logging trail)–you were rarely out of sight (or at least hearing) of the water.

Other springs and run off areas join in, and the creek now occasionally has small pools.

Soon it looks like a “real” creek, and you need a bridge to cross.

There are now deeper pools, areas that look like they would have water even at the height of summer’s heat.

At the bottom of the trail, multiple springs and run-off areas have created this shaded stream that continues on.

If you continue on the trail, it’s all uphill to the camp ground, and you see more springs that run down the side of the mountain to feed into the stream in the valley.

The end of the trail (or the beginning if you were starting at the campground) is again a rocky muddy water run-off area. (This part was less fun, as I was already tired and I had to be careful of my ankle on the rocks.) If we did this hike again I believe I would instead stop at the lowest part of the trail and backtrack form whence we came.

Of course there were a couple random things that caught my eye.

My theory on this is it dates back to when the forest was logged. That a truck broke down, and when they brought the replacement part, the just dumped the old part in the woods, because no one cared. Now, it’s an oddity, and a glimpse into the past.

Some woodpeckers went NUTS on this tree.

If you click through to Flickr, all of the above pictures have their GPS coordinates, if you’d like to find a specific spot yourself.

ADDENDUM the First:

I’ve started playing with the GPS data, because I’m a geek. Here’s a map of our hike:

(via GPS Visualizer)

Here’s the elevation change:

And here are the stats:

Yeah, we went back for the second weekend in a row. I realized that once the gates open, we won’t feel comfortable biking on the main road, so we should enjoy it while we can.

Plus, there’s something lovely about being at Coopers Rock when it’s nearly empty. It’s normally a busy park. It’s also beautiful, but there is rarely a sense of being in the wilderness when you’re there during the summer. You see people everything, and even when you can’t see them you ca typically hear them. So it’s a nice change of pace to be there when it’s relatively unpopulated.

It was also a gorgeous day, and deserving of us doing something outside.

They really didn’t want you to drive in.

What do all these pictures have in common, that fascinated me so much?

You can see the sky.

Once the leaves come out, you can’t see the sky in much of Coopers Rocks.

(All photos should have GPS location coordinates, if you want to know specifically where a pictures was taken.)

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