Field Trip 3 - Seattle Naturalists Intro Natural World Course - Swauk Forest Discovery Trail

Leaders will be spending the night prior in Blewett Pass. We will meet at the Swauk Forest Discovery Trail parking lot at 10:00.

Directions can be found here in the WTA description. You will need an interagency or Northwest Forest Pass.   

Here is a description of the trail from the USFS.  Since the description was written, the Table Mountain fire burned through here.  The trail still exists, but many of the markers are gone.  We last led this field trip in 2019, and we were impressed by all that we saw.  This is a good field trip for those who do not want to drive all the way into The Teanaway.  With the exception of the last, short section off of Highway 97, the entire drive is paved on federal and state highway.  There is no cell service at our destination. This is still a full-day field trip, due to the 2-hour drive from Seattle.

The mountains surrounding the Blewett Pass are often sunny when it is raining in Seattle. Plus, they offer acres of beautiful wildflower meadows, making this an ideal field trip destination to practice wildflower identification. Also, many shrubs and at least nine kinds of trees are present. After this field trip you may identify these species and more:

1. Jeffrey’s Shooting Star
2. Carpenter Ant
3. Pale Tiger Swallowtail
4. Spreading Phlox
5. Ponderosa Pine
6. Western Serviceberry
7. Spreading Stonecrop
8. Western Tanager
9. Yellow-rumped Warbler
10. Common Witch’s Hair
11. Engelmann Spruce
12. Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel