Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge — Tuesday, Mar. 25, 2014

Southwest Washington > Vancouver Area

The third hike that Kindra and I did on our southwest tour of hikes. Ridgefield is a lovely refuge, I'm sure, but we saw it primarily in rain. Despite said rain, it was a nice walk, and we got a good sense of what the trails included: informative plaques detailing which plants we were walking by. Only one of these led to confusion -- the piggy-back new-on-age plant. Possibly a confusing way of implying a nurse log situation? We ventured out to a viewpoint where we could just see the plankhouse a the beginning of the trail. No luck on getting into the house today -- they're renovating the roof and it was open, but not quite accessible. At this viewpoint, we were getting thoroughly soaked despite our waterproof layers, but as we returned, the sun came out (thanks SW Washington) The waters in the estuary sparkled, the grass glowed green, and I realized I had forgotten my sunglasses in Seattle. No matter, I got a photo of the sunshine (for evidence that it really happened) and we headed to our last stop on day one of our tour; Whipple Creek Park.