[Tweeters] Black Swifts at the Cascade Pass Trailhead-2 September

[Andy Stepniewski]

Tweeters,

 

We car camped at the Cascade Pass Trailhead 23 miles up the Cascade River
Road from Marblemount on the North Cascade Highway. The morning dawned
mostly clear and quite warm. Soon, we spotted Black Swifts high in sky
between us and towering north flanks of Johannesburg Mountain. The dramatic
north face of this peak rises more than a mile in one fantastically rugged
slope, over-steepened by Pleistocene glaciers. These ramparts are just one
of many such imposing mountainsides in the North Cascades. A number of small
waterfalls make this a probable nesting site for Black Swifts. Over 20 years
ago, Ellen and I camped here in midsummer and awoke to the chattering calls
of Black Swifts wheeling, gliding, diving, and flapping about the cliffs and
waterfall spray. I was entranced by the wild and rugged scene, punctuated by
falling rock and ice thundering down steep couloirs. Indeed, avalanches
descend down to below 3,000 feet elevation with such frequency that a mini
glacier lies at the bottom, directly across from the trailhead. It is
heavily crevassed; proving it is moving ice.

 

This was only our second visit here and the swifts were still here, though
quiet now. The Black Swifts hung out within binocular view of the trailhead
for more than an hour, then seemed to disappear. Several times I watched
several of these birds together, one seeming to chase the other. I wondered
if the juvenile bird had fledged and was perhaps after a free meal from
their parent. These birds were too distant to ascertain if they were
juveniles or adults, though. 

 

If you want a chance to see these birds in this breathtaking setting, go now
because they will be departing south very soon! Too, avoid the weekend
because this is the very popular trailhead to Sahale Arm and traffic along
the road was hectic on our Labor Day weekend visit.

 

Andy Stepniewski

Yakima WA

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20230902/e9d8fcf1/attachment.html>