Sunday, May 17, 2015

3-Nov-2010 Roslyn Coal Mines Trail, Washington

Site location
Fans of the 90s TV show Northern Exposure would recognize this day's spider sampling destination, the little town of Roslyn, located just east of Snoqualmie Pass.  External scenes of the fictitious Cicely, Alaska were filmed in Roslyn.  On a more serious note, the town was the site of labor strikes and armed union suppression by management in the bad old "company town" days.

Slag piles are history, too.
Ponderosas at edge of field produced....
Our first stop was in a ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) woods north of town, but as happens in ponderosa forests sometimes, we found no cones there.  So we moved on to the Roslyn Coal Mines Trail, which winds through big grassy fields, historic slag heaps, small ponderosa stands and mixed-species woods.

...lots of cones for tapping.
Tapping 131 cones I collected 19 spiders and 7 species.  As I was sampling, I noticed numerous wolf spiders running on, over, and around the fallen cones, so I wasn't too surprised to find 2 Pardosa (Lycosidae) juveniles in my sample.  I've subsequently observed the same scenario at numerous sites: lots of lycosids active in the area, but usually only lycosid juveniles or exuveae, not adults, found in the cones.

Find Rod's trip narrative and lots more photos here.

Fall colors paint the town of Roslyn

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