The gate at Wyeth was closed so I parked my car and made my way into a lonely campground/picnic area before hitting the steep trail up to the Green Point Ridge junction. Before long and it was hard not to stop and admire one of the little branches of Harphan Creek the trail nears as it makes its way up the mountainside:
Wyeth is always a good challenge and never seems to have too many visitors no matter the time of year. Making my way up the steep trail on a rainless morning felt great
Mt St Helens looked absolutely awesome from some of the viewpoints higher up. Clouds were swirling in and out of the valleys and on and off the ridges with St Helens just looming over it all:
Just before I reached North Lake I starting seeing what I believe were several huge Conifer Coral Mushrooms or Bear's Head decorating the trees for halloween:
The fruiting body pictured here shows up around the start of fall on dead conifer wood and is good to eat:
This one, which I think is a Red Belted Polypore, is apparently too tough to eat
Im not sure on the rest of these but they were sure pretty in the misty air near the lake:
I didnt see any amphibians throughout the entire day but there was a crustacean sighting at North Lake, sort of
Here is the lake dressed in fall color:
The Pearly Everlasting was still putting on a nice display near the shore:
I continued over to the Mt Defiance Trail from North Lake and was digging the reflection of the forest in this trail-puddle:
This tarp out shelter near the start of the 413 seems to be growing:
Some of the Vine Maple near the top of Mt Defiance was the most beautiful deep red color, worth the hard work getting up there everytime:
Big bummer of the trip was that I couldnt find my shirt. Either someone took it home for themselves
or some animal in need of a salt fix got a hold of it and dragged it off somewhere 
I did notice that some idiot had tried to start a fire right next to the little building closest to the huge propane tank. I just scattered it but wow:
The views from the top had left for the day as the rain and wind started up strong just before I hit the summit:
On the way back down I noticed all these tiny, green creepy crawlies all over the trail tread. They were so small it was hard to capture on camera, keep in mind the needles(which were short, an inch or less themselves) for scale:
The rain started in pretty good by the time I was about halfway down Wyeth and memories of last weeks waterslide began to take hold
Pretty soon though and I was back at the car safe and sound(and warm!) after another awesome day in the gorge 
