Ash Creek Images
Photographs of the West by Doug Gorsline
Fall Colored Leaves on a Dwarf Subalpine Huckleberry on Mt Hood
I took this picture of a dwarf huckleberry growing in Summit Meadow near Government Camp on Mt. Hood. Summit Meadow was a campsite for Oregon Trail pioneers travelling the Barlow Road to the Willamette Valley.
Several varieties of huckleberry are found in the Oregon and Washington Cascades. A few of them produce edible huckleberries in relatively large quantities. Huckleberries were a staple food for Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest and the huckleberry harvest was an integral part of their annual lifecycle.
This huckleberry shrub only grows about a foot high, but it provides lots of vivid fall color at in sunny openings in high altitude forests in the Cascades. It is probably Vaccinium caespitosum, dwarf bilberry.
