WatershedEvents

TROUBLE IN PRADISE DEPARTMENT

The central pond at Mclane Nature Trail Park.

I recently received an email from Friends Of Mclane (FOM), a recently formed wetlands advocacy group. They are bringing attention to a plan by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to lease a couple parcels of timber in the State’s Capitol Forest. The proposed lease of the two parcels, called Bears U1 and U2, is aimed at a start date  of 2025, with cutting to begin sometime in 2027.

The land involved first entered the State of Washington’s inventory of assets in 1889 when it was granted Statehood. The initial parcel of 5,000 acres became The Capitol State Forest by legislative act in 1933. The act also specified that the property was to be managed in perpetuity as a commercial forest.

Initially a total of 14,000 acres of land ended up being involved in the establishment of the forest, but over time the holding has grown to include 25,000 more. The 182 acres involved in the Bears leases are more than likely part of the initial trust, and just a small portion of the entire repository. The acreages were logged the last time in the 1980s-1990s, which means it’s a mature forest, but not old-growth by any stretch.

What sort of involvement I’ll have with the group I’m not sure. The founding members are neighbors, although not close ones. I share their general concerns in many ways; but the organization itself is just getting started and has a hard task ahead of it. Launching a watershed advocacy group isn’t as easy in these politically complex and relatively unfriendly times as it once was in the 70’s and 80’s, when the Clean Water Act was new, the popularity of environmental protest was young, and environmental litigation strong.

I can see one issue in particular that might create some initial and long term problems for the group: Emphasis on the potential impact of the leases on property values. Arguments from that point of view are hard to mount and even harder to sustain. If the group focuses too much on that angle it runs the risk of inviting the dismissive label of NIMBY. That label once established is extremely hard to overcome.

For most people not living in this particular area of Olympia, probably the only rock-bottom issue here may be the potential impact on salmon and their protections. Improper logging practices have been a major concern for quite some time, particularly logging in landslide country. Washington's DNR does a great job of making much of their research data available on the internet, and the LIDAR maps of landside prone areas and other geological info are fascinating material. The slopes of at least some portions of the Capital Forest have been LIDAR mapped and would be well worth a study to see if either of the Bears proposed sites are high-risk. That would not automatically put the skids to those projects, but it would probably increase the attention given to the site work.

Mclane Creek is a lovely gem of a salmon stream and certainly deserves all the attention and care it can get. It has already been heavily impacted on some reaches by human action and suffers significantly from the Urban Stream Syndrome. It would be a shame to see it further degraded.

GREEN GIANTS AND MYSTERY TREES

When we moved into this house we were impressed by the large number of evergreens in the yard, as well as all those in the adjacent neighborhood. For the most part the homes, particularly the older ones were built with the native landscape at least partially in mind. Ours certainly was, for which we are eternally grateful. As a result a major portion of the forest that originally covered this land is still intact.

Having lived in Washington and Oregon for more than 40 years you would think we might have become a bit jaded with all the greenery by now; but we are still in love with all the plant-life, particularly the tall trees that have surrounded us most of the time. Cedars, hemlocks, Douglas fir, Big leaf maple, Red alder, and a dozen other species of tree have been the literal backdrop for the greater portion of our lives.

For the first half-dozen years we lived here we were content to just admire them. After all, a stand of giants, be they firs or cedars, should be a sight you just don’t get used to. And to have it growing in your backyard, literally, is simply wonderful.

But then an old Red cedar came down in a nearby neighbor's yard, and I became interested in knowing the cause. That in turn led me to spend a lot more time getting to know more about their natural history in general. The more I studied the more fascinated I became with all the trees growing on our property, particularly the big Douglas firs that dominate every other plant type on the property (Red cedars excluded of course).

That interest culminated in the idea for a project. I began making plans for its execution almost four years ago. Then health issues sidelined me for a bit. I’m only just now beginning to make some headway with a revised plan for photographing and cataloging the key characteristics of the more noteworthy and accessible specimens on the property.

It was during the initial research for this project that I discovered a bit of a mystery among the trees that line the rear of our property – two trees that that don’t quite fit in with any of the others we have.

The larger trees we enjoy daily are Douglas fir, and for the longest time I just assumed these two were of that variety. They are definitely young conifers of some kind or another, but their bark seems somehow different. One preliminary ID was Spruce, because the needles are somewhat sharp; but the idea has since been abandoned. Balsam firs were also candidates for a time, but were ultimately ruled out because of their range.

The two trees stand at the very rear of the yard. They are about 10 feet apart, and the lower sections are very overgrown with Hazel nut saplings and scrub Maple. Maneuverability – always a bit of a problem on rough terrain in the wheelchair – makes getting a clear shot of their full extent particularly challenging. That and things like a phalanx of stinging nettles that effectively block one line of approach.

In spite of all that, and with the help of a neighbor I have managed to get my hands on part of a lower limb, complete with some clean and well formed needles.

I’ve also managed to get a few shots of the lower section of the trunk of the largest.

More than likely they are Silver firs, which are native to this area. But If they are Silver firs, then we have yet another mystery: that species is normally found at higher elevations, or in cooler, wetter environments. We are at about 200+ feet here, and our climate is what gets described as being “Mediterranean.” How did the two of them end up in this group of Douglas firs?

I will keep an open mind continue and with my project. In the meantime suggestions and comments are more than welcome! You can enter them in the comments section below, or email me directly at upfannocreek.com.

THE BROKEN BIRD BOX

I've been carving birds since shortly after we moved here ten years ago. Right after the last stroke I thought I wouldn't be able to do it anymore -- working with just the left hand (not my dominant hand) didn't seem possible; but what with the healing process, the help of several family members, and the unflagging support of my wife, Kitty, I'm beginning to make real progress again. It is a great hobby and pastime, and I am thrilled to be back in the shed and at work again.

The tool shed is in the backyard and we have remodeled it in a way that lets me around on my wheelchair. Most of my larger and heavier tools have been given away or sold, and the hand tools I now have are mostly in drawers. Perhaps the biggest problems with it have been access on rainy or snowy days, and heating - but those have been taken care of, for the most part, and it now should be good for three-season use. The only other issue is the deck - Kitty and I just seem to naturally end up there, drinking coffee and munching cookies, when I should be carving!

As might be expected, not all the carving projects I work on are ever finished. Sometimes a fatal error dooms the bird, and once in awhile I just run out of interest; one way or the other the piece ends up in a box I keep under the carving bench. The "Broken Bird Box" it's called, and I may be adding a bird to it soon. I've been working on a Water Ouzel, one of my favorite species and it is about half finished; but am running out of interest in the piece of wood involved. Its a block of Basswood that seems particularly featureless. Basswood like this is ideal for birds that will be painted, but I am considering abandoning the piece anyway. I have a blank for a Steller's Jay that I cut out on the jig-saw not long ago, and I'm anxious to make that my first carving project of the summer. I'm hopping the I can get it fastened to the suet feeder in the side yard by winter time.

The Steller's jays have become a big part of the enjoyment out there. They usually come the shed a couple times a day and raise a ruckus until I shut them up with unshelled peanuts. They aren't yet as tame as they'll probably get, so they usually don't get real close. I feed with peanuts that are raw and still in the shells. They love them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WELCOME TO THE MACRO ZONE

MACRO photography and my fumbling and stumbling efforts to relearn some of its basics are the subject of today’s post. What a difficult and frustrating journey it’s turning out to be! Some of the issues are hardware based but most have to do with my current physical abilities and my ageing brain. Sometimes the task seems so difficult I seriously consider calling it quits. But I absolutely love shooting Macro, when it works, and I am determined to get back to something at least close to my previous skill level at the craft.

What is “Macro” as applied to photography? A Technical answer from some expert sources say it is when the subject being photographed is the same size (1:1) or larger on the recording device (a digital sensor or piece of film) as it is in life. That’s a pretty simple and accurate definition from a strictly physical point of view, but it really falls short of the mark. "Close-up photography" comes closer when it comes to gaining some sense of what it means to step into the Macro Zone. Most of the shots displayed in this post are examples of close-up photography; but I was definitely working in the Macro Zone when I shot them. 

From the viewing standpoint it’s more about size relationships than ratios; and from a shooting standpoint it is as much about a level of concentration and care as anything else. When I speak of entering the Macro Zone, I have a much more subjective point of view in mind. I think of it as a very unique kind of experience, one that usually involves stepping into another world. All sorts of weird and wonderful things happen when you enter that world, and if you push into it any distance at all, you may begin to experience almost as many strange things happening with the medium itself as with the subject matter at hand.

Digital approaches to Macro Photography vary in important ways from those involving traditional equipment and materials, naturally enough; but what it takes to get up close and very personal with small slices of existence is pretty much the same, regardless of gear, so far as the Macro Zone is concerned. Don't get me wrong, the gear issue is real in either case – It helps tremendously to have the kinds of specialized shooting equipment that is readily available on the market today. But gear isn’t really the determinate factor, so far as the essence of the experience is concerned. 

I got my first taste of the Macro Zone in 1967, while still in the Marines. I was stationed at camp Lejune, NC, cooling my heels in Casual Company while I was awaiting my discharge. I had time on my hands, a well-used Petri Penta camera at my disposal, and a wonderful pine woods within a few yards from my barracks. On one of my excursions into those woods I played with shooting through the 50mm lens reversed and held onto the camera body, a technique I had read about in one of my photo magazines. Much of the film was useless when I picked it up from the PX, but a few of the shots were awesome, at least in my eyes, and I was hooked.

Since then I have used all kinds of optical devices ranging from pricey lenses to the sides of beer bottles to photograph the small things around me, and all with various amounts of success. What I’ve learned is what many experienced pros will tell you: the gear is important, sure enough; but the real key to photography, any kind, is simply shooting as much and as often as you can. As a great old photo instructor once told me, “You have to get the first 10,000 bad pictures out of the way before you can call yourself a real shooter.”

So, I am hard at work on my second batch. Who knows how all this will go? But working in the Macro Zone will definitely be part of it. 

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Note: Summer and warmer days are fast approaching, and I am less and less inclined to spend much time on the computer. There are all sorts of projects I want to get after, and they are all "out there." Accordingly I am going to fiddle with the frequency of my posts. Right now I am putting up two a week (Wednesday and Sunday), but in the future I will follow a much less regimented schedule. My data suggest I don't have that many regular followers; but if you are one, stay tuned. I will do my best not to let you down. 

WINGED WONDERS AND THE GIANTS INSIDE

 

Some of this year's mast production and a couple artifacts of years gone by.

It's a mast year for the Douglas firs. I was reminded of that as the pollen cones crunched beneath the tires of my wheelchair. They are everywhere and in greater abundance than I recall seeing ever before. Besides bringing back memories of the miserable time Kitty and I have had with our allergies, it also brought to mind the little winged seed pod below.

Actual size about 1/8 to 3/16 inch

The little wonder floated down to the glass-top table on our deck one afternoon. It came from one of the mature Douglas firs that grow in my backyard. Crammed inside are all the instructions needed to both assemble and operate one of the 250 foot giants that we know as Pseudotsuga menziesii. Our relatively small half-acre lot is home over a dozen of the wonderful things. One of the projects I had in mind prior to the stroke was making a master list of all the mature specimens in the back half of the property. My plan was to tag them, calculate their individual heights and maybe their ages, and take photographs of their various main characteristics, I finally may get around to that once the summer weather gets here; in the meantime I'm continuing to study and plan for the endeavor. 

A view of the backyard showing several inhabitants.

There are abundant resources on the Web for this kind of endeavor, including the State's own DNR, WNPS, and many more. And just recently I ran across a particularly handy app that I would recommend for those with less of an academic interest in the subject.

Trees PNW its called, and besides being deceptively full of easily accessed information, it's free! It's also quite easy to use and makes a handy field reference.

Cliff Cantor, developer of the app keeps a nifty blog going as a companion piece. In one of his posts he estimates that a mature Douglas Fir can produce upwards of 10,000,000 seed pods in its 500 year lifetime. It's no wonder these mighty giants have taken over so much of the forest land of the West. They've certainly taken over a part of my heart, that's for sure!

 

BACKYARD PHOTO-SAFARI

My ability to travel is somewhat limited these days – my mobility is good, but my camera rig only works on the heavier chair I use for the backyard. I’ll have the solution to that problem soon, but for the meantime any kind of photo Safari I can make will have to be in the backyard. Luckily it is a beautiful place, crowded with gorgeous plants, many types of birds, and lots of wild critters. The rhode featured at the top of the post is an example of the flora, and the bunny shown below are typical of the fauna. Deer are numerous as well, as all the nipped stems will attest.

We have a fair number of these plant destroying animals bouncing around the neighborhood the days; more than we had in the past I think, primarily due to the absence of many predators. Oh, we have plenty of domestic cats that roam the neighborhood, and occasionally a dog gets off the leash; but the days are gone when the coyotes, bear, bobcat, and even cougar used to visit the early property owners in the sub development on a regular basis. Nowadays we only have very occasional visits from these four. (Lucky Bunny!)

I took a spin around the backyard today, and gave my new camera a serious workout. I am still trying to get comfortable with both the camera and the gimbal, and I’m very pleased with the progress I’ve made so far. It seems strange in some ways - I've known my way around cameras for so long and have a veteran approach to the medium; yet in many ways I feel like an absolute Newbie.

The software is so much a key aspect of it all, let alone the gear. I am working with three programs right now: Image App, the Panasonic camera software; ACDSee, the catalog and development program; and Affinity, the PC users answer to PhotoShop. In principle I am familiar with the last two, as they are very much like Lightroom and Photoshop, which I have worked with for decades. But the Image App program is new to me, and using remains a bit of a stretch.

There's the learning curves on the Lumix camera and the Zhyiun gimbal to factor into the situation as well, although they are far less complex than the software and don't take as long to get familiar with. Learning how to become proficient with these new "toys" should keep me busy and growing for most of the summer. I'll be less than a journeyman with any of them for longer than that. And that's what it's all about, really, "busy and growing."

 

PREPING FOR NOVEMBER

Beatty Creek overgrown, but some access.

I’ve never been a big fan of hiking in spite of the many miles I’ve traveled afoot. I truly am more interested in the journey than the speed, and have no problem with short distances covered in hours instead of minutes. I’m more of the meandering type, and I’ve noticed that is also the approach I’m using when I go out on my own with the wheelchair. With that in mind, I went on my first solo “meander” down to Beatty Creek yesterday.

Neighbors are intent on protecting the resident population of pond turtles and their young.

I was reminded on the way what a great neighbor hood this is, and how fortunate we are to be living here. Especially from the environmental aspect. There is always a few volunteers taking care of the common areas, and the vegetation is a great blend of wild and domestic plants.

Our house is just a half mile from the creek, door-to-door, but it took me better than an hour because I poked. The light was only fair –  an overcast sky and pretty thick clouds, no “key” and very low contrast – so I took only a few photos. But it was a very gratifying outing nonetheless. I had a definite goal in mind, and achieved it. I wanted to examine from wheelchair the layout of the place in preparation for the Chum Run on Beatty Creek in November.

The only place on the creek where I can hope to gain any access is the bridge that crosses it a short distance above its confluence with Mclane Creek. There’s a good sized culvert there, and a couple good spots for redds in the area. In the past I’ve managed to get some decent shots of the spawning that happens here, and I hope to do so again. I looked around for some sort of additional access and found little of any real promise; but if the spring vegetation dies off this fall, I should be able to creep up closer to the edge of the bridge.

What will be fundamentally different this time, however, is the degree of intimacy I’ll be able to enjoy with the wonderful creatures. No longer will I be able to sit quietly on the bank, only a few feet away, and watch them rest in the shadows for awhile, before fighting for a good position near a gravid female, or continuing upstream to a final resting place.

Many times I’ve been close enough to touch one; but I’ve always resisted the temptation. The critters need every last ounce of their energy, and the last thing they need is to waste it on avoiding me. Besides, it would seem almost profane. If you move slowly and don’t crowd them, they will soon enough get used to your presence and let you settle in real close,

Being able to observe a run up close is a wonderful thing, and becomes a sacred event if you’ve learned even a little about their ways. It is especially so if you can sit alone on the bank with them and breath first hand the perfume of their being. I’ll miss some of that from the wheelchair, but at least I’ll be a distant witness.

I’ve been able to experience the beauty and majesty of this event most years since we moved here in 2014. I missed the run in 2021 because November’s rains came way too late (December in fact) and missed the runs of 2022 and 2023 due to health issues. I’m determined to make this one, and just hope the weather and my old carcass cooperate.

NOT SO SIMPLE SYNDICATION / RSS

Stinky Bob - A recurrent weeding problem and a newly relearned activity

A challenge inherent in picking up activities that previously went by the wayside on your Life-Journey is relearning things, particularly those not well-learned the first time. In the case of my blog production foundations, several aspects never got my full attention, or even worked very well the first time. For example RSS feeds.

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication,” and it is supposed to be just that, a really simple thing! Well, maybe it’s just this old gray head that’s the problem, but I’ve found it to be anything but “simple.”

I was looking for a way that people could easily keep up with activities on my blog. At first a RSS Feed seemed to be a good solution. But how did I go about insuring one was on my posts? According to TP, all I needed to do to use it is make sure the RSS or “Subscribe” link was located where it is supposed to be, i.e. in the top corner of the post. It’ll take care of the rest. But the first time I tried clicking on it with an unpublished post, out spewed a bunch of code, lines of it! I nearly had another heart attack – what was I or some unsuspecting reader supposed to do with all that garbage?

Typepad has a robust HELP resource, which I’ve really been using lately. Here’s what it says, in part, on the subject:

When viewing this link, some readers may see a page displaying HTML code…don’t worry, there is nothing wrong with your Subscribe link! It only means that (the browser being used) does not support viewing a feed directly.

“Don’t worry" it says, in the happiest sort of way. I couldn’t help but think of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. The Help resource goes on to say that readers can use their own preferences on how to use the link address, and suggest using a RSS reader. Well, I don’t know about you, but my own "preference" in such instances is to simply bail. Who has time or patience for any extra digital nonsense?

Happily, it turns out most people I know, or that might otherwise have some interest in my posts, use iPads or some other Apple product and have never had to bother with finding a suitable RSS reader. But if you are curious and want to know more, here’s a post I ran across that offers some solid insights into the whole RSS mess. Meanwhile, If you want to get in touch and don’t care to go through the RSS process you can find me trying to weed from my wheelchair along the garden pathway, or hanging out at @ellindstrom23. (Just don’t look for me on Facebook; I still don’t know why, but that outfit shut down my feed years ago.)

OLD PASSIONS - NEW TECHNIQUES

It wasn’t too long after my last stroke that I began to think about recovering some of the skill sets that I had lost. I was particularly anxious to begin photography again – it had been a key aspect of my life for more than 60 years. It soon became obvious however that it was very unlikely to happen. The hemiplegia that began with the stroke was proving very likely to be a permanent condition. That left me with only one side of my body actually functional, and that happened to be my left side. Having been a right-hander all of my life, that left me in an almost hopeless position – no one makes a left handed camera, and most high-quality models need the use of both hands to be functional! That meant I had to pin my hopes and dreams to a cell phone, and I knew from previous experience it would be hard-pressed to meet my needs and demands. Nonetheless I went forward hoping for the best.

My first rig consisted of an iPhone 11 and a Zaedio iPhone camera grip mounted to my powered wheelchair using a homemade  web-cam arrangement. It went on the right hand armrest of the wheelchair and was flexible enough to be suitable in certain circumstances. My son and I took it to Billy Frank Junior National Wildlife Refuge and gave it a trial run (lead photo above).

I was much encouraged by its performance, but soon recognized there were some serious drawbacks from a performance standpoint. Some of these were obviously due to the camera’s limitations, particularly with regard to how well it could operate in the zoom mode. It simply couldn’t handle the quality demands placed upon it, so it had to go. I made plans to get a new iPhone 13 as soon as possible.

In the meantime I shopped around for a better gimbal and settled on a Zhiyun Smooth 5 model, which is designed to be used only with cell phones. A single column mounted to the front of my wheelchair provided the overall support for the rig. I played around with this set up for quite a while and managed to take some halfway decent images. But I constantly came up short of the kinds of imagery I hoped to be able to produce. (See below.)

Declaring myself “done” with phone cameras, I began studying the dozens of contemporary digital cameras that might meet my needs, no easy feat. In the end I settled on a Panasonic Lumix ZS200B, a point-and-shoot type of rig that has plenty of strong points, but also its share of weak ones. I also moved to a different platform, another Zhiyun product, the M3 Crane. This gimbal isn’t exactly compatible with the camera’s electronics, but it has some workarounds that make it passable for what I’m up to and lets me take advantage of its diminutive size and modest price tag.

I’m only a couple weeks into a pretty steep learning curve. As if the new gear and a new body weren’t stretching me enough, I decided to take on a couple pieces of new software the same time: ACDSee, a file management/photo development program, and Affinity, a complete photo editing/manipulation program. For the moment I haven’t much to show in the way of product, but stay tuned!

MIGRANT DELIGHTS

In the scheme of things life goes on. The cycles of nature have about them a certain kind of inevitability that is both disturbing and reassuring. For example, the gold crowned and white crowned sparrows have headed north, up into British Columbia and the tundra. I have felt a pang or two of real sorrow since they left these parts; but I am comforted by the almost certain knowledge that they will return next February.

The goldfinches have taken their places, along with several other quite visually striking birds: the evening grossbeaks and their smaller kin the black-headed grossbeaks, for example. We have even seen a Western Tanager hanging around lately, a rather elusive visitor, but one we have previously seen about this same time of year. That brings the variety of birds we have been able to observe here in our own backyard to about 30 different species.

The birds on our property have always been a delight, but more than ever this year. Watching them from our breakfast area upstairs has become our favorite morning pastime. They and the new pathway through the backyard have made enjoying the spring especially delightful. It is not yet summer, so who knows what we have in store for us? We will be on the lookout, that’s for sure.

VOICE RECOGNITION SOFTWARE - THE DRAGON

I’d like to spend a little time talking about blog production, and a software product called Dragon. It is made by Nuance, which in turn is owned by Microsoft. It Is a very robust program, one that teaches itself and also teaches the user as it goes along.

I’ve been using it for quite some time now. It has made my life considerably easier and has had a significant impact on my daily activities. It’s not really hard to use, but it can take a while to get comfortable with it. It also takes a while for it to get used to your voice and its inflections. I am actually using it right now to write this blog. I’ve made it this far in the post without more than a couple of glitches, and have only used the mouse and keyboard a half dozen times.

The biggest problem it has is recognizing odd or mispronounced words. For example it had a very difficult time recognizing the word “glitches” in the sentence above. It was very simple to make that correction, and in the process I was able to teach it about the word so that it will probably get it right in the future.

It also has difficulty differentiating between certain words that are pronounced similarly, especially names, e.g. Aaron versus Erin. But it has quickly caught on, at least in this one instance, and gets it right – Aaron – this time!

I decided to start with this particular product review because of the difference it has made in my attitude about writing. It is an absolute joy to be able to use this kind of software in my post-stroke situation. As a stroke survivor I deal with many nagging health issues. One of them is hemiplegia – a partial paralysis in the muscles of my right side, including the muscles in my jaw. Besides being unable to walk without assistance from the walker, or sometimes a cane, I frequently have difficulty with speech. Not being able to use my right hand to work on the keyboard, or even my voice naturally and clearly most of the time, made it impossible to produce much writing or other forms of communication. That is until Dragon came along. It has made an incredible impact on my daily activities, from letter writing to research.

There are some drawbacks to the product, of course. For one thing it’s fairly expensive for a person on the fixed budget – it runs about $700 a copy right now, and that is just for the software. The microphone that is sold with the product is also costly – about $300. It is also time consuming to teach and learn from, mostly due to its robust nature. But time (which I have in excess) and a less expensive standing mic is all I need, since I lack the physical dexterity needed to use either of the options they sell.

I use Dragon Professional, 16^th Edition, which is designed for Windows 11. Mac people can forget about using this software by the way, at least for the time being, as there is no Macintosh version. But it might be worth getting an inexpensive Windows style laptop just to run it, depending on your needs and wants.

To sum up, it has been a godsend to me, and I fully recommend it to anyone who is as challenged as I.

Note: I wrote this entry using the Dragon, and proofed it a couple of times; but I’m afraid that one of the casualties from the stroke was my ability to concentrate on such matters. Accordingly there may be one or two typos in this piece for which Dragon is not responsible. I should point out, by the way, that my comments have not been solicited, nor have I received any remuneration. I just like the product and hope it can be useful for other people in my predicament.

THE WAY BACK

I wonder if the uninitiated realizes how much effort a sustained kind of approach to blogging really takes? The fact is that under certain circumstances it can be a weighty kind of experience, the kind that leads to neglect, and ultimately to abandonment. I had more or less reached that point – considerations of permanent abandonment – when physical circumstances in the form of major health issues removed the chore from my hands.

I had a stroke, the third and most catastrophic in just over a year. For a short time it left me paralyzed on my right side and partially paralyzed on my left. I made a partial recovery in relatively short order, but that pace of recovery did not continue. As a result I am hemiplegic now – my left side has healed completely, but on the right I am still mostly paralyzed. I make my way around mostly by wheelchair, but am able to use a cane for short distances.

It’s been two years since the stroke (and the heart attack which followed a year later) and I’ve regained a lot of strength. I feel inordinately lucky to have survived it all, and am beginning to approach the future with a fair amount of optimism – tempered of course by the reality of who I am and what I have endured. All that being the case, I’ve decided to put a little bit of my remaining energy into the maintenance of WatershedEvents, the blog I started in 2007.

I began writing the blog primarily to support a book that I was writing at the time. Titled Up Fanno Creek, the book was an exploration of creek’s natural history and my emergence as the biggest fan and advocate. When I was finished with that project I continued working from time to time on the blog, partially to support some writing and research projects, but mostly just to keep my hand in. Blogging had become a part of my life, more or less, and I was using it mainly to stay in touch with a few close friends.

I’ll probably work the blog the same way this time around, using it as an informal sort of communication/introspection kind of outlet for my natural tendency towards gregariousness. One thing is certain, however – I’ll try to keep politics (other than local) at bay. I’ll also try to focus as much as possible on the natural history of things around me, and will do my best to keep it light. Goodness knows the world on our phones and pads is heavy enough!

I think the main reason why I have decided to return to the task is self-care related. Recovering from a major setback of any kind – physical, professional, or psychological – requires a great deal of commitment and self-affirmation. It’s hard work, and you need all the help you can get, especially from yourself. Writing in the blog is, in many ways, just another form of the inner conversation that people tend to engage in everyday. Or maybe it’s just a way of thinking out loud. Whatever the case, I have always found it to be quite satisfying.

BEATTY / MCLANE CREEK CONFLUENCE

A long overdue and much needed visit to Mclane Creek Natural Area, and the Mclane/Beatty Creek confluence this afternoon. There wasn't much moving at the beaver pond - if you are familiar with Kitty's landscape paintings you'll recognize the big snag right away. It was fairly quiet along the boardwalks covering sensitive areas (below) as well.

The fall colors this year seem particularly strong to me, given the terrible heat and limited amounts of rain we had in early to mid summer. I'm thrilled with it all, and feel tremendously lucky to be living in such a wonderful area.

The confluence lies on dry ground just outside the extreme southwest boundary of the nature trail itself. A short walk through the woods puts you at the base of a very large, multi-trunk, western red cedar - the confluence lies directly below the group.

In the photo above, Beatty Creek comes in from the lower left and merges (about dead center of the shot) with Mclane, which flows left-to-right through the top half of the photo. There is not much in the way of running water in Mclane Creek right now, and only soggy gravel and soggier leaves in Beatty.

Salmon won't begin plowing upstream until the rain gives both creeks a good first flush. The coho will be first, probably sometime in the first or second week of November. In all likelihood the chum won't be able to venture into Beatty Creek's main channel until sometime just before Thanksgiving, when there will be (hopefully) an inch or two of water passing over the log jam currently blocking most of the channel. Chum can't go airborne like coho, so rapids without side channels create total blockades. Last year's strongest flows though the natural notch shown below were deep enough to allow large numbers of the great beasts to fight their way into the deeper water on the other side. (The viewpoint shown here is roughly 180 from the one above, and looks straight upstream from the confluence itself)

Several solid and potentially productive pulses of Pacific moisture are headed this way in the next few days, and we've had a fair amount of rain already this month. I'm hopeful it will be a good year for the runs in both creeks - a couple years ago Beatty was bone dry until mid-December, well after the chum run had come and gone. Not a single fish made it into the creek in time to spawn. 

____________

PS - HOW LUCKY AM I?

A hard left turn at the base of this towering mass of second-growth, big-leaf maple takes you back to the pond at the heart of the reserve; but a hard-right puts you on the trail back to my house, about a half-mile away as the crow flies. I am truly blessed, thanks to the foresight and ongoing efforts of a large number of people who, for many years have put their give-a-damn where their mouths are. Thank you, one and all.

RIP BUDDY 01/10/2008 - 05/10/2021

Around 2:40PM last Tuesday, our beloved Sheltie gave up the ghost. His great heart finally failed him. Kitty and I raised him from a tiny pup - we are both pretty lost right now without him. As it is in such events, we will ultimately move on - but we shall never forget him, and he will always be missed.

HIKING TO MULESHOE - AN UPDATE

In my imagination, I am writing this from Site #6, Muleshoe Campground. It is an unseasonably warm afternoon in mid-May - low to mid-80s - and I've just returned to camp from an area on the northwestern slope of Sutton Mountain - "Cougar Creek," I call it, and it's probably my most favorite place in all of Oregon. In reality, it is late January here in Olympia, temperature in the low 30s and raining. Get me outtta here!!!
______

Back in October I set out “walking” from Olympia to Muleshoe Campground on the John Day River in Oregon. According to Google Maps, that’s a distance of 289 miles. The idea, was I’d track my daily mileage statistics as recorded on my Apple watch while I went about the serious business of recovering as much as possible from a couple strokes I suffered in August.

When I began this imaginary hike, I couldn't physically walk more than a quarter mile; my Apple watch, in its own mysterious way put my total energy output for an average day at under a full mile. I calculated it would probably be late May before I (virtually) rolled into the campground. But I’ve made a game out of staying active as much as possible, and it's brought me back fast. I've closed in on the campground at a somewhat faster rate than I ever anticipated, and  by the end of the day today I’ll have covered (according to my watch) more than 290 miles! That works out to an average of close to 3 miles a day. For all intents and purposes, I have arrived. 

It’ll be at least a couple more months before I can actually head for a real campground anywhere, and I'm still not in great shape; so, I think I’ll continue the virtual-hiking routine and see where it lands me by April 1^st. That’s a couple months out, and I’m going to make the south campground at Steens Mountain my next virtual destination. That’s only an additional 217 miles, so I should be “there” by the end of February -- or maybe even earlier, if I can get that daily energy consumpton average up from 3 to 4 miles per day. 

 

 

SPAWNED OUT

Today it's almost impossible to see any trace of the 2020 Chum Run in Beatty Creek. I scoured the log jambs and nearby bushes searching for a carcass or two, or even a shred of skin, or a jaw bone. Nothing. The last two major rain-rivers blew up the creek and the resultant torrents carried it all away to Mud Bay. However, of you dig into the mud below the gravel an inch or two, an aroma rises that immediately brings to the mind the final days of the run. They are hard days for the salmon, and their death agony is a hard thing to observe. But I spend as much time beside the creek as I can so that I may serve as a kind of witness to the strangeness and the beauty of their existence, as well as the seemingly cruel end to their lives. I never fail to be struck by the powerful and strange beauty of the "Inevitable" as the fish pass from this state of being to the next. It is instructive. And while I never weep, I am always moved.

From time to time I've tried to capture a moment of all this - an image that conveys a bit of the quiet, inevitable passage of these great and valiant fish. Below are a few of those attempts.

Please don't try to tell me these water warriors are not valiant; don't explain to me their comings and goings in the frequently mechanical, materialistic terms that are so often used to explain aspects of nature. It is Nature flowing between the banks of Beatty Creek - Nature and the Great Mystery of Being. 

A FLUSH ON BEATTY CREEK

Record rain to begin the New Year - 2.26" fell at the Olympia airport on the 2nd of January, 2021, the day I started working on this post. Our backyard rain gauge showed more than 6" for the week (12/28/20 - 01/02/2021). I plot rain totals sporadically, and by the time I got to the gauge Saturday, it had long since been filled to overflowing. I decided to visit Beatty Creek and see what it was up to.

I headed for the place I've come to call The Bend. It's a great place to study basic stream dynamics. All but the creek's uppermost reaches flow over land once entirely covered in the deep glacial till deposits left behind by the comings and goings of the Puget Lobe of the Fraser Glaciation. The till lies upon large deposits of weathered basalts mostly visible only in the uppermost portions of the watershed. The creek’s headwaters are not far from the Puget Lobe’s terminal moraine, which means it lies in one of the first regions of Puget Sound to be reclaimed by vegetation after the last Ice Age. That was somewhere around 12,000 to 15,000 BPA (source references dependent). The area’s lowland soils consist of a shallow top layer of sands, gravel and decaying detritus lying over a deeper layer of semi-consolidated sands and gravels which covers a deep and highly compacted layer of gravel and sand – “hard pan” it’s called and for good reason. Over the millennia the creek has meandered across these lowlands more or less at will. Maps based on older surveys suggest the reaches I study have migrated over a hundred yards east of their current location.  

Stream flow reaches the Bend after passing through a relatively long and straight reach. For the area I'm discussing, total elevation change is not extreme - about an 80 foot drop over a half channel-mile of terrain. But the flow is still packed with a substantial portion of the energy it gained as it tumbled out of its headwaters area 3 miles and 1200 feet higher in elevation. It's also loaded with suspended solids - rocks, gravels, sands - that add to the abrasive actionof the flow. The weight of the atmosphere and the pull of gravity keeps that powerhouse from literally exploding when it slams into the 90^. angle at The Bend; instead, it boils its way through the curve and continues downstream - checked but not broken and regathering power and material as it flows. As tumultuous as the surface looks, the real action is taking place in the water body below – the cutting, grinding and plucking actions taking place along the steeper portions of the bank are fierce and relentless.  

Artifacts of this continuous process are abundant in the area. For example, in the photo above, the downed tree stretching left to right across the frame was upright and a good foot from the edge of the channel when I first came to this place in 2014. It's been down and in the channel since the fall of 2016. The Bend itself – its hard-left turn – was not quite so pronounced, and the gravel bar directly behind the upright snag (right-center) was not as well developed.

Flow events at The Bend are also impacted by changes in the channel immediately downstream. The large debris pile shown below (right of center in the photo) has split the stream, creating a good sized bar in the middle. This blockage actually dams the flow enough to raise the water level upstream, which increases the height and breadth of the cutting action taking place in what you might call the stream’s elbow. These kinds of obstructions come and go and are constantly changing shape and characteristics. They are crucial to the continued good health of fast flowing streams such as this one. How long they last can vary from hours to decades, many factors dependent. Right now this formation promotes rather than hinders salmon spawning; but other such piles of debris have totally prevented any fish from this year’s chum run making it to these upstream areas. 

Below, a recently fallen tree just a few yards downstream is beginning to trap debris between it’s trunk and the water. I suspect it won’t have much impact on stream flow until it breaks in half, or until the bank supporting one end or the other erode enough to put it directly in the water. That could take several decades.

 

SPAWNED OUT

The 2020 chum run on Betty Creek is fast coming to a close. Only a few very late arrivals are still trying to push their way upstream - the rest are either dead or in their last throes. I'm not sure how productive it's been. I've only been watching this stream since April of 2014, so this is just my 7th year of witnessing the spawning cycle. It's certainly been way better than last, when not a single fish made it into Beatty Creek. The rains came very late that time around, and the creek didn't begin carrying water until the first week in December. This year's November rainfall was close to record breaking, and the creeks are running good and strong as a result. So it goes with the ephemeral streams in which the chum are born - at the end of their days there's not always access to the place of their origin.

If the volume of rotten carcasses at this spot were a reliable indicator, I'd be tempted to conclude it was a bountiful event. But I know for a fact that an as-of-yet undetermined obstacle just a short way upstream from here completely obstructed fish passage beyond the 150 foot elevation level this year. Accordingly, the body-count found here owes its relatively high count to the fact that a good many chum never made it to the places upstream where they otherwise might have chosen to die.    

Another factor possibly attributing to the absence of spawning chum further upstream may be the water level itself. It seems quite low, given the relatively solid amount of rainfall we've experienced this last month. I'm suspicious of the water-table - I can't be positive about this, but my gut tells me it's dropped considerably in the last couple years. Development upstream, as well as logging in the Capital Forest itself may be a factor. I'll leave the determination of such factors to those who may possess some instrumentation, and maybe more reliable data - I have neither. 

When I first began witnessing the annual spawning process, contemplating their ravaged carcasses used to make me a little sad. I'm over that, and now I simply study the dying and deterioration process for insights into how it replenishes and revitalizes the system. My admiration for the salmon maintains, however - what a fabulous creature. One of the most effective predators in the entire ecosystem.

CHUM RUN 2020

(double click for a better view)

The chum have been working their way up Beatty Creek for the better part of the month. At the moment they are only to be found at around the 150' level of the creek, well below the elevation where I've most often observed them. This summer, when I walked down stream from The Bend (my favorite observation site, and only a quarter of a mile up stream from where they are today) I came across a pretty massive blockage with a deep splash pool on the downstream side. I'm guessing that it was high enough and solid enough to keep this year's chum from going any further upstream.

There's no overland route to that spot with public access, and I don't want to wade the stream until I'm sure the little ones have hatched and headed back downstream towards Mud Bay and the Sound. But come mid-May, well after the youngsters have departed the stream, I'll wade downstream from The Bend until I reach the spot where the run met its end. And if a blockage is indeed responsible for the problem, I'll petition the HOA for permission (and maybe some help) clearing it.

A post-script here: Beatty Creek is a tiny body of water. In many places it is narrow enough to jump over, and in others it's so shallow you can tiptoe across without getting your ankles wet. This makes it possible to get close enough to the chum to actually touch them - not someting I've ever done, nor would ever recommend. Late In the run the exhausted fish tend to ignore most intrusions - they are too tired by then to either flee or fight. But until then, it doesn't take much to distract them from the main task at hand. Out of respect for this, I always approach the creek as cautiously as possible, and always avoid places along the bank where serious redd preparation is taking place.

It is not unusal for me to actually crawl the last few feet through the brush to the water's edge, especially when trying to get top-water photos like the one above. This time round I lost track of where I was and ended up with my elbows right at stream's edge. I lay there for a good fifteen minutes, my heavy coat and the knees of my jeans soaking up stream water the entire time. A stench only rivaled by the uncleaned floor of a busy fish market hung about me for the entire walk home from the creek... a very small price to pay.

 

WALKING TO MULESHOE

On August 11th I had a "small" stroke and temporarily lost control of most of the muscles on my left side. Luckily, recovery was amazingly fast. Within a matter of hours almost all my fine motor skills had returned, and within 36 hours I was back home, hard at work getting back to pre-stroke condition. Things went well - until August 27th, when I had a second stroke, this one much more serious. Again it was the left side that felt the bulk of the attack. It took almost 72 hours for me to gain enough motor control and balance to head home, and even then I required the use of a walker in order to simply move around the house. 

For a few days it was not clear how many of my pre-stroke abilities might be reoverable. But I was lucky a second time, as no permanent damage apears to have taken place. The difficulties I experienced with speech and fine motor skills in the first couple days are well behind me, and I've made a great deal of physical and mental progress in a surprisingy short period of time - I was discharged from Saint Peters Just under seven weeks ago. I'm up to over a mile walking a day, can operate the riding lawn mower properly (including emptying the bags when they are full), and feel safe eough to drive on back roads with Kitty as copilot. My flute playing is better than ever.

Still, It will be quite some time before I am back to pre-stroke levels of strength, coordination, and stamina. It's the stamina part that may prove to be the most difficult to win back; right now even small efforts can leave me a little winded and wobbly in the knees. Tackling that problem will require a lot of self-discipline and hard work. I'm into my second month of a fairly aggressive physical therapy program supervised by the same specialist who worked with me on my right shoulder a couple years. We were very successful with that therapy, and I expect we'll be equally successful with the task at hand. 

Something I learned the very first time I had physical therapy - in an extremely successful program aimed at sparing me a knee operation - was how much it helps to have a clear objective in mind. That first time around, my goal was to be able to hop from rock to rock along a trail without falling down or breaking an ankle or a leg. That may sound simple enough, but it took over six months and a lot of hard work, a suite of exercises, and buckets of sweat to acheive that goal. 

This time around, I have another simple goal - I want to be able to go tent camping with one or more of my children before I turn 78. That's just a little less than a year from now, and to make that deadline I will need to get my body into a lot better shape. A lot of the work involved will center on walking, and that's where the idea of "Walking to Muleshoe" comes in. 

Muleshoe Campground is a BLM site on the banks of the John Day RIver in Oregon. I've been camping there since the summer of 1996. I like to use it as a sort of home base whenever I visit the Sutton Mountain WIlderness, the Painted Hills, and other attractions in that general area. I'd like to get back there for a few days sometime next summer. It's almost exactl 289 miles from my front door to the tent pad at Space #6 in the park. (I prefer that site above all others, and only three times out of dozens of trips have I ever had to camp in another space.)

I'm fortunate to live in a neighborhood where walking is safe and fun, not to mention very invigorating. There are areas where its possible to walk on soft surfaces - dirt and grass -as well as pavement; and every mile-long walk involves an elevation change of at least 200 feet.There is also a good trail through some beautiful woods that leads into Mclane Creek Natural Area. Beyond that lies a huge network of steep and rugged trails through great stands of conifers. I'll use these resources and others to walk my way back to Muleshoe.

My watch tells me that I put in 3.22 miles today - Only 285.78 miles to go!  

 

THAT RASCAL, "STINKY BOB"

It's hard to get angry at Stinky Bob, even as pernicious as it can be at times. It is such a lovely little plant, and its flower has such a charming little face...but don't be fooled - it is a Class B weed and should be controlled as much as possible. The general idea is to get after it before that pretty face changes into the seed pod. It is pretty easy to get out of the ground after a good rain...but like a lot of nasty weeds, it has the habit of breaking off just above the root line if its feet are well-planted in dried dirt. Below is a shot of pretty much an entire plant, roughly 18"worth of it from tip to tap.

It's proper name is Geranium Robertianum (Syn.Robertiella robertiana), but like many another miscreant, it has many aliases: Death Come Quickly, Red Robin, Storksbill, and Crow Foot. But be careful when you  go after it, especially during this time of the year, because the smaller ones can easily be mistaken for native Pacific Bleeding Heart. The two like the same habitat, and Stinky Bob can completely wipe out a stand of our lovely little native plants in a single season. 

 

CHANNELING SANDY DIEDRICH

My standard creek-crawling kit - waterproof camera bag, black coffee, good gloves, and crackers.

I went down to the creek this afternoon and put in a little sweat-equity pulling ivy and archangel. In the process I took the time to remember the legacy of Sandy Diedrich, an environmental advocate who lead the charge against vast stands of English ivy that were enveloping large areas of her beloved SW neighborhoods in Portland, Oregon. I never knew her personally; she passed away a year or so before I got involved with the advocacy side of Fanno Creek issues. But she made a huge difference by recruiting, training, and inspiring a generation of wetland warriors. Her work goes on today and her legacy is celebrated annually in the form of Portland’s Environmental Stewardship awards. She – and all the other Watershed Folk back in Portland were much on my mind as I teased out stems and runners from the roots of ferns and the general detritus covering the banks of Beatty Creek.

Below, before and after photos of a small area (roughly 35 sq. ft.) covered with young English ivy. I suspect it washed down here from higher elevations just a couple months ago – the main part of its root system was mired in a mix of silt and gravel right at the edge of the embankment.

Next, a bit further downstream, before and after shots of one of the ubiquitous stands of archangel that crop up every 300 feet or so along the bulk of the stream. I know for a fact that it can be found as far upstream as the 500’ level about 1.5 miles from this site, which lies at 180’.

I haven’t completely finished work on this patch – still have a dozen square feet to work through. Archangel is way more time consuming to pull than English ivy; but like the ivy, it can propagate from mere pieces of stem or leaves.

I re-photographed the hogweed stand. It is thick on both sides of the stream in this area, and also well established a scant 100 feet further down the bank. If and when it is possible to round up some protective gear, I will try my hand at cutting it down and hauling out the remains.  That will at least slow it down until a professional crew can come in and do a number on it.

Except for the hogweed infestation, the other two I worked on today were quite "minor," in the sense that the vegetation involved was both relatively sparse, and not yet deeply rooted - precisely the kind you most want to tackle. It's slow going because the goal is to tease out as many segments of root material as possible - have to work a strand at a time. If you try your hand at this sort of thing, make sure to pack along a couple hand warmers.

Below, one of the reasons why fighting back against invaders like ivy and archangel and hogweed and all the rest is so important. I don’t know just how these little stream violas figure in the overall scheme of things –what benefits they bring to the ecosystem and all that; but for now I’ll just work to preserve their place at the table. Maybe a little further downstream enlightenment will come….

MEANWHILE, DOWN AT THE CREEK....

Yesterday was the first day of spring, and a lovely day in all physical respects – clear, calm, 59 degrees. I put aside my electronically induced angst, and spent some time at Beatty Creek – just an hour or so, but long enough to observe a number of interesting things. Also long enough to remember that life is good.

Cutthroat Trout

No picture for this one, unfortunately. The little guy went under cover almost the minute I spotted him. But I am reasonably sure it was, indeed, a cutthroat – bronze back, pale sides, and a torpedo shaped body. It was too far away and moving too fast to see if it had speckling.

Rough Skinned Newt  

I’ve never seen one of these near fast running water, but there are numerous boggy areas near the creek, so maybe this one was moving from one place to the other. It was about three inches long – a youngster.

Flatheaded Mayfly

A good sized one, probably .5 inches long (+/- 12 mm for metric folks). Measurement of this kind of critter is of the body only – tail and antenna extra. These environmentally sensitive beasties can be found both under and on top of rocks in good, clean water. There’s a fair amount of algae buildup on all the stream rocks at this point, even ‘though the flow is relatively swift; hence this guy was hanging out on the underside of the rock. Wish I knew more about that rock! Look at all those interesting speck. The brown material is almost certainly iron oxide, but beyond that, I haven't a clue.

Black Fly Larvae

A

B

C

Shown as they appear (A) when you first glance at them clinging to a rock in fast moving water; (B) in a close-up, still under water; and (C) out of the water. There are 165 species distributed throughout North America. Which species this may be, I have no idea. Most types thrive where there’s an abundance of organic material in the water - they are filter feeders, for the most part. A count of this kind of critter in a representative segment of the creek might provide a fair index as to the level of organic pollution the stream is enduring right now; but I have no idea how to collect that kind of data, much less parse it. These are larvae of the biting type of black fly, by the way. I'm glad they don't reproduce around here like they do further north.  

English Ivy

English ivy is abundant at many places along the middle to lower sections of Beatty Creek, but this is the first stand I’ve noticed along the Cougar Ridge Reach. It is one of the most aggressive of the common invaders of this kind of semi-shade to full-shade environment; it is also one of the most difficult to eradicate.

Giant Hogweed

I’m pretty sure this is hogweed, a true monster of a plant. Aggressively invasive, hard to eradicate, and one of the most dangerous plants to humans in the environment, this stuff has to go. I’ll measure and re-photograph the site in a few days. I’ll also look for any others nearby, then contact the state and let them know the locations and dimensions of the patch(s). I’ll pull the ivy (as well as a nearby patch of archangel I spotted on the way out).

On my way out I stopped to admire a fern garden...lots of good stuff that belongs here.

A walk in the woods, and a little time by the creek; alone, but not lonely…pretty good medicine for a time of considerable turmoil.

 

IT'S ON....ALMOST.

Buddy and I took advantage of a break in the weather to visit the creek today. The temperature was in the upper forties, until we entered the woods. Brrrr. I'm not sure where the weather will take us this year. November was too dry; December rains came too late; January rainfall pushed the record books; February...well, it may end up a pretty dry month. That sense of organic impatience characteristic of the pre-spring woods is simmering just below the surface of things. The Indian plums are putting on leaves, and the big leaf maples are festooned with pollen hangers...but only the toughest early bloomers are up and moving so far.

The mosses are hard at work; but they never rest. 24/7/366. What prodigious little wonders.

Nothing moving in the water but beams of light today. I'll start turning rocks over to see what's clinging to the bottoms of them in a week or two. I wonder what kind of hit the ecosystem takes - the bugs, birds, and other critters - by way of availability of nutrients, when a salmon run doesn't happen? This time last year the carcasses were all gone, but you could still find remnants of the die-off: skeletons, shreds of skin, jaw bones, that kind of thing. Not a single chum made it up Beatty in November...

 

JULIET SHEN - SEATTLE ARTIST

"Transient Chaos #3" - Copyright by Juliet Shen and reproduced by permission of the artist.

I want to heap unsolicited praise on a friend of mine whose art career has been fascinating to follow. I met her in 1984, when she was working at Hornall-Anderson Design (now Sid Lee). She was an exceptional art director, one of the best I ever had the privilege of working with. More than that, however, she was (and is) a gifted designer and fine artist. Visit her truly wonderful (and still affordably collectible)work HERE. 

The theme of her latest work is "Transient Chaos." The idea is taken from some pretty hard and math-heavy science aimed at understanding such things as the inherent unpredictability of patterns in weather and other dynamic systems. Another "system" where most of us have seen something like transient chaos in action is in the comings and goings of shadow patterns along the bottom of a swimming pool on a sunlit day - they are sometimes seemingly random, other times well ordered and semi-predictable in terms of shape and direction...yet other times they vanish completely, temporarily and in strange ways, until order somehow reasserts itself.

In retrospect, I can see the hint of this theme in her work going back for at least two decades. Here it is full-on, and absolutely fascinating to see. I cannot wait for the next images to emerge!

BEST OLD DOG!

Buddy just turned 12 this week. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BUDDY!

MONSOON

Beatty Creek's watershed is in relatively good shape, so the creek is not inherently "flashy." But when a series of damp weeks are followed by a stretch of days in which the rainfall exceeds .1 - .25", the creek swells to the point of overflowing. We are 48 hours into such a stretch, and the creek is running full bore right now. 

Downstream view

Upstream view

I am writing this at end of day, January 6th. So far it has rained measurable amounts locally five out those six days. By midnight, the total in the last 24 hours will be right around 1.75". There's more on the way. If the chum had managed to get upstream in November, their hatchlings would be struggling to survive. The color of the water tells you a great deal about the load of suffocating silt the creek is transporting at this moment.

No slack for Beatty Creek this time round the sun. 

RECENT CHANGES ON BEATTY CREEK

A visit to one of my favorite places on Beatty Creek this morning turned up this interesting development: A new tangle of “big wood,” which has created a fairly extensive gravel bar smack in the middle of this section of the creek. In this downstream view of the channel, the tapered shape of the bar is just visible behind the debris pile:

Here’s the downstream tail-end of the gravel bar:

Note the reddish color along the far side of the stream, where a portion of the channel’s bank is being removed at a rapid rate:

The heavy rains also helped the creek rebuild a previously established gravel bar further down the channel (left hand side of the photo):

All of these changes have taken place in just the last few days, the aftermath of the heavy rains which hit the area a week ago today. The composition and placement of such bars are precise visual interpretation of the energy exchange processes which take place as the creek redistributes the organic and inorganic materials in its channel and surrounding banks.

While the presence of wood in riparian corridors is generally desireable, too much wood can clog small streams such such as beatty Creek. Currently, the log jam at the creek's confluence with McLane Creek could pose an insurmountable obstacle to the chum in next year's run. I will be discussing this issue, along with a couple others when I visit with a representative of the Stream Team later in the month.

THE FLUSH ON BEATTY CREEK

Above, a before and after photo of the impact of a good rain on Beatty Creek.

In the brief interval since my last post about Beatty Creek, a substantial amount of rain has fallen - enough to cause flooding in many of the low-lying areas around Olympia, and more than enough to turn the creek into a torrent. Wednesday-Thursday, in fact we set a record for rainfall for the period - almost four inches in a 48 hour period.

The watershed for Beatty Creek is not very flashy, meaning it doesn't operate like an on-off water valve the way badly degraded watersheds often do; but it rained a fair amount a day or two running up to Thursday's downpour, so the sponge was saturated well before the peak event. It is still raining from time to time today, but the great flush has passed and the water level is beginning to fall. In a day or two, any chum still waiting for a shot at its upstream breeding grounds should be able to make a run for it. However, IF any are still out there in Eld Inlet, I'll be surprised. 

BEATTY CREEK - UPLANDS RECONNAISSANCE

Roughly 2.8 stream-miles (Smi) lie between Beatty Creek’s headwaters in the Capitol State Forest and its confluence with McLane Creek. A few days ago I performed a quick survey of 6 viewpoints located at easily-accessed locations on the stream’s corridor. All but two of these were at places where a roadway crossed the main body of the creek. Designated and ranked by elevation, these included:

VP 1130’ / Headwaters – no direct access, not visited

VP 679’ / Smi 0.5 – no direct access, not visited

VP 374’ / Smi 1.3 – Bridge on Westhill Drive SW  Northill Drive (corrected 12/15/2020)

VP 302’ / Smi 1.6 – Bridge on Arnesen Lane SW

VP 240’ / Smi 2.0 – Bridge on Chelsie Lane SW

VP 200’ / Smi 2.2 – Ravine on unmarked, unpaved, unmaintained road

VP 155’ / Smi 2.7 – Bridge on Capitol Creek Lane SW (private road)

VP 148’ / Smi 2.8 – 50 yards SW of McLane Nature Trail

Above, a view upstream, at VP 374’. A nearby sign identified this area as being part of a nature trail under the jurisdiction of the Alpine Hills HOA. Note the English ivy on the young alders. Other highly invasive plant species in abundance at this site include Archangel (lamium) and Herb-Robert.

Similar infestations of the same invasive plant species appear at VP 302’, both up and down the stream corridor. I was unable to access the area where the light colored material is concentrated, but my best guess is it is sawdust.

At VP 240’ the view upstream (above) is typical; however, the culvert itself appears to be failing (below). Why this culvert has begun to fail isn’t clear from the site itself. One way or the other, it is potentially very bad news for the home-owners further to the north in this part of the neighborhood.

Below, an upstream view of VP 200’. This portion of the stream was clearly once bridged; but there remains no sign of the single lane structure that used to be here. Furthermore, the “road” leading to the sight shows signs of not being maintained for many years – perhaps decades.

My brief survey wasn't scientific, but it anecdotally confirms details of previous studies of this creek and its environs. It clearly shows the Urban Stream Syndrome at work; and while some of the views I've presented here may appear to show a stream in good health, nothing could be further from the truth. (1) Tree cover, the all-important variable in stream temperature control, is steadily decreasing over large areas of the stream, thanks in part to ongoing development in the non-Capital State Forest areas, but also in part to infestations of English ivy. (2) Corridors in the upper elevations are unstable; the products of attendant landslides contribute significantly to overall turbidity. (3) Some of the most destructive and persistent invasive plant species are abundant. I've only commented on the ones shown in the photos, but others are known to be present and abundant in the environment. I'll detail those more fully in future posts.  

(Note: Photos of VP 155" and VP 148' were shown in the previous post.)

 

HARD TIMES ON BEATTY CREEK

The two photographs below require a bit of explanation: The first was taken at the confluence of Beatty and McLane Creeks. I was standing at water's edge of McLane, and the view is directly into the mouth of Beatty Creek. For the second shot, I stepped over all that debris and pointed the camera directly upstream. What's important here is what's NOT to be seen, specifically the dark, sinuous motion of several large chum salmon fighting their way up Beatty Creek to their natural spawning grounds. 

It is nearly mid-December. In a typical year I would not be able to stand on dry land at this spot along McLane Creek, even if I might want to - the stream would be so deep and the current so strong it might knock me down. Only a few salmon would be entering Beatty Creek, only a handful sweeping away at their redds further upstream. The peak of the run would have passed. The scene along the way would be mostly one of carnage, the stream and its lower banks littered with rotting carcasses - the bleak aftermath of a successful spawn. Instead, today only a paste of rotting leaves remains on the damp gravel. The heavy and steady rains of November have yet to arrive, and purge the creek. Furthermore, the forecast for the rest of December suggests they may not arrive until 2020, well paste the time for spawning.   

This is not the first time late or otherwise insufficient rain has wrecked an annual run on Beatty Creek. It is an ephemeral stream to begin with, and even in a good year its bottom is dry as a bone by June. In the fall that bottom will be covered in a thick mix of leaves and other detritus offered up by the surrounding deciduous trees and shrubs.

Then, usually in the first week or two of November, a series of wet warm fronts will blow into the area from the Pacific coast, one right after another. They usually come through only a day or so behind each other, creating a kind of wet pulse which soon translates itself into surging crests of stream flow in the creeks.

Then comes the surge - the full force removes virtually anything in its pathway. It’s wonderful to watch the cleaning process; even more wonderful to see what happens when the cycle settles long enough for the chum to run up stream and lay their eggs.

Sitting (or sometimes lying) quietly along the banks of Beatty Creek, just a few feet away from the chum, can be a deeply moving experience. I will miss it this year, it appears. But that won’t diminish my love for Beatty Creek, nor will it keep me from studying and recording its ways. I will not, however, write a book about the experience – been there and done that with Up Fanno Creek. Instead I’ll simply journal my efforts on this blog from time to time. I may also pull a weed or two, and pick up the occasional bits of litter I happen across. If you are a wetlands lover, as I am, stay tuned.

WAITING FOR THE CHUM....

 

 

I'm always amazed by how rapidly time seems to fly these days. I haven't been on this site for months...been keeping my whining mostly to myself. I'm still writing about Bretz, and just recently made what I hope will be the breakthrough that will let me get this publication monkey off myback. More about all that as it develops - in the meantime, if you are interested, check out this LINK. It will take you to a podcast by Nick Zentner of Nick on the Rocks.

One of the issues I deal with continually is the surprising fact that I simply don't have time to get to everything I've loaded onto my plate. What makes this so surprising is I am fully retired, and am the master of at least 95% of my time. There are so many possibilities, some of which are purely pleasurable, but others more focused on "paying it forward."

The work on the Bretz material falls somewhat into both categories, although the pleasurable component has been somewhat strained for the last few months. Many very busy people gave me so much of their valuable time during the early stages of research, and I feel so indebted to them that I absolutely must deliver a final result. I also feel  miserable about the poor progress I've been making since I finished my first rough draft. 

Another activity, one which is more "community contribution" focused involves a nearby salmon stream. Beatty Creek it's called, and I'm going to try to put together a Friends-of group to work for its welfare. It is so small and so relatively remote that it isn't even on most maps of the area. It is also intermittent - a status which generally puts it more at risk than its cousins, the so-called perrenials. But every late November-early December it litterally teems with chum salmon, many of them over three feet in length. Up until now, I've tried to leave the advocacy work behind me - I had pretty much shot my bolt with the publication of Up Fanno Creek...or so I thought. 

At any rate, the rains have begun, and the chum will not be long behind. They are already in the lower reaches of Mclane Creek, the major stream into which Beatty Creek flows. It is only a matter of a few more inches of rainfall before they will be able to ascend the 200 verticle feet they must travel before they appear in our neck of the woods. Meanwhile, we wait...

 

 

BRETZ LIVES!

After months of avoiding the Bretz book, I'm back to writing. It's a wonderful feeling - I just hope I can keep it going. I owe my recovery to John McPhee, at least in part. I've alsways known the only way out of writer's block is to write, write, write. But try as I might, I wasn't able to get the first words to stick to the paper. Then I read McPhees Draft 4, which has a wonderful section containing the cure. Here's a segment from the the several pages I worked on before I was sure I could actually sustain a drive on the book itself:

DEAR MOTHER…

Things are not going so well. A few years back I began working on a book project. It’s about a “rebel geologist” by the name of J Harlen Bretz. He was one of the most controversial geologists of the 20^th Century, and also one of the most consequential. I’ll get into all that directly, but right now the conversation is all about me and my failing book project.

Like I said things are not going so well. I’m suffering from a bad case of writer’s block. Actually, it’s the book project that’s suffering – I’m doing great otherwise; retired and loving it; home life all hunky dory; family members all hearty and hale; and since writing is more or less an avocation, it’s not like this block thing is going to take food off the table or wreck my career. So, don’t worry, I’ll be ok.

Still, it’s an awful thing to sit here at this computer, hour after hour, day after day, and have absolutely nothing to show for it beyond a few paragraphs of the SOS – sometimes not even that. Kind of puts a cloud over all the bright spots in my day. On more than one occasion I’ve come very close to simply calling it quits for keeps, especially in the last few days; and it may very well still come to that, if I can’t find a way to write myself out of this hole. If nothing else, I’d sure like to get far enough along with the manuscrapt that I can bear to share it with the folks who helped me out with so much of the research.

When I first began working on the project, I reached out for help in every direction I could think of, oftentimes to complete strangers. Many of these folks are at the top of their fields, and all of them are incredibly busy. For all of that, their responses to the project were overwhelmingly positive. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my pretty face and sparkling personality that opened their hearts and file cabinets. The Bretz name provided the necessary cachet – that and the idea I might be able to provide some valuable insights into his character and his legacy. I can’t help but feel deeply indebted to them.

“Writer’s block” is something I guess every writer, good or bad, deals with from time to time. The “literature” on writer’s block is immense – Google that phrase and you’ll get almost 30 million hits! All kinds of writers have written about it – scholars, psychologists, novelists, essayists, journalists, etc. – and their perspectives vary all over the place. There are even writers who insist it isn’t a “condition” at all:

Writer’s block is a myth…(it’s) fake. No one knows when or how the idea came into the world…It’s a lie, something we tell ourselves to avoid the work…Writer’s block is fear, layers and layers of fear. We don’t want to fail. Afraid to ship our art. The latest project is garbage and not worth our time and effort. Fear is not writer’s block…Writer’s block is about fear and our perfectionist tendencies. (https://writingcooperative.com/writers-block-is-a-myth-and-4-things-to-consider-when-staring-at-the-blank-page-764b5994a80e)

My guess is the condition varies somewhat from individual to individual, and maybe even project to project. And while “fear and our perfectionist tendencies” might explain blockage in some cases, they can’t explain them all.

One of the most common suggestions for overcoming blockage, whatever the root cause, is to write (or talk) your way out of it. Thinking along these lines, John McPhee, one of my favorite non-fiction authors offers this advice:

You are writing, say, about a grizzly bear…For six, seven, ten hours, no words have been forthcoming. You are blocked, frustrated, in despair. You are nowhere, and that’s where you’ve been going. What do you do? You write, “Dear Mother.” And then you tell your mother about the block, the frustration, the ineptitude. You whine. You whimper. You outline your problem, and you mention that the bear has a fifty-five inch waist and a neck more than thirty inches around but could run nose to nose with Secretariat. You say the bear prefers to lie down and rest. The bear rests fourteen hours a day. And you go on like that for as long as you can. And then you go back and delete the “Dear Mother” and all the whimpering and whining, and just keep the bear. (McPhee, Draft 4)

I’m writing about a famous geologist, not a bear, but the idea of coming to you with my whimpering and whining makes a lot of sense. God knows I’ve done it often enough in the past. So, dear mother, in the pages to follow I will be pouring out my angst, as well as filling you in on the probable details of my book, in the hope that somehow the process – and your sage words of wisdom – will help me dig out of what has become a horrible hole.

Thanks in advance for being there.

Your loving son, etc….

(My mom passed away 16 years ago today; but I felt wonderfully reconnected with her as I wrote the lines above. We were extremely close. She'd have liked this  letter - and this idea - and would have had a great deal to say in response. Whatever she said, and no matter how I responded, we'd have argued about it, maybe even angrily...but later on, we'd have made up. Sometimes that's just the way it is, when you love someone so much, but don't quite know how to handle it.) 

Up Fanno Creek - Redirect

At the end of last year I decided to give up my .COM address for the UP FANNO CREEK blog I'd been more or less (usually less) maintaining since 2008. Several folks have asked how to get to the material, which may still be accessed here. Not all the links are serviceable, for reasons unknown, and I am not planning to re-activate the entire blog - what's done, is done, and my book on the creek is pretty outdated by now. 

My active advocacy days are behind me - unless something local to Thurston County dicatates otherwise. I'm more fully retired than ever, and loving it. I'm still working on a book, but intermittently and at a snail's pace. For over six months I've been dealing with something like Writer's Block...although it may just be a case of other fun things crowding out the writing. I may or may not ever finish the thing. Time will tell...one way or the other. Meanwhile, as I said, I'm fit and happy and loving life.

Once again, and in long form, here's the link to the still-functioning UFC posts:

https://watershedevents.typepad.com/up_fanno_creek/

And while I'm at it, here's the link to my  bird carving site, another blog and related activity languishing in the shadows of all the other fun stuff -- travel, grandkids, garden, etc. -- that's been crowding my days during the last few years.

https://watershedevents.typepad.com/avian_days

 

 

 

 

 

WHEEL GOES 'ROUND

The chum run in Beatty Creek struggles. November’s rains came too late, and in quantities too small to provide much traction for fish intent on spawning in the mid-to-upper reaches of the creek’s three-mile channel. We are well into December now, and it's been over a week since the last meaningful rainfall. Water levels in the stream have been dropping steadily, to the point that the future of late arrivals is seriously in doubt.

Here – at an elevation of 160 feet above sea level – long stretches of the stream are so shallow that the tops of the gravel beds are nearly dry. These mid-elevation shallows are potential deathtraps for fish attempting to swim further upstream. Those making a run for it risk being stranded high and dry.

Between these dangerous shallows lie pools of deeper water, each of them crowded with dead and dying salmon, as well as with those still attempting to spawn. As the water levels drop, the desperate plight of the fish in these pool intensifies - the overcrowding, combined with shrinking surface areas and the processes of decay, will soon rob the pools of what little oxygen remains. Only a good rain can forestall the inevitable long enough for these stranded populations to make it up stream to fulfil their destinies. The next rain is still several days away. Nature can be so hard...

It is a terrible time on Beatty Creek, but better days are ahead. The Solstice fast approaches…the Wheel goes ‘round…the Buddha smiles...

SELF-STORAGE LOT

 

We store our travel trailer at a local mini-storage lot. This beast sits right next to our rig. The owner and I bumped onto each other one day when we were both on the lot.

"Try not to scratch the side of my police car when you're backing that trailer into your slip," he'd joked. I told him I'd do my best not to damage the fascinating patina. He laughed, then went on. "I'll bet you're wondering why anyone would bother to store a POS like this one, right?" I demurred.

"I bought it for the engine," he said, "I was going to put it into an old Charger I was restoring; but stuff happens, and I haven't worked on that project for several years. I've held on to this baby because maybe someday I'll get back to that project...besides, I'm locked in to a pretty good rate for this space, and someday may need to move something else into it." 

There are parallels, I've decided, between this little episode and the manner in which I've approached my blog over the last five months: (1) I haven't actually abandoned it, but haven't maintained it in a long time; (2) my enthusiasm for working on it has waned; and (3) the cost of keeping it in "storage" on the 'net has not been prohibitive. 

The main factor driving the months of "storage" (aka neglect) can be traced back to early April, when I completed the first rough draft of the Bretz book. "Rough" is too kind a word, frankly. As I studied the pile of ghastly pages, it became clear that I'd fallen out of love with the topic. The geological aspects seemed to have some life left ini them; but the recounting of Bretz's career, both the early and late stages of it, suffered from terminal dullness. Bretz himself - as vibrant and interesting a character as any biographer could ever hope for - had become a tired and cranky old man, the kind no one wants to listen to or deal with. I could hardly bear to read it, and I could not bear to fix it. Instead, I decided to park ALL the writing, then poured my energies and intellect into enjoying to the utmost my wonderful wife and family. It was an excellent decision - this has been one of the most enjoyable periods of my life. 

I've suffered from "writer's block" on more than a few occasions, and know that the only way to get past that blockage is to write on. Pound the page relentlessly enough and the muse will return. But this latest phase - this nearly total lack of vibrancy in the manuscript - is not blockage, so much as it is a loss of enthusiasm for the story. While blockage may bring a halt to the writing, it usually will not kill it completely. But, for me at least, writing requires a level of enthusiasm that is hard to describe and harder still too manufacture. And without it, the story dies.

Later this month I will spend a couple days with the draft and see how it feels to read it with an eye towards resuscitation. Fall is upon us, and Mr. Gray will soon be showing up for his five month stay. It will be easier to fight off what sometimes feels like late-onset ADHD and stay here at this keyboard by then. Perhaps I'll be able to recapture that lost enthusiasm and get back to putting an old hulk of a draft to some good use.

 

THE BIG LULAR CONUNDRUM

Bretz, J Harlen. Papers, Box 7, Folder 3, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago
Segment from a 1922 field book.

I’ve been reading Bretz’s handwritten materials (letters, notes, journals, lists, etc.) for almost two years, and have become fairly adept at deciphering his strong and generally “honest” handwriting. Unlike many well-educated people from that period, Bretz never mastered the calligraphic approach to his script, thank god. There is only the slightest forward slant to any of it, rarely a flourish, and most letters are well-formed, most of the time. As a result I tend to read more or less “naturally” when I study his materials.

The sentence above did not create serious parsing issues. I was able to read it “normally;” but I had never before stumbled across the word “Lular” in any of his other writings.

His lower case “u” and “o” are sometimes difficult to separate, and in this case I wasn’t sure if the word was “Lolar” or “Lular.” Accordingly, I went looking for both. A quick check of every geological glossary I have on hand, plus any I could find online failed to turn up anything like a decent clue. I even sent the photo to a geologist friend at the DNR. His response:

    “….’lolar’, nor ‘lalar’, ‘lular’, or ‘lelar”…none of these terms showed up in my copy of the glossary of geology.”

 Given that the word was capitalized, I took it to be a proper noun and went digging for a person, place, or thing that might fit the geological context. Nothing even close.

I stepped away from the problem for a few hours, then came back and started again from scratch – only this time I placed the word “Lular” in brackets, in order to study the sentence as a kind of math problem. Here’s what it looked like:

    The big (X) or sub-(X) boulders…

Something about the math context triggered the answer even before I finished writing it all down. The symbol which I took to be a capitol “L” was actually the geometrical symbol for “angle.” Bretz had merely coined his own word for “angular.”

In some ways, boulders are merely big rocks, and rocks are often categorized as being angular, sub-angular, sub-round, or round in shape. When the Lular abbreviation is written out in full, the sentence reads as Bretz intended:

    "The big angular and sub-angular boulders in the Pantops pit…"

As I said, I’ve become very familiar with his handwriting, and should have recognized immediately that the “letter” I had identified as a capitol “L” wasn’t a letter at all. Bretz typically wrote in cursive, and even when he printed the letters, “L” never looked like that.

The fact that I missed such an obvious sign – along with the way in which I missed it – possibly sheds light on why so many of Bretz’s contemporaries were unable to recognize, in the landforms of the scablands, the same information that he was able to see.

Maybe more on that idea in the book?

THE GRAND COULEE

 

Umatilla Rock, a remnant formation in the Dry Falls Cataract formation.

Last Sunday I was fortunate enough to accompany a number of "Flood Nuts" on a hike around Umatilla Rock on the floor of Dry Falls cataract. Our guide was Gene Kiver, one of the most knowledgeable Ice Age Floods experts alive. He is also co:author, with Bruce Bjornstadt, of On the Trail of the Ice Age Floods.

 

At the north end of Umatilla Rock and entering the "floor" of Dry Falls - splash pool and main rim photo-left. It was a wonderful outing, and has helped me gain a better sense for some of the main points of Bretz's many papers on the subject of the Ice Age floods. Thanks, Gene!

Later in the day I hiked alone, finding a comfortable perch on an outcropping just a mile or two south of Steamboat Rock. 

  

Looking north towards Steamboat Rock and the head of Grand Coulee.

Unparalleled in the whole wide world, scarcely even approached by any other landscape of similar origin, are the Channeled Scablands on the Columbia Plateau in eastern Washington.

So wrote J Harlen Bretz in his 1959 paper, Washington's Channeled Scabland. It was his last paper on the subject, and was intended to put an end to the few arguments still standing against his "outrageous hypothesis." His method was simple and direct: Multiple sites around the Scablands were selected, against which four theories would be tested to see which, if any, could adequately explain how the unique landforms in these areas had been formed. Competing with Bretz's flood hypothesis were the more traditional theories from R. F. Flint, I. S. Allison; and R. W. Hobbs.

The sites included some of the most spectacular terrain in the entire Scablands - Pot Holes Cataracts in the Quincy Basin; Drumheller Channels and other channeling in the Othello area; and the great gravel bars in the Pasco Basin. But the most spectacular site of all was Grand Coulee, and its complex of giant cataracts at Dry Falls. As Bretz explains: 

(It is) the longest and deepest of all Scablands canyons, with the lowest floor at the head and the widest and highest dry falls cliff in midlength...It has the longest gorge made by cataract recession; a record of a former cataract twice as high as its existing dry falls (400ft. high today); the largest lake (Lenore) and the most saline (Soap); the most elaborate distributary system; the greatest accumulation of pebble and cobble gravel; the largest stream-rolled boulders; and it functioned from the beginning of Scablands history to become at last the only surviving flood discharge way. It merits its name, Grand Coulee.

Later that same afternoon, I capped off the day by grabbing a shot near the lower end of the Coulee, not far from Soap Lake. This formation has always impressed me, but I never took the time to study it with a camera until this trip.

 

Still haven't done it justice, but maybe on another trip I'll be able to get closer to portraying its immensity. What a great hunk of rock.

 

 

Lt. SYMONS' WONDERFUL MAPS (cont.)

Symons and his exploits first came to my attention when I was studying J Harlen Bretz’s paper on the Grand Coulee. Written in about 1931, the paper provides a great example of his fully matured style. It also seems somehow more “relaxed” than many of his previous papers. By this I mean to say that the tone is so calm, and the flow of information and observations so effortlessly moved along, it leaves the impression that Bretz especially enjoyed the process of crafting this particular work. He was getting ready to set the Scablands debates aside – perhaps, in his mind, forever. The previous seven years had been a long and difficult professional slog. Shortly after writing this paper he embarked on a cruise to the east coast of Greenland as “geologist” with the Louise Arner Boyd Expedition of 1933. He would not return to the Scablands fray again until the early 1950s. In 1973 he (jokingly?) characterized his participation as being part of a “mid-life” crisis. He was fifty-one at the time.

In Chapter IV of the Grand Coulee paper, Bretz provides an overview of the studies that proceeded his own. Lt. Symons’ report was only the second such study. The officer-engineer was as well schooled as many geologists of the era – indeed, there were no formal graduate geology schools as such until the late 1800s, so most men in the field at the time had trained in engineering and/or mining programs. To his eyes, features of the Grand Coulee suggested “…the courses of many of the most deeply encanyoned rivers of (the) country were determined to a very great extent by their waters collecting in great fissures.” He also believed that at one point the Columbia River had somehow been redirected through the Grand Coulee for an indefinite period. Which, of course, it was.

At any rate, I suspect Bretz enjoyed reading through Symons’ long report, and he may have gotten a special kick out of the appendix of 25 map sections (plus the much reduced map showing the entirety of the river covered by the individual sections). I certainly have. It provides a wonderful insight into the period as well as the region’s geology.

________

When I first began studying the Symons’ report, my nine year old granddaughter happened into my office. “What are these,” she asked while thumbing through the map sections. I explained. “Cool,” she exclaimed, then headed for the kitchen and her snacks. It occurred to me at that moment to wonder just what the bunch of them might look like, once all spread out on some kind of flat surface. Here’s the general idea:

Once I’d put them in this order (Canadian - US boundary at the top, Columbia - Snake River confluence forground) I thought it would be even cooler if the sections were colored (see above). I tried to enlist Jane’s help with this, but she demurred. After messing with a few sections on my own, I moved on to more pressing projects. I’ve never been good at staying between the lines anyway. (But I'm keeping the  pencils.) I think this could be a fun geography project for youngsters, but given Jane’s lack of interest, I am not sure. At any rate, the report – complete with map supplement – can be found here. 

1st Lt. T. W. SYMONS & THE COLUMBIA RIVER

 The men took their places in the sleek bateau. A seventy year old Iroquois named “Old Pierre” sat in the stern at the steering oar; next came the party’s leader, 1^st Lt. T.  W. Symons, U. S.  Army Corps of Engineers – he took his station on top of the baggage; the four oarsmen – Pen-waw, Big Pierre, Little Pierre, and Joseph – occupied the middle benches; Mr. Downing, the expedition’s topographer, and his water-proofed satchel full of log books, charts, journals and instruments occupied the bow. When all were settled in, Symons nodded at Old Pierre, who grunted something only intelligible to the paddlers. In a moment they were moving into the main flow of the Spokane River. A few minutes more, and they pushed through the swirling waters of the Spokane-Columbia River confluence and into the powerful currents of the Columbia. It was precisely 11:45 am, September 19^th, 1881. One of the most dangerous legs of a great journey was underway.

Symons and his men were conducting a survey of the Columbia River, from the Canada/USA border to the river’s confluence with the Snake River, almost 400 river miles to the south. Their main objective was to determine (1) how much of the river could be safely navigated by smaller steamships, and (2) how feasible it might be to “engineer” any of the reaches that might otherwise preclude boat travel. The interior of Washington State was, at the time, still a mostly unsettled and untrammeled wilderness, full of much risk, but also full of beauty and promise.

They rode the river in an open bateau. At 30’ long, two feet deep, and 4 feet wide at the gunnels, it was “as small a boat as the voyage should ever be attempted in, if it is contemplated to go through all the rapids.” (Symons) Their journey was a long and arduous one There were at least two dozen major rapids involved, most of them with deadly reputations, and dozens more too short or two small to be particularly noteworthy, but still capable of wrecking a wooden boat or killing a man.

Symons was a good writer, and many portions of the narrative read like a novel. This section, detailing the early stages of the journey's Spokane-to-Wenathcee leg, is illustrative. 

We hear the low rumbling of the water, and see the tops of huge, half-sunken rocks and the white foam of the tumbling waters. For a few moments the rowing ceases, while brave Old Pierre gives his orders to the Indians in their own tongue. He knows that everything depends upon his steering and their rowing or backing at the right moments, with all the strength that they possess. Years ago he was in a Hudson Bay Company bateau which capsized in these very rapids, and out of a crew of 16 men 8 perished in the water or on the rocks.

The Indians make their preparations for the struggle by stripping off all their superfluous clothing, removing their gloves, and each ties a bright-colored handkerchief tightly around his head; poles and extra oars are laid ready in convenient places to reach should they become necessary, then with a shout the Indians seize their oars and begin laying to them with all their strength. We are rushing forward at a fearful rate, owing to the combined exertions of the Indians and the racing current, and we shudder at the thought of striking any of the huge black rocks near which we glide.

Now we are fairly in the rapids and our boat is rushing madly through the foam and billows; the Indians are shouting at every stroke in their wild savage glee; it is infectious; we shout too, and feel the wild exultation that comes to men in moments of great excitement and danger.

Ugly masses of rock show their heads above the water on every side, and sunken rocks are discernible by the action of the surf. Great billows strike us fore and aft, and some falling directly over the bow and drench us to the waist. This is bad enough, but the worst is yet to come as we draw near with great velocity to a huge rock which appears dead ahead.

Has Old Pierre seen it? The water looks terribly cold as we think of his failing eyesight. Then an order, a shout, backing on one side and pulling on the other; a quick stroke on the steering oar, and the rock appears on our right hand. Another command, an answering shout, and the oars bend like willows as the Indians struggle to get the boat out of the strong eddy into which Old Pierre has thrown her. Finally she shoots ahead and passes the rock like a flash, within less than an oar’s length of it, and we shout for joy and breathe freely again…

This passage was taken from a University of Michigan site, completely intact because I simply could not bear to cut it anywhere. What a great story. Symons was a Michigan man, but took his education at West Point, where he gradated at the top of his class. You can learn more about him and his storied career here. 

Note: Whirlpool Rapids, the subject of this mini-drama is at the extreme left of the map above. More about Symons, his wonderful maps, and how he figures in my book about J Harlen Bretz in the next post....

  

 

 

 

 

THE BRETZ SAGA

 

REVISITED

 

 

 

 

(WORKING TITLE)

 

 

 

 

I began work on this book in April of 2016, and am not all that far from completion of a rough draft. Right now it looks as if I'll get over that major hurdle by at least the beginning of summer. That puts me about four months behind the (very) ambitious schedule I set for myself last fall. There are multiple reasons for the delay, not the least being a lack of discipline with the research. If you've ever been bitten by the research bug, you know already how much fun it can be, especially if you let the flow of data pull you off onto areas that don't really relate directly to your topic.

These last few days I've been working on a brief period of Bretz's life - the summer of 1906 - which stands at about 700 words for the moment. (That's around two book-pages, which is likely to condense to less than a page in the finished book.) I should have banged this section out in a day or so, but I allowed myself to drift off course and ended up in Bulgaria.

Bulgaria? What the hell has Bulgaria to do with a farm boy from Michigan who became famous for recognizing that eastern Washington had once been the site of Mega Floods? Pretty much nothing. But once I'd tucked my head into the material, I had the devil of a time pulling it out.

Here, briefly, is how I got stuck in that fascinating country, during a fascinating portion of its very long and turbulent history:

 

• J Harlen Bretz married Fanny Challis, his college sweetheart, on June 1st, 1906.
• She was the daughter of the Reverend Dewitt Challis, who was a Methodist Episcopal missionary in Bulgaria between 1875 and 1891.
• Fanny was born in 1881, which means she spent the first ten years of her life on foreign soil.
  
• Being an American-protestant-missionary in Bulgaria in those days was no picnic....because? 
  
• Etc.

 

The rabbit-hole turned out to be full of twists and turns, and several centuries deep - millenia even. Ultimately, I was sucked in by an encounter with the word "Thrace." It found and fired off a dim and distant memory from my high school course in Ancient and Medieval History. I loved that subject!

Anyway, I am back in the USA and about to wrap up the Flint episode of Bretz's life, at least for the time beginning. That's presuming I can keep from exploring the deeper roots of Chautauqua - don't ask me how that figures in...

THE BRINNON DELTA

"The only delta of Vashon age known in the  valley of Hoods Canal is at the mouth of the Dusewallips (sic) River, on the north side of the valley. At the seaward upper margin, it is 120 feet above the Sound. Its surface is a plane, sloping towards the  troughs of the Hoods Canal. Its altitude makes it obviously a feature produced subsequent to (glacial) Lake Hood, whose waters were 100 feet higher." J Harlen Bretz (1913)

Deltas played a major role in Bretz's study of the Puget Sound's glaciated history, especially when it came to determining the probable boundaries of the many glacial lakes that formed as the Puget Lobe retreated northward up the Sound. 

Deltas are formed when a river or creek enters a slower moving or standing body of water. The deposition of sediments that results from the energy transaction typically expresses itself as a wedge shaped mass, with its tip facing in the overall direction of flow, resulting in the characteristic shape seen above. 

AS THE CROW FLIES...

During the four years J Harlen Bretz spent in Seattle, he managed to examine an amazing number of sites, the bluffs south of Alki Point included. He focused mostly on determining if those bluffs contained visible exposures of Admiralty till - which they apparently do not. I ventured in that direction the other day, mostly in order to reacquaint myself with the general area - it's been decades since my last visit. Traffic was hellish, especially along Beach Drive, so I bagged the idea of driving south along the shore, deciding instead to walk the beach along the north side of Alki Point. I hadn't gone far before I ran into the character above. He apparently wanted to fly from the wall to someplace almost directly behind my head, and - as crows everywhere are inclined to do - took the route presenting the shortest distance between those two points. Cheeky bastard. 

GLACIAL GIFTS

Scene from a quarry located eight miles south of Olympia and ten miles north of the terminal moraine of the Puget Lobe glaciation. This extensive deposit of gravel and sand was formed when several large glacial lakes to the north began to drain through the area. Think of it as part of the streambed of a river that was roughly 4 miles wide and 15 miles long. In his classic 1913 work (Glaciation of the Puget Sound Region), the legendary geologist, J Harlen Bretz, described it as the “Gate Pathway River.” For close to a thousand years, roughly 60% of the storm and glacial melt water that left the Puget Sound watershed on its way to the sea flowed through that pathway.

OPEN LETTER to the GREENWAY PARK ADVISORY COMMITTEE

South end of Greenway Park, February 2011. Fanno Creek (middle stream) is completely out of its banks. 

 A few days ago a member of the Tualatin Hills Park and Recreation District’s (THPRD) Greenway Advisory Committee reached out for input on the future of the park. The “open letter” that follows is my response. First, however, a little background on why I am involved at all:

My wife and I lived in the West Slope neighborhood for 16 years. We had a Portland address, but technically lived in unincorporated Washington County. Accordingly, our water bill came from Clean Water Services, and our property tax assessment included dollars for THPRD. In 2007, shortly after retirement, I developed an interest in Fanno Creek and its watershed issues. That interest ultimately led to a book on the subject (Up Fanno Creek), as well as service on a number of citizen advisory committees, including THPRD’s Natural Resources Advisory Committee. It also led to membership in the Tualatin Riverkeepers and a period of active advocacy for the Tualatin River, in general, and Fanno Creek in particular.

We moved to Olympia in 2014, but I still feel deeply connected to the Fanno Creek watershed. For over five years I lived and breathed the creek. Between 2007 and 2011, almost every day you could have found me out in the watershed, sometimes bushwhacking my way through some of its more forgotten and  neglected areas, other times visiting with one or more of its various managers and caretakers. There are others who know the creek and its history even more intimately than I do, and I hope they will present their views to the committee.

It’s been almost a decade since I first muddied my boots in the bottom of Fanno Creek. Much has changed since then, and I may not be fully qualified to comment on some of the more subtle issues faced by the watershed today. However, I believe my knowledge of the history of the Greenway Park/Koll Wetlands complex, and all that went into making it the environmental success story it is today, probably still maintains.

The advisory committee member who reached out to me last week knew of my background when he asked me to provide this feedback. I commend him for his open-mindedness, even though I suspect my response is not what he may have hoped for. His interests and background lean him in the direction of more development along the “active recreation” side of the coin, whereas mine lead me in the direction of less, or even none. I hope he will believe my opinion is not the byproduct of an environmentalist bias; it develops, instead, from an appreciation of the physical contribution the areas in question provide with respect to meeting the great water quality issues faced by all Tualatin Valley / Portland Basin residents. One way or the other, I thank him for his consideration.

______________________________________

OPEN LETTER TO THPRD’S GREENWAY PARK ADVSIORY COMMITTEE

MANAGING DEVELOPMENT OF GREENWAY PARK / KOLL WETLANDS – A PERSPECTIVE

Three stream-miles north of Greenway Park, a large, windowless brick building squats along the eastern bank of Fanno Creek. It is roughly four times the size of the homes that lie on the opposite bank, thirty yards away. For decades, Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services (BES)has been forced to pour a ton of rate-payer money into this building and the land upon which it sits. The costly installation exists solely in order to pump raw sewage uphill. Because pumps sometimes fail, and because the cost of keeping them serviceable is high, EVERYONE – BES, Clean Water Services, the cities of Portland and Beaverton, local environmental groups, and neighbors along the creek – wishes there was another choice.

Placing and/or maintaining ADA compliant concrete pathways in the lowest levels of the Greenway Park floodplain strikes me as being akin to BES’s efforts to pump sewage uphill – doomed to great expense and subject to repeated and sometimes significant failure. Happily, where Greenway Park is concerned, there is another choice, a much better one: remove those muddy pathways completely or at least replace them with soft surface trails. The same goes for maintaining the lawn areas that currently lie along those walkways – replace these with native vegetation suitable for wetland areas.

Flooded bridge near old Fanno Farm House a not uncommon sight. 

So far as the beaver are concerned, I think it is incumbent upon THPRD – working with its partners – to keep them in check. But it is important to remember that the lower elevations of Greenway Park flooded regularly, and often times significantly, well before the major channel improvements of 2008-2010 were created, and well before beavers were as significant an issue as they are today.

Roughly 75% of the Fanno Creek watershed’s total storm water flows through the Greenway-Koll lowlands. That’s roughly 24 square miles of storm water runoff. Given that the area lies at one of the lowest elevations in the basin, it is sure to flood on a pretty regular basis. (Stream distance from Greenway-Koll to the knick-point just south of the bridge at Durham Street is roughly six miles. The elevation change in that distance is about 50 feet, which means that, for all intents and purposes, the reach is flat as a pancake.)

Finally, as committee members work to advise THPRD regarding future development and maintenance strategies Greenway Park, I hope they will remember that over the last forty-five years, uncountable hours of volunteer sweat-equity and gobs of big money have been invested in pulling Fanno Creek back from the edge of destruction. Every step into the creek’s wetlands needs to be taken with that great legacy of proactive stewardship well in mind.

  Near Hall Boulevard, looking west. Fanno Creek (foreground) is completely out of its banks and the park's lowlands totally inundated.

Ball and Socket

A few days ago, on a field trip to Frenchman Coulee, I was with a group of Ice Age Floods enthusiasts when we ran across a curious geological phenomenon – groups of bowl-shaped polygons, some as wide as six feet across and almost a foot deep. Here’s a little of the information I’ve been able to dig up on these formations; more to follow if/when I get a chance to return to the subject.

The earliest mention of the phenomenon I’ve found so far was by R. Mallet, an Englishman, in 1874. I haven’t yet found an online copy of the paper (Volcanic Energy: An attempt to develop its True Origin and Cosmical Relations), but whatever his theory might have been, it (and he) were severely bashed by one of Lyell’s buddies, George Poulett Scrope – Note on Mr. R. Mallet’s “Prismatic Structures of Basalt,” Monthly Journal of Geology V.12, Jan-Dec, 1875.

Re: https://books.google.com/books?id=MlpmAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA413&lpg=PA413&dq=%22cup-shaped%22+basalt+formations&source=bl&ots=QRxyZxYZ-u&sig=k6Hxf-mqjtuGiO1pToWZzNUsEug&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwii9L_Kwc_TAhWJKGMKHYJnAhAQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=%22cup-shaped%22%20basalt%20formations&f=false
______

The next reference to pop up was to a paper by R. B. Sosman titled Types of prismatic structures in igneous rocks, Journal of Geology Vol. 24, No. 3, (April-May 1916). On page 229 of this paper, Sosman discusses cross-columnar fracturing, which sometimes produces a ball and socket situation in which the bottom of the upper portion of the column is convex, the lower portion concave. Paragraph 6.2 is of particular significance in this regard. (This fits in with the notion that the formations above were created when the Missoula Floods ripped off the upper portions of the columnar basalts that make up so much of the Frenchman Coulee area. See photo of Echo Basin below.)

Re: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/30079357.pdf
_______

A 2004 GSA article by C. Schafer & S. Kattenhorn (Character and evolution of fractures in low-volume Pahoehoe lava flows in eastern Snake River Plain, Idaho) provides information on how flow characteristic and differences in cooling rates (external vs internal / top-down to bottom-up)impact the development of cross columnar fractures. According to this paper, the concave/convex relationship (ball and socket relationship) tends to be favored in flow materials produced by the CRBG*. Another aspect of this fracturing noted by the authors is that it takes place in areas immediately outside the viscus materials, rather than inside them.

Re: http://gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/content/116/3-4/322.full.pdf+html
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I have to leave this post unfinished for the time being. Yard chores are calling me. But one more note, a personal observation: while studying my photos of these curiosities, it occurred to me that the slope angles involved here remind me a great deal of the kind of cleavages you get when you break certain types of basalt – one side is invariably concave, the other convex. I think that might be a significant observation, but am not geologically versed enough to know for sure. More on all this later;  meanwhile, comments, observations, and additional references would all be greatly appreciated.
_______

*The earliest mention of this ball-in-socket phenomenon I’ve found was in the 1875 reference mentioned above. That discussion focused on the basalts in the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland. Does this mean the Grand Ronde Flood Basalt Group in Washington/Oregon/Idaho is somehow related to those from which the Giant’s Causeway’s spectacular columnar basalts originated?

 

Note: Echo Basin. If you double click on this photo, it should open to a larger size. Then look for the rock climbers in the upper right quadrant. Before the floods tore through this area, an entire assemblage of colonnades extended above the high ground shown here.

Chum Salmon and the Weathering Process

Chum salmon contending for position over a spawning female (obscured by wave action photo left)

As I've written several times previously, each November chum salmon spawn in a small ephemeral stream not more than a quarter mile from our front door. Beatty Creek it's called, and I have loved it since the first time I laid eyes on it. This creek differs in almost every respect from Fanno Creek, particularly with regard to its bottom. The waters of Beatty Creek flow over deep beds of well sorted gravel; those of Fanno Creek flow over a bottom that is almost entirely composed of an exceedingly fine mud. 

Ironically, these creeks share a common ancestor: the Fraser Glaciation that invaded Washington State during the last glacial maximum. Fanno Creek's geological history is tied to the Purcell Lobe of that glaciation and its relationship to the great Missoula Floods that took place 16-12,000 years ago. The creek lies in the Tualatin Basin, a deep bowl of land in northwest Oregon. The Missoula Floods visited this basin at least once, leaving behind vast quantities of debris, including millions of tons of loess. The muddy bottom of Fanno Creek is directly attributable to that great abundance of that material. 

Beatty Creek, on the other hand, owes its salmon-friendly, gravely bottom to the Puget Lobe of the same glaciation. As that monstrous body of ice plowed through the Puget Sound, it carried with it enormous quantities of mineral-rich rocks it had literally ripped out of the mountains of British Columbia and Washington. When the glacier retreated, around 12,500 years ago, it left behind great piles of rocky debris, which in turn were washed and worn by glacial meltwater and all the other agents of the weathering process. The deep glacial drift that covers the lowlands of the Puget Sound are one of the artifacts of that weathering process. 

Great things happen when the rains of October and November flow through the ancient gravels of the Beatty Creek watershed. 

 

Scouting Scablands Locales


The view north and east from above Lake Lenore's portion of the Sun Lakes complex. Banks Lake in the Grande Coulee is barely visible in the distance (top, left-of-center on the horizon).

A few weeks ago I walked along the edge of a windy ridge that marks the northwestern limit of the larger Missoula Flood events. The elevation stands at 2310 feet, just over a thousand feet above the string of lakes below. 15-13,000 years ago the floods plowed into these headlands and created the narrow valley below. Each of the flood events thundered in from both the north and the east, arriving in such volume and with such force the surge topped this ridge and literally ripped off the leading edge. The main body of the flood itself rose to within a couple hundred feet of this particular overlook; all that could be seen from here at the time, clear out to the most distant horizon, was a raging slurry mostly comprised of muddy water, broken ice, and every size and kind of rocky material imaginable. Vast whirlpools, spawned by the cataract at Dry Falls to the north would have occasionally drifted by. A scene straight out of Hell.

I visited this ridge a couple times on that trip, each time hoping to get a better sense for the scope and size of these ancient Ice Age monsters. I have a fertile imagination, and have a fair grasp of the abstract scale of the events. I can imagine the action, which is a step in the right direction; but what I am really looking for is that electric-like feeling that comes from connecting to something like this at a truly existential level. 

I also hoped to get a better sense for how J Harlen Bretz was able to recognize, almost from the outset of his studies of the area, that the predominant geological thinking of his day could not fully account for the landscape itself. I made a little progress on that front, and quite by accident. I was photographing a freshly plowed field, as well as a nearby abandoned school house:

As I was getting back into the truck I noticed the drainage ditch along side the road. There was my ridge and the rest of the coulee, in miniature:

Coulee formation in miniature, complete with graded gravels, sand bars, and drumlins.

When I finally stopped laughing, I took off my hat, stared up into the beautiful blue sky, and exclaimed, "Thank you, J!" 

  

Good As It Gets Department - Sutton Mountain

I've made every effort to faithfully reproduce, in the photo above, the subtle but spectacular color scheme typically encountered here on overcast days. What a magical place.

For years now my son, Aaron and I have been trying to get together in the John Day River Basin. We finally got it done just over a week ago. It was a relatively brief visit - only three full days of looking-in at various places - but it was a great trip nonetheless. First stop was the painted hills at Cougar Creek. I never fail to go there when I visit, and hoped he would be suitably impressed with the area. We lingered for quite awhile, taking in both the vegetable and mineral characteristics of the place.

I'm still trying to get a positive ID on this cutie, but my best guess at the moment is Eriogonum vimineum (wire stem buckwheat). An ID would be easier if I had managed to hold the camera still!) 

We looked-in at Priest Hole- first from the fishing hole just downstream from the rapids...

...then from an overlook we discovered just off the Twickenham Cutoff Road that runs across the north end of the Sutton Mountain Wilderness Area.

Priest Hole Rapids overlook. The water-starved rapids are visible in the bend at the right; the fishing hole is just left of the trailer.

While we were surveying the countryside from the overlook, we noticed a set of painted hills lying just to the west of Cougar Creek. This grouping was only a mile or so east of Stove Pipe Springs, an area we were planning on visiting later in the day. "Yellow Head," we ended up calling it. The place turned out to be the highlight of our trip.

The entrance to Yellow Head Creek lies just a quarter of a mile west of the entrance to Cougar Creek. A well-worn cattle and game trail, about the same length as the trail to Cougar Creek, led us inland to the hills. In fact, these hills turned out to be what you might call "the other side" of the ones you'll find at the end of Cougar Creek.

The formations at Yellow Head appear to be a little less heavily eroded than those just a ridge line away at Cougar Creek. The reds also seemed to be a little more intense. One way or the other, the color scheme and textures were fascinating.

Our last hike took us to Stove Pipe Springs, an area I've been meaning to visit for quite some time. 

The main formation here reminds me a little of some formations I saw a week or so before, at Tent Rocks National Monument (post to follow soon). I think the basic components (ancient sea floor eroding beneath plates of basalt) may be similar, at least in terms of mechanics. However, the stove pipe formations lack the distinctive caps that make for a true Hoodoo. 

                                                                                                

Hoodoos or not, The patterns of erosion at Stove Pipe are well worth the short hike needed to view them up close and personal.                                              

           

Our visit was over way too fast, but maybe we won't have to wait three or four years again before we get back.

 

Drumheller Channels

Daughter Erica surveys the Drumheller Channels from a ledge overlooking Black Lake.

The view is to the northeast; but if you did a 360 here, it would look pretty much the same in any direction. The bones of this vast plain came into being sometime between 16.5 and 13.5 million years ago, when the flood basalts of the Columbia River Basalt Province pooled here, then begin to solidify. How long it took the completely sterile surface to completely heal in this particular area is hard to say, but it may have been thousands of years. Then as now, the prevailing winds were from the southwest. With every passage of the wind, a thin layer of loess was put down over the mineral-rich, rapidly decaying basalt. The layers ultimately accumulated to great depths - in some areas the soil was well over 200 feet deep. The closest land-borne colonizers were at least 90 miles away from here; the wind-borne plants and critters would have had to travel even further. 

The CRBG wasn't the only cataclysm to pass over this land in geologically recent times. Flood waters from glacial Lake Missoula poured through here around 13,500 years ago. The floodwaters were 10 to 12 miles wide, 200-400 feet deep, and moving at around 65 miles an hour. What you see in this location today are the ripped up remains of the CRBG basalts themselves. The vast and fertile prairie that once covered those basalts was completely stripped away and carried south towards the Columbia River. Once the flood had torn off the 200-400 feet of loose material covering the basalt, it went after the bedrock itself, literally plucking up great chunks and bearing them away as well.

J Harlen Bretz, the geologist who first recognized that the Scablands resulted from a flood of nearly unimaginable proportions, had this to say about this particular place:

“Drumheller is the most spectacular tract of butte-and basin scabland on the plateau. It is an almost unbelievable labyrinth of anastamosing [braided] channels, rock basins, and small abandoned cataracts”. 

The viewpoint above is on the southwest corner of the channeled area. I'd like to think Bretz once stood on these very rocks, and maybe someday I'll be able to find out if that is true.

I  was curious about the Drumheller name for this area, having already heard about the town of Drumheller in Alberta, Canada. After a little research (nothing exhaustive) I put my money on Daniel Drumheller, who settled in these parts around 1880. Looking for confirmation, I contacted the US Fish and Wildlife Service to see what they could tell me:

 No idea.  Washington State Place Names offers nothing.

We're going to keep looking.  I've reached out to the National Park Service, who administers the NNL program, and Laurie is going to look in the files.  If she finds anything, she'll let you know.  However, it just might be one of those things that can never be tracked down -- the person generating the application puts in a name, for reasons known only to that person, and that reason goes to the dustbin of obscure history with the person.  Or the place was named decades earlier by a local who, once again, is the only person who knows why he/she started calling the place by that name.

Dan (USFWS)

I'm focusing my research efforts in so many directions right now, I can't afford to pursue this curiosity any further, at least for the time being. But something tells me I will be passing through both this country and this little place-name mystery again, before I conclude my work on Bretz's wonderful story.