Cot Creek - May 2012

Winter sure does like to linger, especially in our godsend-Cascades.  We of the wild-persuasion tend to sit and sulk under leaden winter skies, dreaming of the Big Thaw - a yearly miracle.  But even the welcome warmth contains a drop of  the next season, when it all goes back to sleep.

Itching to get out, but pushed down into the lower elevations, Don, Randy and I head into a very early mountain spring.  May in Oregon just means the snow left an hour ago.

Olallie Butte still blanketed

Of course, a camp without trails is no fun at all.  "Back Then", a first class trail climbed up the mountain, heading for the deep forests and high country, ducking through meadows and passing lonely cabins.

Along Cot Creek, we have seen the passing of Man, Machine, Domestic Beast, and Fire.  Loggers have taken a more than ample swath from ridges, but new wilderness designation has protected a patchwork of old growth and clearcuts - preserving fire-regenerated forest and a maze of abandoned roads.  Wilderness designation has also protected the vast and incredible Roaring River Wilderness, a land with very little damage in spite of it all.

Trail 705 has graced these slopes for some time, and lies largely forgotten, in spite of its still active status.  Its lowermost section has been lost to clearcuts.  Fortunately, the higher reaches are largely intact.

Otherwise, it is still 1928 out there along #705.

The Green Mother always tries to reclaim her own.  It is an eternal struggle to maintain a linear path.

But we give it our damnedest.

Out of the woods and into the glacial bowl summit, the cold winter still blows.  Large snowdrifts block the road; it will be another few weeks before it all melts out - and bringing clouds of mosquitoes under the warm blue heavens.

The trail has been bisected by another unfortunate clearcut at the base of a large series of meadows.  This clearcut divides the trail into two isolated sections, much like early interstate highways divided neighborhoods as they split their way through old city blocks.  Each year, we get closer to restoring this lost stretch, working from both ends to meet in the middle like Promontory Point.
  

With the snow and weather, we can go no further.  Time to head back to camp, I can hear a beer calling.

poorly recovering forest of lodgepole pines and firs

What happened to the old axe that cut this blaze?

that's the ticket

and a meal fit for royalty, or crows

Our camp really isn't much of one.  In the pre-roaded days it was just another nameless ridgeside.  Then came the roads, followed by big trucks heavy with ancient timber.  One day, the creek decided to wash out the bridge, putting a stop to all this foolishness.

.

In spite of a 100 yard linear berm constructed by a most eager heavy-equipment operator, the end of the road is beginning to grow into a mediocre camp.  In another 20 years, perhaps the scars will have healed.  But it's good enough for 3 bums.

"Contains no whiskey?"

And the night falls on another adventure.

So we eat galactic technicolor psychedelic steaks and howl at the clouds.

Good night!

Winter Solstice Camp - December 2012

What on Earth is there to do in that sort of weather? I wouldn't even venture out of my sleeping bag.
Colin

Well, that's a damn good question...

Once again we find ourselves with the opportunity to venture into wilderness.

What better place to celebrate the coming of the Winter Solstice? And to herald the coming of the End of the World, as duly predicted by a lost civilization's great thinkers.

We ply wet roads that soon turn to snowy mess.  We climb moderately, our destination at just over 2000'.  

Halfway to the deep mountain camp, in wet thick snow that is scraping the bottom of the bus, Mark stops in the middle of lonely 46 Road, trudging to my door.

  "What could be wrong?", I fret.
  Mark eats nails and poops juniper fenceposts.

"Are you sure it's a GOOD idea to go so far back here with this weather?", he asks.

I think about it for a moment.  

"Ahh we're almost there."  Ok then.

Following these elephant paths gingerly through the falling snow we make our way up river.  "Almost there" is sure taking a while.  But my bus is surefooted in her new studded snow tires, gripping like a flabby sea otter through the ice and slush.  I spot the road into camp.  It is a snow-covered maze through heavy woods, plowing through ice covered puddles, wide and dark.  Ok then.

Cutting a new path through freshly fallen snow, we celebrate our arrival, eager to welcome in the new year.

Snow falls heavy and silent all around, bending firs into many monks.

There is only the sound of the creek in the air, and the distant flow of the Clackamas.

We notice a peculiar humming  in the air, like the universe about to split apart.  "What the hell IS that?" we both wonder.  

The humming seems to fade in and out, filling the air with a deep random OM.  It is completely out of place in the winter wilderness.

Finally, it dawns on me after entertaining many silly possibilities.  Power lines.

I wasn't happy about this uninvited guest into my solitude after so many city miles...POWERLINES in the wilderness?  But I soon got used to the hum and quickly forgot about it all together.  And guess what?  The sound eventually just faded away.

A deep and restful night sleep brings the last sun of the old year into the ancient forest. 

Soon the snow begins to melt in earnest, falling in a million drops, crashing as solid chunks.

Growing up in Chicago, I am no big fan of winter.  Too many blizzards and below zero winds to even count, cutting through layers of wool like a knife. The Northwest winters are tame in comparison, but they are unequaled in their ability evoke pallor and despair.  There are days (short days) when the house lights must be kept on continuously until an immediate night comes crashing down.  It doesn't help that the city-remedy Cascades are buried deep in their white coat for months at a time.  It is certainly a time for looking inward and chasing skeletons from deep dusty recesses of one's self - there is no escaping him in the winter, with distractions at a complete standstill.

But the wilderness is different.  There is something special, and very difficult to pin down exactly what it is that breathes in the untouched.  Simple things take on new meaning in this temple to infinity.

Soon the warming sun is causing a great soggy mess under unpredicted blue skies.  The whole world becomes a chapel.

  In an attempt to locate old trails, I am soon rewarded with soaked socks, pants, and coat.  Trees hang so heavy with wet snow that it becomes impossible to venture cross country without an icy bath.  

 an old blaze and signpost nails deep in the woods

end of the trail

Exalted by my new discoveries, I turn around and get rewarded with a big wet fir branch in the face, as ice crystals tumble down my neck.  And that is enough sodden archaeology for one day.

I'm pretty sure the trail used to go this way...

It is time to change my clothes and sit down.  There is nothing left to do, and this is not an easy decision.  I do not like to sit down.

ice crystal hanging by a filament, held by an unseen canopy hand

Soon Jasan arrives in a flurry, his clatter filling the camp.  I am amazed that he makes it without chains.

And then Suggo.

But what a day!  We are in fact a bit disappointed, hoping for a blizzard.  But the lovely blue is such a scarce visitor, who can complain?

filling the pie-hole

but as usual I can't forget that road out, taunting me.  I sure hope we can make it out...

Much too quickly the late morning sun begins to set on the eve of a new season and solar year.  The fog and smoke hang low in this ancient river bottom, haunting the camp like a cemetery.

Mark disappears into his heated outfitter's tent for long spells.  "Where's Mark?", and we just hear giggling.

Soon a Great Beast stumbles out of the gloom.

Startled, but it is only Randy - King of the Middle Clackamas

oh what a handsome bunch

The sun falls like a brick, time for one last walk before the end of the world.  Oh those Mayans.

 46 Road - barely

Not a sound in the air besides our crunchy footfalls.  Can you imagine the peace?

 I welcome the company of good friends and a roaring fire, as the camp glows and lights up the trees like a great stadium.  It feels almost cozy as the temperatures begin their descent into the new night.

"I sure hope the world really doesn't end tonight", I think.

It doesn't.  At least not yet.

Soaked, nervous and hungover, we pack and head out and upriver, back to the throes of society and the miracles of heat and hot water.  4 days in the winter Cascades and all I can think about is the miracle that springtime brings to this frozen and sterile world, with her high mountain meadows and mosquitoes. 

 Were it not for good friends I'm pretty sure a guy could go mad out there dodging winter drops, sitting in cold solitude.  I'm close enough as it is.

And I'm glad the world didn't end, really I am.

The Forest History Society

The Forest History Society is a nonprofit library and archive dedicated to collecting, preserving, and disseminating forest and conservation history for all to use. The Society links the past to the future while reminding us about our important forest heritage.

The Forest History Society (FHS) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit educational institution located in Durham, North Carolina, that links the past to the future by identifying, collecting, preserving, interpreting, and disseminating information on the history of interactions between people, forests, and their related resources -- timber, water, soil, forage, fish and wildlife, recreation, and scenic or spiritual values. Through programs in research, publication, and education, the Society promotes and rewards scholarship in the fields of forest, conservation, and environmental history while reminding all of us about our important forest heritage.
(The above is a direct quote from the FHS website.  The site also features a search of their archives, with quite a few items about the Mount Hood National Forest.  It is certainly worth a look-see as we while away the winter.)

The website:
http://www.foresthistory.org/index.html

Unidentified ranger looks northeast from Oakgrove Butte Lookout in the Mt. Hood National Forest, Oregon with Mt. Hood in the distance

1910, Mt. Hood National Forest fire team

Clackamas River Bull Trout - A Reintroduction

They were once here, but now are just a memory.  The 20th century was hell on wild creatures, with fish and amphibians being especially hard-hit.  Development is never positive from the eyes of a fish.

The bull trout was once found throughout the Columbia River Basin, east to western Montana, south to northern Nevada, west to California and possibly as far north as southeastern Alaska. The main populations remaining in the lower 48 states are in Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington, with a small population in northern Nevada. The bull trout has small, pale yellow-to-crimson spots on a darker background, fading to white on the belly.
Western Native Trout Initiative

In 2007 the US Forest Service completed a feasibility study about the reintroduction of Bull Trout into the Clackamas River.
http://www.fws.gov/oregonfwo/Species/Data/BullTrout/Documents/Clackamas%20River%20Bull%20Trout%20Reintroduction%20Feasibility%20Assessment.pdf

Happily, the reintroduction began in 2011:

Reintroduction Final Rule

On June 21, 2011, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in cooperation with the State of Oregon, USDA Forest Service and other project partners, published a final rule in the Federal Register to establish a nonessential experimental population (NEP) of bull trout in the Clackamas River and its tributaries in Clackamas County, Oregon, under section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The geographic boundaries of the NEP would include the entire Clackamas River subbasin as well as the mainstem Willamette River, from Willamette Falls to its points of confluence with the Columbia River, including Multnomah Channel. Based on findings from the 2007 Clackamas Bull Trout Reintroduction Feasibility Assessment, we believe a reintroduction of bull trout to the Clackamas River subbasin is biologically feasible and will promote the recovery of the species. The Fish and Wildlife Service and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, along with our project partners, plan to begin translocating multiple life stages of bull trout from the Metolius River to the Clackamas River in July 2011.

http://www.fws.gov/oregonfwo/Species/Data/BullTrout/ReintroductionProject.asp

Will it work?  Will they come back?  Are healthy ecosystems even possible with so much fragmentation?
Our descendants will have to tell us.