Flowers @ Coldwater Lake, Toutle River Yeti

From Mt. St. Helens

Last February, Kristin and I happened to pick a clear, sunny day to travel down I-5 to Portland. We were on our way to Colorado to visit “the sisters”, and decided to take a route that is different than the usual. I hadn’t been to Portland since the early 1970s, a time frame that is even cloudier in my mind now than it was then. The cloudless day allowed some glimpses of Mt. St. Helens through breaks in the trees. Even though it is some 50 miles east of the interstate, it looked like it was right by the road. We mentioned that it looks a lot like Rainier, except the top is missing. It is a classic Cascades Range volcano mountain with evergreen covered slopes that give way rather abruptly at about 4000 ft., and then BOOM! –snow covered, steep-sided mountain. I decided at that moment that I had to go there. I’ve been drawn to it like Richard Dreyfus was to Devil’s Tower in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We finally made it week before last. We had two days, and I wished we had about three more. It was worth the trip.

At about 8:30 a.m. on May 18, 1980 the northeast side of the mountain slid off, belched forth, puked out, and generally vented several decades of pent up pressure. The last previous noteworthy activity was some minor steam venting in 1898, 1903, and 1921. All of this is well documented in journals much more erudite and comprehensive than this one. The short version is that 57 people were killed and thousands of acres were devastated. Mud flows (lahars) reached all the way to the Columbia River. Smoke and ash climbed into the upper atmosphere and eventually encircled the globe. This was a little less than 30 years ago, and now it seems like everything is okey dokey and just as it should be, which it is.

The most striking thing about going to the mountain is experiencing nature’s awesome ability to heal her self from natural disasters. This is in stark juxtaposition to our awesome ability to screw it up, try to fix it, and screw that up too—unnatural disasters. Adjacent to Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument is a huge plot of evergreen forest that has been clear cut and reseeded in the manner that results in expanses of forest all the same age, size, and species, and so dense that each plant is locked in a struggle with its neighbor for every ray of sunshine, and every gram of nutrient. In this area, the species is the indigenous Noble Fir. Its boughs are arranged in a way so that with all the trees the same size and so closely packed, there is an illusion making the stand look like the screen on one of those pictures that shows one thing at this angle and another thing from a different angle. Kristin said it was “creepy”. I thought about my trip to the Northwest is 1971, and how it would have been “trippy”. The forest is striated, wavy, and artificial looking. There’s not a twig in there worth hugging. There are some isolated pockets of huggable trees, and the dead trees that were all laid down in the same direction from the volcano blast are nearly as trippy. In case you need more education about 20th Century forestry, there is the Forest Learning Center brought to you by Weyerhaeuser.

I just couldn’t get my mind off the image that came to me while visiting a stand of old growth forest a few weeks ago. I’m talking about the balls on the first couple of guys who walked up to a Douglas Fir or Western Red Cedar about 60 ft. in circumference and decided to cut that sucker down with a two-man hand saw. They had to have been scared shitless, and then really tired. They found the work so satisfying that they went to the shop and made more sophisticated tools so they could just go ahead and cut ‘em all down. They made boards out of some, paper out of the bulk, and shipped the rest to Asia. It is truly a testament to human resourcefulness and persistence.

The Forest Learning Center is on the same road as the Johnston Ridge Observatory which is a National Park Service administered visitor’s center dedicated to the Mt. St. Helens eruption. This place is really cool. They have displays that chronicle the personal stories of some of the people who survived, and some of the people who did not. There are of course displays about volcanoes in general and Mt. St. Helens in particular. They run a film in the auditorium about every 20 minutes. It is not an endless tape, but a series of films; some are dedicated to the eruption, some to the immediate aftermath, and some to the recovery of the land. After the film, the screen goes up, curtains open, and the cone is visible through a giant picture window. Everyone oohs and ahhs, and rightfully so. The center also has several seismographs where you can watch the needle register every little vibration in the earth’s crust. Some readouts show the seismic history on the mountain in the several months after the eruption, a period in which there were something like 2 million quakes of varying strength.

There is another great vantage point from Windy Ridge about two drainages to the northeast. It seems like a guy with a good arm could throw a rock from one ridge to the other. The drive from one point to the other is well over 100 miles. The drainages are steep and deep. It is striking that when you see country like this covered with trees, it looks much less abrupt, gentler. The countryside covered with the skeletons of scorched trees and new grass and small shrubs is at once stark and beautiful. During our visit, there was such a bloom of yellow flowers (Yellow Parentucellia) that the whole scene had a yellow tint to it—kind of an eerie, pervasive yellowness. Creepy.

We took the route from Johnston Ridge to Windy Ridge via the south side of the mountain. There was a young Park Service kid at the Johnston Ridge visitor’s center who was bubbling with enthusiasm about Ape Cave and the Trail of Two Forests. While pointing out Ape Cave on the map, he said, “I don’t want to ruin it for you, but this is really cool.” He said Trail of Two Forests has, “these tube things you can crawl through if you’re into crawling through stuff.” Then he looked at us like he doubted if we were. I looked at him like he was right.

Ape Cave is a lava tube created about 2000 years ago when a lava flow hardened on the outside, remained fluid on the inside, and left a tube much as running water would cut through rock. It was discovered by a logger and initially explored by a youth group from Portland who called themselves the Apes. Sorry, no Sasquatch connection here, even though there are plenty of references throughout the area, leaving tourists no doubt they are in Yeti country. The Forest Service has a visitor center here. A couple of young rangers in training led us on a tour into the cave. Some of us carried gas lanterns you can rent for $5.00, while the rest of us carried flashlights or headlamps. The cave is a constant 42 degrees F. We were introduced to “cave slime”, a living coating on the rock created by some exotic bacteria and water. There is also an insect that is a holdover from the last ice age. Sightings are rare, but it is neat to know that such things do exist.

Trail of Two Forests is an area where a short loop through the forest gives information about, and examples of, “tree molds”. Tree molds are left when a lava flow hardens around trees that are not incinerated. The wood burns and rots away after the lava hardens leaving a mold or impression of the tree trunk in the stone matrix. There are vertical ones and some horizontal ones from trees that were knocked down. These deadfalls created stone tubes that nimble visitors can shinny through if they choose. It would be great for kids, not so much for grand parents. The other forest is an example of old growth, a little patch of huggable trees spared because they share space with the volcanic artifacts.

When the lahar ran down the North Fork Toutle River, part of it ran about a mile up Coldwater Creek. The flow solidified in the face of the cold water and dammed the creek creating Coldwater Lake. The guide book I read about it must have been written before the recovery was very far along because it made the lake sound like a windswept reservoir in a desert landscape. When we got there the lake and surrounding countryside were beautiful. The lake has some dead tree stubs near one shore and there are rocky volcanic mounds that make islands. These match the gray tree trunks that cover the surrounding countryside (trees scorched in the volcanic blast) and offer a terrific contrast to the vivid wildflowers that have taken hold in the new volcanic soil. There are lupine and paintbrush of various colors along with different species of sunflowers with goldenweed and fleabane. They grow right down to the edge of the water. The fishing here is under special regulations with a one or two fish limit and size restrictions and no gasoline motors are allowed. There is a trail here with plenty of signage asking that you stay on the trail to keep from disturbing the recovering ecosystem which is a subject of interest to science.

We camped at one of several campgrounds on the shores of a string of impoundments on the Lewis River. These are nicely administered by PacifiCorp who generates power at the dams. This is a shining example of good corporate citizenship. The campgrounds are clean and maintained better than many Forest Service installations. The upper Lewis River above the dams is a pretty freestone stream with some attractive water and special regulations. I’m looking forward to going back and ignoring the volcano in favor of trying the fishing on the Lewis River and Coldwater and Merrill lakes. The lower Lewis below the dams and near the Columbia is reportedly great steelhead water for the fisherman with enough finesse to deal with the extra clear water and spooky fish in the fall. There are plenty of reasons to visit the Mt. St. Helens area including the fact that Portland is an attractive bicycle friendly city with an interesting combination of contemporary granola heads and erstwhile hippies—enough to bring back memories of 1971.

Nana, Jonah, Auden--Tacoma Narrows

Memorial Day Weekend 2008

Here are some observations and ramblings as a result of my expeditions over Memorial Day weekend.

I had my first “spring creek experience” on this weekend. Spring creek fishing is one of the touchstones in the career of one who seeks to fool the wily trout with the artificial fly. Fly fishing seems to have a bunch of touchstones, and one can only try to touch them all. I’ll never come close, and I suspect that those who make a living fly fishing, or travel the world in the quest just for entertainment, are disappointed (or encouraged) to discover that touchstones just keep multiplying anyway. I can only imagine being one who, upon touching what he thinks is the last one, like catching Arctic char in the former Soviet Union, opens a magazine or reads a classic journal only to discover that there is something else he is supposed to do before he dies.

A spring creek is just what it says. It is a creek that emanates from a spring rather than from melted snow or cool rain. Their current is languid, they are typically fairly shallow, maintain a constant temperature, and don’t have the cobble bottom usually encountered in freestone streams. Spring creek trout are notoriously selective, healthy, and beautiful. Montana has the Paradise Valley, Idaho has Silver Creek, Wyoming has Flat Creek, and I think there are number of them in the East, Pennsylvania, New York, etc. Washington has Rocky Ford Creek which is not as famous as the others mentioned, but a spring creek none the less. I would guess that the spring comes from the fact that the Columbia River is dammed up so tight, it just oozes out of the ground here and there.

One reason it is not as famous might be because it is in the middle of the flippin’ desert, wedged between a couple of huge impoundments on the Columbia River system in Central Washington. The desert locale makes the place particularly intriguing. You would think the banks of such an oasis would be choked with cottonwoods, alders, and what not, but Rocky Ford Creek has only some reeds and small willows. There is no impediment to the back cast; a false cast over the water might snag one of the many impervious ducks that paddle along on the placid and extraordinarily clear water. Wading is not allowed, and catch and release regulations apply. The fish are all rainbows, and you can easily see them cruising at their selected depths, occasionally sipping unseen miniscule invertebrates. You can learn a lot about the behavior of trout just by watching them. You can see why many takes of the artificial go undetected even by the best fly fishers because sipping is a literal description of what they do. I even saw one right at my feet take a mouth full of detritus off the bottom, sort out the morsel he wanted, probably a scud, and spit out the rest. You can bet your ass they will spit out a morsel with a hook in it in a microsecond.

The fishing was great. I didn’t fool many trout, but the ones I hooked were large and powerful, and the challenge made for what a spring creek experience is supposed to be. I camped by pitching a tent at the edge of the gravel parking area the evening before I fished. I didn’t fish more than about three hours because the place started to get loaded up with people (yuk) and the wind turned into a good ol’ western desert gale (more yuk). There were four big assed cigar butts on the ground near where I pitched my tent. They looked like big turds with gold bands around ‘em.

This brings up notions of things that are supposed to comprise the complete fly fishing experience, be it on a spring creek in the stinking desert or on a Maine brook trout stream (Uh-oh! Another unattained touchstone). After testing his skill against the aforementioned wily trout, the fisher is obliged to sit on a rock, log, or even a camp chair, preferably a Maine Lounger from L.L. Beane, and smoke a fine cigar and drink some single malt Scotch made with water from the River Spey. He should do this while wearing a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. I figure the dorks who left the banded turds never heard of the River Spey.

I spent a day and a half in the Central Washington desert before the wind and heat reminded me the I didn’t move to the Northwest to sweat my ass off in country just like that I left. Don’t get me wrong. I have a love for all the varied terrain and climates of our great country and the West especially. I’ll be heading for Rocky Ford Creek next winter when I get the urge to stretch my eyeballs after several weeks under Western Washington’s interminable winter cloud cover. There is no doubt that the lee side desert is an integral part of the Northwest ecosystem and so on. But, like I said dammit; it was bloody hot and the wind had 5 ft. whitecaps and aluminum framed lawn chairs blowing across whatever lake that is you cross on I-90. That lake used to be the Columbia River, but that subject is for another diatribe on another day.

I went south to Yakima and then over the mountains at the edge of Mt. Rainier National Park. The route took me over Chinook Pass which is a seasonal road like Independence Pass or Trail Ridge Road in Colorado. It was white, and green, and lush, and cold enough to. . . .
Oh well, diversity, that’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.

See y’all later,