Through the Eyes of Specialists
Forest, Fish, and Rocks
One of the highlights of writing is the opportunity to be out in the field doing research. I get so much more information from experiencing the landscape, flora, and fauna outside than through a phone call or meeting in town. Plus, I always enjoy seeing a landscape through a specialist’s eyes. Such was the case for a trio of recent adventures for my next book, In the Realm of Fire and Ice: A Human and Natural History of Washington’s Cascade Mountains.
Monday - Out in the tephra zone about 12 miles northwest of Mount St. Helens’ crater with forest ecologist Dylan Fischer. The blast didn’t damage trees in this area but did cover the ground in several inches of tephra (ash, dust, etc). In some sense little has happened since the 1980 eruption—another researcher has said that watching the plants grow in the tephra zone is like watching paint dry—but Dylan focuses on the details. Which plants colonized an area? Did they limit competition? How fast did they grow? “In our limited time frames, we tend to think ecosystems, particularly old ones, are static but our work shows that we get many small changes that ripple out. It helps us think about our own actions and that what we do does have an effect.”
While we were focusing on Dylan’s study plots, he regularly stopped and pointed out other aspects of the forest community. Sapsucker holes; spiral bark (caused by the wind twisting the tree); epicormic branches (usually multifingered and indicators of older trees); moss thriving on a root ball; forked trunks (which usually develop from a physical disturbance). What I liked about Dylan’s observations is that they revealed the complexities and vagaries of the forest, something best seen in the forest.
Friday - Angler Brian Curtis and I started at the Arlington fish hatchery picking up 600 fish fry: 300 cutthroat trout and 300 rainbow trout. The three-inch-long fish went into three, 2.5 gallon water jugs, each about 1/3 full with water. After driving 50 miles and hiking 3.5 miles, we reached a small lake, at 4,200 feet in elevation. We placed the jugs into the lake and poured a cup or two of lake water into the jugs to let the fry acclimate to the temperature and chemistry of their new home.
Brian has been stocking high lakes in the Cascades for many years, under the authority and guidance of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. As we hiked up the trail past a lower lake, Brian turned his gaze on the water and made an observation I rarely notice on hike. “Doesn’t look like any fish are active right now.” At the upper lake, after releasing our fish, he unpacked a small raft he had toted about 1,700 feet uphill, assembled his fishing gear, and paddled out on the lake. “I love catching fish I brought here but I prefer to hear someone saying "‘That's the biggest high lakes fish I ever caught,’ knowing I brought those fish up there.”
Saturday - Hiked up Anderson Butte with geologist Ralph Haugerud (who literally wrote the book on North Cascades geology). Our first stop, a sheeny, layered gray rock outcrop that most people would overlook but to Ralph it was part of a complex package of rock, older than any found in the South Cascades. Known as the Darrington Phyllite, it began life 150 million years ago as deep sea sediments subsequently buried and metamorphosed (which created the layered texture) in subduction, and “regurgitated” toward the surface relatively fast. We then stopped at even more mundane rock, which resembled soil. It post dates the phyllite by about 149,984,000 years, give or take a few weeks, and was deposited as till in the last ice age.
When we reached the summit, which is supposed to have great views of Mt. Baker and Mt. Shuksan, the clouds prevented Ralph from pointing out features, which in some ways was appropriate. As we began the day, he told me: “It’s impressive how much we don’t know about these rocks. There are so few outcrops. We really can’t see enough.” And, yet, he and others have put together a story of a jumbled mix of old continents, deep sea sediments, volcanic island arcs, and ocean floor basalt. Sutured together by plate tectonic movement, the quilt of disparate rocks was buried, uplifted, heated, squeezed, and deformed. “It may be my myopic vision but the North Cascades are as complicated geology as any place on earth,” said Ralph.
On each of these trips, the focus was primarily singular: forest, fish, or rock. It was a gift to see the landscape through these specialist’s eyes and to feel their passion for their field of interest and for the landscape around them, as well as their willingness to share what they know. Although I pride myself on being a general naturalist and trying to look at the connections and interfingering of a wide range of natural history subjects and ideas, I also revel in soaking in a subject and learning the nitty-gritty details. Such days always make my appreciation richer for the subject and the researcher and, I hope, enable me to write more clearly and passionately.
Thanks to everyone who wrote to me about Taylor last week sharing stories of their pets, offering kind words about what I wrote, and expressing their sympathies.
This weekend I will be down in Olympia for two events. If you live down there or know someone who does, please feel free to share this information. Thanks.
Sept 16 - Books by the Bay - 5:30 pm - A benefit for the South Sound Reading Foundation.
Sept 17 - Browsers Bookshop - 11am - I will be chatting about Homewaters with Shina Wysocki, owner of Chelsea Farms.
I loved this. You are so right about getting out in the world instead of just reading about things. Going today on another trip to one of my newer areas of discovery. Will be my 4th trip and i know I will see something different this time that I missed the first three.
Take care & have a good time in Oly.