Fall Crossing Over North Cascades

Washington State Highway 20 over the North Cascades is closed every winter once the snow begins to get deep. The avalanche hazard is too high and persistent to afford keeping the road open. And to put it simply the road is not a critical link across the state.

Snow arrived by mid October, but has been plowed allowing for continued crossing. It will take a fair bit more snow to load up the avalanche areas. As I live in northern Washington and had some north central ventures, I was able to take advantage of the cleared road and save some miles and time.   

Just west of Washington Pass. The snow cover was causing fog to form

Descending Rainy Pass down Granite Creek provides a view of Crater Mountain. I took this picture as I crossed into my home county, Whatcom County.

Crater Mountain

West ridge of Crater Jack Mountain?

Turning west of northwest having entering the Ruby Creek Valley I had a view of Mount Prophet Challenger.

Mount Prophet Challenger

I had a glimpsed of Ross Lake with cottonwoods like bright beacons in the evergreen landscape.

Then a favorite view north up the upper Skagit Valley with Hozameen rising sharply above the valley's east side.

 

Then Colonial Peak rising above the confluence of Thunder Creek and the Skagit River.

The picture of Colonial does not do the peak justice. I had to point the camera up to capture its sharp rise above the deep valley. From Thunder Creek to the summit is of 6,300 feet.

The cold water coming out of Diablo Lake below Seattle City Light's Diablo Dam was chilling the air and forming a fog bank on the downstream side of the dam.

Autumn Notes from the Field

Besides the rain which has been much greater than normal (may be the new normal) there are other visuals of fall. I have enjoyed a bit of the fall variety of Washington State the last few days besides simply getting wet.

 

The cooling weather has brought winter to the high country of the North Cascades. Much of any area above 5,500 feet is already covered in snow.

 

Fisher Peak, North Cascades

 

Despite the "Evergreen State" label, there area areas of fall color mostly in the form of yellows.

 

Cottonwoods, Methow Valley

Cottonwood, aspen and maple, Wenatchee River

Aspen in burned over area, Wenatchee River

Cottonwoods along Wenatchee River

 

One of the main fall themes of central Washington State are apples.

 

Apple harvest, Columbia Valley

 

While some folks flock to the south and sunnier climes, we have plenty of visitors arriving from the north to spend the winter.  

First snow geese on Samish Flats

Most of the harvesting of fields has ended, but farmers still have plenty to do. Drainage is a critical job on the flat lands of western Washington.

Recent drainage ditches, Fir Island, Skagit River Delta 

Notes on Symphoricarpos albus or snowberry

Symphoricarpos albus or snowberry is not a plant that is typically noteworthy in western Washington and across a fair bit of northern Washington simply because it is so common. It is also not particularly showy most of the time. It is sort of the Douglas fir of brush in that it grows and thrives in a wide variety of habitat. Like Douglas fir the plant seems to adjust its growth in accordance to the conditions. It can be short and stubby in harsh sites, legging and open branched in the forest and forms dense thickets in prairie areas.

The one time of year the plant may be showy is October/November. I came across this patch in big leaf maple dominated forest.  

The berries in this patch were thick enough that one could probably pick a quantity; however, they taste rather bad and have a mild toxin. The toxin will break down with cooking, but again the taste would preclude that idea.

Just outside the forest the snowberry had formed a dense thicket.

The thicket as well as the forest at this site is in a place that had formerly been developed for many years and is now drifting to a wild land condition. This particular place has been heavily occupied for at least a few thousand years, so a wild land landscape will be a new era. The snowberry was likely always there and is taking advantage of the opportunity to expand into the former human dominated terrain.

Yes on 732 Carbon Tax

David Roberts has a detailed perspective on the 732-carbon-tax-washington and the political push and pull between two groups that want to move forward with a tax on carbon in Washington State. Roberts treats both sides fairly and explains the difficult situation without really given an opinion.

A tough spot for some enviro groups. 732 may not be perfect, but then most regulations, taxes or laws are not going to make everyone happy. A lesson of politics is setting aside hard principles and getting to compromise. The enviro groups and their allies/partners were trying to get there but ran out of time at least this year. That in itself is a problem, and I suspect the 732 folks simply did not have confidence that the envro groups and allies were going to get there anytime soon.

I am not tribal enough to be on one side or another on this, but am of the view that a carbon tax would be a good thing. Hence, I am voting yes on 732. Maybe 732 will be like the marijuana vote four years ago and will be the surprise winner in Washington State this year.

 

Point Roberts: International Trip, Palm Trees and Salmon

A trip to and from Point Roberts involves four international border crossings - all to do a job in my home county of Whatcom County.

You know you are in Canada when you see White Spots.

The border line at Point Roberts is typically not very long. Most of the folks crossing are Canadian as Point Roberts is a community where tax payers out number voters by a fair bit. That is much of the Point is owned by Canadian citizens.

Crossing back into Canada at Point Roberts I noted the palm tree adjacent to the sign. There are palms that can tolerate occasional freezes. This one has a jacket around its base in preparation for winter. Southwest BC has a very mild winter climate due to the ocean water and prevailing western storm pattern. The high Coast Range also effectively prevents continental air from reachimg the area most of the time. Southwest BC is Canada's Florida.

The oddity of Point Roberts being in the United States is that it protrudes south of the 49th parallel. One might think Why not give the small appendage to Canada? However, the Point is a hugely valuable United States resource. Salmon swimming towards the Fraser River along the southern route to the river swim through the Strait of Juan de Fuca up along the northwest Washington Coast into Boundary Bay and then hug the shore around Point Roberts.

First Nations caught salmon at this site for thousands of years. Salmon traps became industrialized in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The scale of the industry was huge and valuable.

Fish Trap maps at Lilly Point Park

The lack of regulation as well as habitat damage and destruction diminished salmon numbers. However, the Fraser salmon runs are still very valuable and United States waters off of the Point are still an important fishery.  

King County Leads the Way on Landslide Mapping Efforts

King County has recently come out with an interactive landslide map (kingcounty.gov/iMapLandslide/). The project is an impressive effort and may be a good model on how to put together landslide mapping. The iMap is interactive and will be a great resource as further planning and risk assessment is undertaken.

One intriguing example:

The LiDAR imagery shows a huge low-angle liquefaction spread slide in the Tolt River valley. Dragovitch and others (2012) suggest the slide may have been seismically induced and possibly associated with the Carnation Fault.

The reports and a web page associated with this King County effort:

Results of a Preliminary Landslide Investigation in King County, Washington

Mapping of Potential Landslide Hazards along the River Corridors of King County, Washington

kingcounty.gov/river-landslide-hazards

Weird Sand Protrusions at Lilly Point, Point Roberts

I have posted before about the north bluff north of Lilly Point at Point Roberts (lilly-point-point-roberts-part-ii-north). I had another bit of a look at this spectacular bluff on my way to figure out a geohazard site further north.

The bluff consists mostly of a thick sequence of alluvial sediment that I have interpreted to be associated with a large pre-last glacial period river system possibly in some sort of delta like setting. The exposure provides a great cross-section of cut and fill structures and other alluvial deposit features.

Channel cut into layered sand with rip up silt/clay clasts overlain by a thicker sequence of silts

On the lower right of the above image there are a few protruding bumps in the sand unit that I first thought were pebbles until I actually looked at them.

I do not know what these things are or have much of an explanation. They do seem to be associated with specific layers within finely bedded sand deposit.

The bluff is eroded by combination of wave erosion and wind erosion.

As is often the case, I did not have time to linger long as I had to proceed to my main purpose and my ventures on this day had required a fair bit of hiking as well as steep bluff slope scambles.