by paul spencer
Sun Oct 4th, 2009 at 05:06:33 PM EST
This diary is too easy. No matter where you turn in the Cascades Mountain Range of the Pacific Northwest, the scenery is dramatic and mostly green and blue. It is the case that along the eastern edge of the Cascades, as in much of Colorado's and British Columbia's Rocky Mountains, the Mountain Pine Beetles have decimated the Lodgepole Pine trees (they also attack Ponderosa Pine, but the P.P. are better adapted to fight them off). So, as you'll see in some of the photos, there are stretches of gray and brown, too.
Mirta and I drove with our friends from last year's biking tour of the Erie Canal to Ashland, OR. (We make an annual pilgrimage there during the first week of April, along with 20 to 40 friends from the Stevenson area, to see a few plays and to exchange the ambience of the Columbia River Gorge for that of the Rogue River valley.) Stopped for Umpqua ice cream cones in Rice Hill (which is in a valley), as usual. (Like Tillamook ice cream in Tillamook, OR, you have to go to the Umpqua region to get the Reserve product.)
In Ashland, we walked a ways up Lithia Park (no pictures) which is an informal arboretum along Lithia Creek, the starting point of which is located just below the Ashland Shakespearean Festival theaters.
The second day we drove to Fish Lake - about 40 miles northeast of Ashland, starting along Dead Indian Memorial Road (just reporting, folks). Again, no pictures, as I forgot to take my camera along on the hike. As in many of the lakes in the Cascades, it's located in a bowl that has been dammed on the lower end by what we call 'rip rap' - large rocks - either by natural slide or by dozer (in this case it looked like a combination, as there are huge slides or rock 'screes' in the area). The hike starts at the downstream side of the dam and is 10 km long, round-trip. At the upper end of the lake, there's a cafe where Mirta had "very good" clam chowder with lots of clam bits. Why a rustic restaurant 150 km from the ocean would have very good clam chowder, I can't say, but Mirta's taste is unquestionable, so there you are.
The next day we drove to Sun River via Crater Lake, and I took about 50 pictures - partly to make up for my failure to take photos earlier and partly - well, you'll see. The first time that our little family of 4 drove to Crater Lake back in 1981, we came from the northern access road. The first parking area that one sees from that side of the lake offers a view of large rocks, tan dirt, Scrub Jays, Chipmunks, and a few little bushes and scrub White Pine. One parks; one walks upwards; in the last five steps to the viewpoints, Crater Lake appears in sweeping strokes. And it is stunning in the most literal sense of the word. Here are a few samples from the western edge:
Then there's Bob with his t-shirt advertising Bull Frog ales:
We hiked up to the old fire look-out tower, and here are the lake views from that vantage point:
Looking North:
Looking West (can you see the two wildfires on the horizon?):
Looking Southwest (the haze is from the two wildfires further south near Ashland and Medford, OR):
Looking Southeast (the picture may not be quite clear enough, but we could see Mt. Shasta which is over 150 km from the lookout tower):
One more toward Wizard Island:
I've got a bunch more, but I think that you get the idea. It's definitely one of my favorite spots on the planet. We moved on to Sun River, just south of Bend OR, which is situated along the Deschutes River. From there we took day trips to two very different parts of the Cascades. The first loop traversed a very extensive lava-flow region toward the West. My pictures may not convey the massiveness of the boulders or the extent of the field, but I'll show you opposite directions from the road, which may give some perspective. First one is looking South, and the haze is from the wildfires noted on the Crater Lake pictures from the day before. The wind had shifted from southerly to westerly:
Looking North:
You might be able to see the dead trees in that picture, but here's a closer view. I'll return to this matter near the end of this diary:
From the lava-flow area we drove on to the McKenzie River (Oregon version) and its headwater, Clear Lake (Oregon version also). There's a connection to the lava fields in that Clear Lake is spring-fed via all of the bare and overgrown lava flows in this central region of the Oregon Cascades. Some of it comes from melting glaciers on the Three Sisters Mountains; and some it is essentially an aquifer that flows and seeps throughout the underground formations made up of many lava flows over millions of years, that are hundreds and thousands of meters deep, throughout the central mountains and the high deserts to the east of the Cascades. Here's a few shots of the McKenzie near Clear Lake:
Then there's Clear Lake itself:
Looking North toward the springs:
It's pretty clear:
Mirta and an average-sized specimen of the larger trees along the trail:
A trail artist with a light touch left a bit of graffito on a Western Red Cedar:
Next day we headed further East to Paulina Lake, which appeared to be a natural alpine lake. Going east from the Deschutes River, the Firs give way to the Pine trees; and the more Pines, the more Mountain Pine Beetles. So now it's time for some editorial comment: yes, 'Global Warming' is part of the reason that these bugs - and the Spruce Budworm - are 'epidemic' (becoming 'pandemic') now. Lack of severely cold Winter temperatures allows more survival. However, the more important cause is overcrowding of trees. And yes, part of the cause of overcrowding has been the high-density replanting strategies, after clear-cut harvest, during the roughly four decades (1947 - 1990) of industrial forest practices on the U.S. forests. However, there's a reason that most of the bug-kill devastation has happened on National Forests, and that is that forest management has been nearly abandoned in the last 18 years due to litigation by forest preservationists. Private forestlands, Native American forests, and most western State-owned forests do not show the same depredation, because dead trees are salvage-harvested (which breaks the beetle's life-cycle); clear-cuts break up the landscape (which hinders the beetles' dispersion); and thinning is practiced (which decreased stems per acre and reduces drought stress on the remaining trees). This last element is perhaps the most important, because healthy trees with sufficient water resources reject the beetles via 'pitch'ing them out - bleeding, if you like. So - here are a couple of pictures of the situation around Paulina Lake. You might note that the trees on the ground have cut surfaces. This is an artifact of clearing the trail and dropping dead trees that are hanging up on other trees:
The good news at this point is that in a forest like this of Lodgepole Pine (almost gone), White Pine (much reduced), Ponderosa Pine (affected but not in danger at present), Douglas Fir, Mountain Hemlock, and Subalpine Fir; the unaffected and less-affected trees are growing and will construct a new forest over the next 50 years - albeit a different and immature forest. Beyond that, it's difficult to predict much; because Climate Change effects are very likely, but the particulars are largely unknown. At any rate, I give you Paulina Lake:
Finally, on the last evening of our stay, I took my regular bike loop around Sun River. You may notice, once again, the haze in the sky. This time we could smell the wood smoke. The wind had changed again, and this time the smoke was coming from a fire near John Day, OR - about 150 km east of Sun River. Evening along the Deschutes:
That's it for this installment. (Front-pagers - please let me know if that's too many photos, and I will edit.)
