Converse in the North Cascades: Busy Weekend

I have some trips planned this year that will take me up into the South Fork of the Cascade River. The last time I was up there, in 2011, the going was pretty rough. So I took Friday off from work to go check the trail. The plan was to go in Friday, brush any areas I could and come out Saturday. I was just out of high school the first time I ever saw this area. I went up the Middle Fork of the Cascade which branches off the South Fork trail. The first time I took this trail all the way to the South Cascade Glacier was 1992 or 1993.

The trail up the South Fork lives in a kind of limbo. It has been there for a long time I think, well before my time. The U.S. Forest Service recognizes it and has given it a number, 769. I think it was used early on by USGS (United States Geological Survey) to access the South Cascade Glacier before flying helicopters became an everyday thing. Maintenance of it over the years has been spotty at best. As trails go, it is a maintenance headache. It goes through a lot of brushy wet areas, avalanche tracks and constantly eroding side stream channels. It has always been more of a way trail than a planned, engineered trail and, over the twenty years or so that I have used it, it has always been very brushy with a few exceptions when the Forest Service was doing a little work on it.

A forest fire in 2005 or 2006, I’m pretty sure it was 2005, made it worse. The fire burned down to mineral soil in many places and wiped out the tread of the trail and many of the side streams that were always actively eroding, blew out in a spectacular manner, adding sediment to the river which caused it to erode more of its banks and take out more of the trail.

I was feeling pretty rough at the start of the trip. My left ankle that had been bothering me earlier felt okay with a few painful twinges here and there but my right ankle felt “locked up.” In addition, I had somehow managed to mysteriously tweak my left shoulder so it was painful to move my arm in certain directions.

Fortunately for me and my plans, some generous souls had gone up there a year or two ago and cut most of the big logs out of the trail. I did lose the trail a few times but always found it again and I did some additional brushing to make the trail a little more obvious in places where it seemed like it needed it.

I decided to go back rather than stay the night. That way I could go to another place on Saturday. Of course that meant packing my full pack back out really without any significant rest except when I stopped for lunch. On the way back out I did a little more brushing. I ended up walking for about 10 hours getting home after dark. I discovered that was out of clean socks and underwear so I did a load of laundry before going to bed which was almost 11:00 p.m.

The next day, Saturday, I had a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. My hips were rubbed raw, my legs and shoulders were stiff and sore and my right arm scratched and stiff and sore as well from swinging a sandvik at brush all day the day before. I managed to crawl out of bed at around 6:30 a.m. After doing some chores around the house, another load of laundry and cleaning up from the mess I had created the night before from all the moss and needles falling off my pack, I decided to go into Lower Josephine Lake.

I had been by Lower Josephine earlier this year but didn’t have a chance to survey and inspect it. I figured it would be a good short day trip. I managed to get there and out in a decent time so I did some grocery shopping for my upcoming backcountry trips, cleaned some fish I had caught, walked the dog and even had time to take in a movie at the Concrete Theatre.

I got up at about 5:30 a.m on Sunday, This was the day of the annual Marblemount Community Hall Salmon Barbeque fundraiser. I ran back up the Cascade River to get some photos that I hadn’t gotten on Friday and this put me a little late getting to the hall. Things were well underway by the time I arrived but I was able to help a bit with the setup.

There were more attractions this year, a fish pond, a face painting table and a dunking booth. Most of this had already been set up by the time I arrived. I helped at the barbeque pit and setting up signs.

When it looked like there wasn’t much left for me to help with, I headed home and mowed the lawn before heading back to the Community Hall for a late lunch with Sacha and Vashti. I also managed to walk the dog with Sacha and Vashti before heading back to the hall to help with the cleanup after the barbeque.

I was able to help a little more with the cleanup but I have to hand it to certain folks, many of whom are the same people who, year after year, show up early, stay all day and stay afterward to clean up. This is hard work, especially handling hot food on a hot, stuffy day like Sunday. I should also mention all of the folks that staffed the various booths all day long. I just helped a little around the edges.

It looked like the barbeque was pretty successful this year. We were talking before it started and figured this barbeque has been going on for 50 years or more without a missed year. I hope the tradition continues.

Sacha was up until 10:00 p.m., past her bedtime making applesauce. I was up past ten working on this blog, among other things.

South Fork Cascade River trail in 2005 burn just past the Middle Fork crossing. I plan to do a post on this burn later. There are some interesting things happening here.

South Fork Cascade River about half a mile above the Middle Fork.

Blown out tributary stream in 2005 burn. This channel was always pretty active but the amount of sediment from landslides that it put out increased dramatically after the 2005 flood. The trail was obliterated here. Red alder (Alnus rubra) and shrubs are beginning to revegetate the bare mineral soil.

Lower Josephine Lake viewed from the west end.

Lower Josephine Lake viewed from the east end.

Eastern brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis). In my opinion, one of the prettiest freshwater fish. These are not true trout but members of the genus Salvelinus, or char. They are related to trout because char are in the family Salmonidae as are trout and salmon. Unfortunately these fish, which are not native to the Pacific Northwest, have been implicated in the decline of some populations of our native char, Dolly Varden/Bull Trout (Salvelinus malma/confluentus). From what I can tell, this seems to be more pronounced in areas where Dolly Varden/Bull Trout habitat is more marginal but I don't really study this problem and some fisheries biologists may disagree. Brook trout have naturalized in many of our streams. When we were operating a trap to catch and count salmon smolts on a slough on the Upper Skagit, we would occasionally catch brook trout. In the case of Lower Josephine Lake, brook trout escaping doesn't seem to be an issue because I didn't see an outlet to the lake that was on the surface, which would allow them to move down the outlet stream and into other waters. On another note, brook trout which do so well out here, to the point of sometimes being a problem, are in decline in some parts of their natural range.

I included this photo of a different fish to illustrate the difference in spotting patterns each fish has on its sides.

Northwestern salamander (Ambystoma gracile) egg mass.

Newly metamorphosed western toadlets (Bufo boreas). Western toads have a tendency to bunch together. They form large swarms as tadpoles and often during breeding, more than just two adults are involved. There was a great mass of these newly emerged toads on the log when I first saw them. Half to two-thirds fled before I was able to take this photo. The tails are remnants of the aquatic tadpole stage and will shortly be absorbed by the toads' bodies.

You can just make out the warty skin and paratoid glands behind the eyes on this toadlet. As it grows larger, it will probably start showing a dorsal stripe down the middle of its back. The plant it is sitting on is water buttercup (Ranunculus aquatilis). When this plant is blooming, it looks like a bunch of little white stars floating on the water-quite lovely.

Red legged frog (Rana aurora). I understand red legged frogs are listed or endangered in Oregon. They still seem to be doing fine in these parts. I encountered this one on the trail out of Lower Josephine Lake. To do a positive identification of these frogs, it is best to capture them for close inspection. Sometimes they can be hard to catch though, so I always try to get a photo or two before I try to catch them. There is often enough information in these photos to make a good guess as to the species. I figured this frog was a red legged based on the blurry edged dorsal spotting and eye orientation. I initially flubbed catching this one and gave up.

Then, I looked one more time and was successful in catching it. The red legged frog looks similar in some ways to the Oregon spotted frog (Rana pretiosa) which is endangered in our area. I had guessed that this individual was a red legged frog based on dorsal spotting and eye orientation which are okay traits to use to identify a species but they are not foolproof. By capturing it and looking at other features, I was able to remove all doubt. Note the yellowish green groin area just in front of the legs. This is a dead giveaway that this animal is a red legged frog. Spotted frogs don't have this feature. The frog was released unharmed. I usually try to catch them by hand. If you use gear, you have to pack more stuff and you need to pay special attention to sterilize it after each trip so as not to spread disease.

The ventral or underside coloration is another clue as to this frog's species. It is hard to tell from this photo, but the red color is kind of "grainy". If it were a spotted frog, the red coloration would look smooth or painted on. I have never seen an Oregon spotted frog up close but I have seen a number of closely related and similar looking Columbia spotted frog (Rana luteiventris).

Sunday. Rusty Shirley and Kathy Hunter finish setting up the Marblemount Community Hall.

Splitting green alder for the barbeque pit. Byron Digrazia in action.

Yours truly splitting some alder. This wasn't very hard work. The wood split easily and there wasn't a lot of it and it was in the morning before the day got hot.