Summer Trips 2022 July

I just about took myself out for the 2022 season. In April I went with the family to a nephew’s birthday party at a trampoline place. Of course I couldn’t just sit in the nice massaging easy chairs and watch, I had to get out there. After doing a few flips, I got cocky and decided to show off and do a really big flip. On the takeoff for the grande flip, I hit wrong and felt something in my calf snap. It felt a lot like when I tore the tendon that attaches my pectoral muscle to my humerus. The pain was instantaneous. I managed to pull off the flip though it wasn’t a very good one-probably the last I will ever do in my life. I crawled out of the trampoline pit with my head swimming. I could barely walk and I had the thought that I was going to be down and out for a long while. I couldn’t walk on the leg very well for the rest of the day. I needed to get some work done on the cow sorting pen the next day so I took an advil and went to it. I found that I could still walk on the leg and it performed satisfactorily. It actually felt okay in a couple of days and it didn’t give me any problems when I started putting in a lot of miles hiking though it did feel weird for the rest of the summer, not while I was walking but while I was sitting, usually driving a vehicle. I a pretty sure I tore something, either a muscle or one of the tendons attaching one of my calf muscle groups to the bone. I am no anatomist but I know from having disassembled a number of critters (deer, grouse and chickens that this part of the anatomy has a lot of muscle to bone attachments so it stands to reason that if whatever I tore wasn’t too big it probably wouldn’t be debilitating. Much of the summer was spent trying to get our house finished. This was a project that had dragged on for about three years at this point. Then the smoke came in September. This summer was, I am sure, my worst on record for getting into new spots for my high lakes project. I only made it into seven, four of which technically didn’t count as high lakes because they were below 2000 feet in elevation. Of the remaining three, one wasn’t mapped, though I saw some really interesting things there. I did get into several places that I had already been to and gained a lot of knowledge about them, making those trips well worthwhile. 

Day Lake 7/2/22 and 7/9/22 

 Day Lake is at 1600 feet and change so below the 2000 feet that designates a lake as a “high” lake but it would be a good long walk in, about 10 miles round trip and I wanted to stay in shape. And I was always curious to see Day Lake anyway. Dropped down from Forest Service Road onto road on private timber land. Had taken this route about 10 years before to access this area but hadn’t gone all the way to Day Lake, my goal being some ponds several hundred feet above it. The goal this day was several ponds near Day Lake and Day Lake itself in the area of the outlet. Seemed to take forever to get to lower road. Just when I was within sight of it saw a big bear on it running in my direction. Hollered as loud as I could. Bear disappeared momentarily then reappeared in the thick reprod (sapling trees) about 30 feet away. It had run uphill toward me rather than away. I hollered again and it stood there staring at me for several seconds before taking off. It was a big bear, I would guess well over 200 pounds. Kind of creeped me out a bit. Usually black bears run away from you, a behavior I much prefer. Got down to the road and started in the direction of Day Lake. Bear scat all over the road and I ended up looking behind myself several times. Fortunately I had seen the last of that bear. Continued down road. Had been through here about ten years ago but everything looked different. Trees had grown and changed and there were several new logging units, some of which were being prepped for when I had been through ten years earlier. Heard rock rabbit (pika) a in slash pile not too far from a pit where I had heard one on my earlier trips. Paused for several minutes listening to make sure it wasn’t a bird I was hearing. Verified that it was a rock rabbit but never did see it. Farther down road heard something big take off into the sapling trees. Figured by the sound of it that it was another bear. Not much beyond that saw a doe and a young fawn which ran away before I could get any pics. Several hundred yards beyond that saw a blue grouse with one chick. Got lots of pics of them. Plan was to take small spur and drop down into a wetland with two areas of standing water northwest of Day Lake, check those out and take the road back to Day Lake and explore the outlet area. Missed my spur initially because it was more grown up than expected. Followed it to edge of logging unit that looked to be a little less than ten years old. From end of road wasn’t too far to bigger trees, a unit probably 30 to 40 years old. Big slash pile on landing was challenging but managed it. Then reprod with lots of nasty brush including himalaya blackberries until I got bigger trees where canopy was closed. Lots of small limbs on trees filled most of the space under the canopy so travel here was also a challenge. Followed a stream that looked like it drained to the wetland I wanted to go to. Seemed like I was traveling forever, always seems that way, then hillslope started to get really steep where stream had cut down. Got sucked down into one draw where a tributary of the stream had cut down steeply and had to climb back up a bit to get across it. Large pile of windthrown trees just beyond the spot where I crossed and I initially wanted to avoid this but, looking again, it looked like an opening beyond the windfalls. I initially thought this was probably an open spot created by the windfalls but on second glance, it looked like it might be a road. Maps showed roads in this area but I wasn’t too confident that they would be open. Took a chance and headed up for the open spot. Sure enough, it was a road and it was open, just a few saplings to step over here and there. In less than a minute I was looking at the larger pond in the wetland. Found the other road in the area was open as well. These roads showed on the map but I didn’t know what kind of shape they were in. Pretty good as it turned out. Made my way to larger pond and checked it out. Really brushy around margins and hard to get to the water. Only saw one tadpole. It was easier to walk back out to the first road rather than retrace my steps through brush and woods so I did that. Checked out smaller pond. This one was a lot deeper because of a beaver dam. Saw some interesting plants here. Water smartweed was one. According to one of my plant references, this species is cosmopolitan, in other words, distributed worldwide, but I don’t encounter it very often. The other one was an aquatic plant called coontail I believe. I don’t see this very often either. Went back to pack by the larger pond and ate lunch. As I was finishing an adult bald eagle swooped down and grabbed something from the pond. I couldn’t see what it was but the pond was really shallow and I doubted that it had fish in it though I didn’t try to catch any on this trip because I was short on time. Made my way to the outlet of Day Lake. Took road to crossing of Fish Creek and followed it down to Day Lake because I thought this might be an easier path. Turned out I was right. Shorebirds, spotted sandpipers on alluvial fan where Fish Creek emptied into Day Lake. Lots of goose droppings here too. Lake was quite dark in color, looked like lots of tannin in the water. Made my way to outlet. Very brushy and difficult to travel. Came across a spot where it looked like something had eaten a couple of beavers. There were two skulls and random bones laying around. There were a bunch of little mounds in the ground, like whatever had eaten the beavers had buried and exhumed the carcasses several times. The site didn’t look that old, probably less than a year. There was no moss beginning to grow on the bones but there was no smell of rotting flesh either so it was apparently fairly old. Got around just about to the outlet of the lake. Saw thousands upon thousands of black tadpoles which were swarming. I figured these were probably western toads. I had been curious about some features that I saw on air photos in this area that looked like mats of some kind. It looked like these mats I was seeing on the air photos were large masses of floating leaved pond weed (Potomageton natans?check). Again, made my way back out to the road and back to Fish Creek and followed it back to my pack. Rigged pole and fished for a little bit. Caught one about nine inches long that looked mostly like a rainbow trout. There were faint red slashes under the jaw but otherwise fish looked like rainbow. Getting short on time so broke down pole and headed out. Got off road and headed straight up hill to cut a road switchback. Found another beaver skull in leave strip of timber about 200 feet above lake. No wetlands nearby and kind of a strange place to find a beaver skull but figured it might have been carried there by scavengers from a site closer to the lake. Saw red-legged frog near a small stream on the way out. Made decent time out, about 2 hours. Tried following the stream up to upper road crossing but the grain of the reprod and brush kept pushing me away from it. I ended up almost a quarter mile from it (the stream) when I hit the upper road. But that was an easy fix. Wasn’t worried about getting lost since the upper road cut completely across my route of travel. I just ended up doing a little more walking. The next weekend I went back into Day Lake to the inlet area. This trip was pretty much uneventful, just a lot of walking. 

Blue grouse (Dendragapus fuliginosus based on location) hen on road on the way into Day Lake. One of many I saw this year.  

Chick with the blue grouse hen above. 

Looking northwest at upper of two ponds just northwest of Day Lake. 

A little farther around on the above pictured pond. Still looking northwest. 

Water smartweed (Polygonum amphibium) at lower pond northwest of Day Lake. This plant is cosmopolitan, in other words, it occurs at many locations all around the world. For a plant that is so widespread, I haven't encountered it very often in my travels. Maybe it is more common at lower elevations.  

Looking north at lower pond northwest of Day Lake. 

I think that this is probably an aquatic plant called coontail (Ceratophyllum demersum). I don't carry a plant I.D. book with me in order to save weight so sometimes I run into something that I have to take my best guess at. There is a carnivorous plant called bladderwort (Utricularia spp.) that superficially looks like coontail that I understand is rare in our area. I retrieved a frond of these plants to observe closely and saw no bladders. These plants also had roots whereas bladderwort does not.  

Day Lake at the alluvial fan (delta) of Fish Creek near the outlet. 

Fish Creek delta looking southwest towards the outlet of Day Lake. 

Spotted sandpiper (Actitus macularius) on the Fish Creek delta. It is hard to see in the photo at this scale but more easily visible in the larger photo this one was derived from. I heard the sandpiper first and had to look for several moments before I finally saw it moving. I have occasionally stumbled across sandpiper nests in areas like these. They are out in the open but very well camouflaged by their color and color patterns just like the adult birds. 

Area near outlet of Day Lake where a carnivore of some kind feasted on beavers. There are at least two partial beaver skeletons here. 

Close up of beaver skull. I also found a beaver skull several hundred feet above the lake on my way out. 

Looking southeast up Day Lake from a point near the outlet. 

Swarms of black tadpoles. I strongly suspect that these were western toad (Bufo boreas) tadpoles. 

Looking southeast up Day Lake from the outlet. 

Floating leaved pond weed (Potamogeton natans) or at least I think so judging from the leaf shape. In the air (satellite) photos of Day Lake that I saw before I went there, I saw a number of large rough textured clusters of some sort in the lake near the outlet. I had the suspicion that these clumps were pondweed or maybe moss. They turned out to be pondweed.  

Looking roughly west at the outlet of Day Lake. 

Rainbow trout caught at Day Lake. I had heard that the fish in this lake were brook trout and maybe there are brook trout here as well but I didn't catch any. 

Ventral (bottom) surface of a Cascades frog (Rana cascadae) I observed on my way in on the second trip to the inlet of Day Lake. This was probably about a thousand feet above the lake. 

Wetland just above Day Lake in the Day Creek drainage. 

Red-legged frog (Rana aurora) ventral surfaces. The color contrast between red-legged frogs and Cascades frogs is pretty obvious once they get bigger than about 40 millimeters (a little less than 2 inches).

Looking southeast towards inlet of Day Lake from the upper (southeast) end of the lake. 

Granite Creek Pond

Small pond on Granite Creek just below Highway 20 not too far from Rainy Pass. This was one of two places that I went to this year that I had not been to before. This wasn't a difficult access. I took about ten or fifteen minutes to get to. 

Nothing much exciting in the pond (to my knowledge, maybe there was something really interesting here but I didn't know what I was looking at). I saw some long-toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum) larvae and some aquatic insects and insect larvae. 

Small stream running through the wetland flat where the pond sat. 

This was an interesting find. It was a horsetail that I had never seen, or at least not noticed before that I can recall. It turns out that it is (probably) woodland horsetail (Equisetum sylvaticum). 

The Trail 7/30/22 

Started out during a National Weather Service excessive heat warning to work on a trail to access some ponds surrounded by cliffs that had eluded me for many trips over the years. Access was to these ponds is very difficult from all sides but the most likely route required many hours of miserable brush bashing through vine maples over talus-the worst there is in this country. On all of the previous trips I had been exhausted when I finally reached the cliffs, the last barrier to the ponds. I decided the best approach would be to brush out a route so I would have more time and be more fresh when I went to work on the last part. Wouldn’t be a trail as such with tread, mostly just clear of brush and head high ferns and other forbs so you could see where to put your feet. Had brushed a good part out several years before but didn’t finish. Tried one trip in with a bad head cold that year and still had to go through a lot of brush. I had come in the week before this on the 23rd of July and trimmed out new growth in the part that had been done before. Thought I would be able to tolerate the heat and get some more done this weekend. Tried to get as early a start as possible. Didn’t feel too bad at the start while I followed the main trail up the creek but did notice that the perspiration built quickly when I got away from the creek. Cut off main trail and started following side stream off trail that my access route followed. Still mostly in shade but starting to sweat pretty heavily. Stopped for a short break at edge of timber where brushing route began. Sweating heavily now and a little shaky. Wanted to rest a little more, but if I pushed on, I could stay ahead of the sun. I would need to cross two talus fields which were going to be nightmares of baking rock once the sun hit. Pushed on after a short rest. Footing treacherous and had to make my way with care. This part had been brushed the week before and was definitely better than having to push through brush and forbs and guess where to put feet. At least now I could see likely spots to put feet though I still had to be careful that the footing was firm every time I set a foot down. Still managed to fall into a couple of holes and slipped off one small boulder. Got through first talus slope before too much sun hit. But after that I was in the sun. Got dizzy a couple of times on the slope after first talus slope and while going up through the second talus slope. Had to be careful in the talus, lots of large treacherous rocks. Second talus slope was where previous brushing had ended. Would start new brushing on other side of this talus. Pretty shaky when I got to top of second talus slope. Found an overhanging rock and stashed my pack and got ready to start brushing. There was a stream channel not far from the edge of the talus. My first effort would be to brush to that. The brush was pretty thin and I debated just working my way through it to check and see if this was a good spot but I figured it would be okay and started brushing. I realized my mistake when I got to the dry stream. I was at the edge of a steep cut bank. Ten or fifteen yards either upstream or downstream there were places where this gully could be crossed easily but not where I was standing. I had wasted a good bit of precious energy on this effort. Decided to go with downstream route because this was the narrowest brush band between the stream and the next talus slope. Sweating heavily at this point. Start wasn’t too bad then brush got heavy. Considering the heat of the day, it wasn’t too bad. Brush actually shaded me a bit. Progress was slow. Had to cut into brush and remove enough to actually get to the stems that were in the way. Went for a couple of hours. Several times it looked like I was getting close to the next talus slope. In my fantasy plan, I would be able to get at least through this brush band and maybe even the next one. That wasn’t reality. By 2:00 p.m. I was out of water. At this point I was sure that I was really close to breaking through and had to resist the urge to just push on and finish the job. I might have been able to do that but I don’t know if I would have enough energy left at that point to get myself back out. I needed to quit. It was time to head out. The stream channel was dry. One of the streams up ahead had been watered pretty late in the year the last time I was in here and I had hoped to get to that one but no dice. I had cottonmouth and a yearning for the cool creek water and breeze along the creek at the edge of the timber below. Moving through the first talus slope was tortuous. Heat blasted me, radiating from the rocks, many of which were loose and big enough to trap me if they fell on an arm or leg. Made to the gap in the brush at the lower end without mishap. Travel through a meadowy area was a bit cooler but not much better. Footing was treacherous and I slipped several times. Then the next talus slope. Movements began to feel a bit sluggish and uncoordinated. Had to concentrate with each step. Not exhausted but pretty tired. Felt a little bit like I was out of my own head observing myself from a short distance away. Got through that talus slope and forced myself to push through the next gap in the brush again concentrating mightily with each step. Got to another timber patch and pushed through that to a brushy, meadowy area on other side. Had to stop and rest there in the shade. This was the last stretch before I could get a cold drink and rest in the shade but I didn’t feel like I had enough energy to reliably go any farther in the sun. Rested for fifteen or twenty minutes. Rest felt good but I desperately wanted that cool water and breeze off the creek. Actually felt a bit nauseated. I was probably in the early stages of heat exhaustion. Had to resist the panicky urge to just move on. Finally felt rested enough for one last push. The sun was brutal. Again, intense concentration on every step. Walked a log and several boulders and avoided several holes. Had to resist urge to stop and rest every several steps and push on through it. Finally made it through last meadows to the creek and shade. Walked a big hemlock log that had fallen into the creek and filled my water jug. Nice cool breeze down the creek. Found a large limb to sit on with one below to rest my feet and sat in the middle of the creek channel in the breeze. Drank a quart of water there, a few cups at a time to avoid getting sick. Took big drinks with several minute intervals in between to let water settle. Should have been drinking more water earlier but I only had the one water jug with me. Finally reached the point where the breeze was starting to make me feel cold. Got up and moved out of creek to shade of trees and rested for a little over an hour trying to nap in between attacks by black flies and mosquitoes. This rest recovered me enough to finish walking out to trailhead without any cramps or other ill effects of my efforts. 

 Irene Creek 7/31/22 

 Had done several day trips and my first overnight trip earlier in month on the east Bank of Ross Lake to May Creek. Needed a good day trip to keep in shape. Decided to go into some ponds on south side of Irene Creek valley below Razorback Mountain. These ponds have a kind of funny position in my project. Two of them are quite large, the largest probably several acres but they are unmapped. I had also been to them a number of times. There are logging roads within less than a hundred yards of them and I had frequently hunted this area years ago. They put the road to bed in about 1998 and I hadn’t been into the area since then. I hadn’t been taking very good notes when the road was torn out so I didn’t do a very good job of recording the things I saw there. Also, since the ponds weren’t mapped, they didn’t technically count for the project so for years I wasn’t sure how to handle them. I had always planned on going back into this area at some point. This was the day. I decided, mapped or not, it would be nice to record what was in this area in the way of amphibians and anything else I might find. I knew that the last time I was at the largest pond there were a number of salamanders that I took to be Northwesterns (Ambystoma gracile) and I had seen what I took to be Cascades frogs (Rana cascadae) but I didn’t take very good notes on anything. If nothing else, I could hopefully verify my previous observations and maybe see some other things of interest. I had looked across the valley at this area from the USFS road. It didn’t look too far away and I had even thought about hunting it again. This trip would also be a good test of the feasibility of that idea. Got started out from the USFS road at the LaRush Lake trailhead at about 8:00 a.m. Day was supposed to be pretty warm and I wanted to try to beat the heat. Mosquitoes were intense. Clouds of them, all very persistent. Day was warm already and humid too. Got started. Chest high oval leaved blueberry or blue huckleberries as we always called them. Had done several trips through this area before and had expected this. Hard to move through. Had been sweating before I left the road and I was really sweating now. Vision was a bit hazy, constantly rubbing away mosquitoes. Felt a bit stiff and slow. I hadn’t done anything physically demanding the day before but the day before that (Friday) had been brushing a trail for several hours in about 100 degree F temperature. Might have been a bit of a hangover from that or maybe it was just the start of a trip feel awful phenomenon. Pushed on. Crossed Irene Creek and waded through the brush to the valley wall on the far side of the valley. On the map it didn’t look far. I would need to go beyond a weird valley running northeast off Razorback that I had visited in 2010 (and once in the early 1990’s). This valley has a gigantic pile of massive boulders in the middle of it rather than on the sides as is usual with most talus and boulder deposits. This land form must have had something to do with a glacier at some point. On another interesting note, when I had been into this valley in 2010 I found a large pole cut for a marten trap set stashed under a gigantic boulder whose overhang created, in effect a pretty good sized cave. At that time the pole was probably at least 70 or 80 years old. I had heard that John Dayo had run a trap line in this area years ago so maybe it was his. I had also heard of abandoned cabins and USFS ranger cabins in the Irene Creek area. There are probably a lot of lost trails in the area. It doesn’t take too many years for the huckleberry and other brush to obliterate a trail in this country if it isn’t frequently used. If one were able to recognize trail blazes on the trees one might be able to rediscover some of these trails. That is easier said that done. The blazes grow over, making them hard to recognize, the blazed trees fall over and even if you could get past these problems, there would probably be no tread in the summer and autumn months and the route would be a welter of huckleberry brush. Of course, if there was a lot of snow on the ground, you would be walking over the top of all of the brush. I digress. Back to the story at hand. Past this first major side valley, the next major side valley was the one I wanted. I would cut up on the other side of it to the flat where the ponds sat. At least that was the plan. Kept wading through the blueberry brush, avoiding devil’s club patches and downed timber, single logs and larger windfall patches. It was old growth trees here, the largest 4-5 feet in diameter which sometimes made significant obstacles when they fell. My legs felt heavy and head felt thick but finally seemed to be hitting my stride. I was sweating enough that my shirt was sticking to my back. Bugs seemed to thin out a bit but were always there. About an hour in, seemed to be coming up to a major side valley. Thought that this might be the first valley, the one with the giant talus. The stream coming out of it was only a trickle though. In my memory the stream in the giant talus valley was a significant one. However, sometimes even pretty big streams will go subsurface I have seen the entire Baker River above Baker Lake do so and I have heard of the Suiattle doing the same. My thought was that I was lower in the main Irene Creek Valley and that the stream had gone partially subsurface here. Continued on. Hit a small steep spot and climbed up maybe 100 feet to a small flat and minor saddle. As I crossed the flat I heard a major creek just ahead. Stopped and pulled out maps to see if I could get a fix on where I was. The flat I was in should have been large enough to be represented on a USGS 7.5 minute quad. No luck though. Part of the problem was that this area was at the edges of the respective Snowking Mountain and Big Devil quads and I had an older Snowking Mountain quad that had a slightly different coverage than the newer Big Devil quad so there was some area missing between the two. There was a large open area in the valley just above me. This could have been the giant talus but a large part of the second valley where I planned to cut up had been logged in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s so that would explain the large opening as well. I had actually driven up the road to these logging units to go over the ridge into a small lake and some small ponds in the giant talus valley in ’92 or ’93. Today, I crossed the creek and, operating on the assumption that I had crossed the second valley and would be heading toward the ponds, I started uphill, expecting to hit the edge of one of the old logging units within a few hundred feet and the old road shortly thereafter. After several hundred feet though, there was no sign of any large openings above. I stopped and consulted my maps again. Things weren’t looking good. I wasn’t where I thought I was. I thought I might have blown the trip. I was worried that if I was on the ridge between the first and second valleys and I kept following it up I would waste most of the day climbing the wrong ridge (ironically the same one I had crossed in ’92 or ’93). I figured that the major creek I had just crossed was coming out of the first, giant talus, side valley. This made a lot more sense. So probably the best thing to do was to quit going uphill and start sidehilling. The risk here was that, if I was past the second valley and interpreting the maps wrong, I could overshoot my cut up point too low. I figured that if that was the case I should run into some of the old logging units and know to cut up then. In about fifteen minutes I was around the ridge from the stream I had just crossed. The ground was pretty steep on my left, or uphill. I ended up having to go downhill a bit to navigate a fallen Alaska cedar. I could hear another creek ahead of me. This was a good sized creek in a major valley. So I had been correct with my guess. I was coming into the second valley where I would start cutting up the hill. A little farther along I got further confirmation, an old tail stump and a big rubbed spot on a tree where the lines from the yarder had rubbed when they logged here 30 or 40 years ago. I was soon into the reprod of the old logging unit. It was thick and I had to push my way through. The trees were in the process of shedding last year’s needles and showers of them fell on me, getting down the back of my neck and sticking to the sweat there. They itched a bit but the nerves on my back adapted quickly and the sensation faded to the back of my consciousness. Got to the creek and crossed. The area on the other side of the creek was more open and thick with blueberry brush. I flailed along through that for a while then decided to cut for a nearby patch of old growth timber that had been left when they logged. The road cut wasn’t too far above, going through a large patch of talus. I had come into the valley a little higher than I had planned but I could make this work. Got to the roadway. I had driven this road in early nineties and in the talus it was still mostly open. On the other side of the talus it was heavily overgrown with tag alders, willow and cottonwoods. I tried following the road for a bit but it was too overgrown. It would be less work to just cut up the hill. I got off the road and into the shade of the reprod and consulted the maps. It looked like I had about 400 feet to go. The trick would be in finding the flat in the thick reprod which hid everything. Took a slight uphill angle in the direction I judged the flat to be. Scraped through lots of limbs which constantly showered me with needles. Couldn’t really see anywhere to get bearings. I guessed my position by the position of the hill on my left. Could tell I went around the crest of the ridge. Bare rock outcrop just above me. I had hunted this area quite a bit years ago but nothing looked familiar. Finally reached a kind meadowy spot. Ground was steep but no trees had seeded in and the ground was covered with forbs. Looked like a road above me. I had driven this road in the late 90’s to go into a small pond farther up on the ridge. It was after I had gone back to school or at least developed an interest in botany because I distinctly remember seeing brambles (Rubus lasiococcus) on the ground here and knowing what they were for the first time. I had mistaken the pond I went in to on that day, which was unmapped, for a nearby pond just over the ridge in the next drainage basin, which was mapped, that I had been to a number of times while hunting. Got to the road, it was a little higher than I had thought but not bad. Almost the first thing I saw were the ponds in the flat about a hundred feet below. I had overshot but it would be any easy fix. It was after noon. At the start of the trip I had entertained the notion of going into the aforementioned unmapped pond and the nearby mapped one but I wasn’t going to have time on this trip. It looked like I could get to them from Razorback Mountain where I want to do some trips in the future. If I ever got around to that, maybe I would visit those places again. It looked like the road was pretty overgrown so I thought I might just cut straight down to the ponds but every time I tried there wasn’t a very good spot to cut down. I worked my way down to a big open landing where it looked good when I noticed that the road from that point wasn’t too bad to get into a leave strip of old growth timber so I stuck with the road. I remembered the road passed very close to the largest pond so I thought I might be able follow it all the way. I also remembered a spring coming down off the hill somewhere in this area. I had been sweating heavily all day and I wanted a good drink. I didn’t want to drink everything in my jug until I was at a good water source in case I ran into some trouble. If I was incapacitated in some way I would be wanting that water in my jug. I didn’t really want to drink out of the ponds. I regularly drink unfiltered water out of rapidly moving streams-I drank out of the two I crossed this day but I don’t trust standing water. The road choked up on the other side of the old growth strip though so I backtracked and cut down through the old growth. No spring either. I misremembered or the spring had dried up. Either way I would have to conserve my water. I knew for sure that there had been another spring down by the lower ponds. Maybe I could get some water there. Got to the largest pond at about 1:00 p.m. Ate a sandwich and drank a little water but didn’t eat a full lunch. Wanted to save water. Started walk around pond. It was several acres at least, much bigger than I had remembered. NOAA weather had forecast a temperature of 80 degrees F. The temperature in the shade was 79 degrees. It was probably at least ten degrees hotter in the direct sun. Almost immediately saw salamander larvae. These were large, larger than long toed salamanders ever get so they were most likely northwesterns. I had remembered salamanders here years ago. Looked like they were still here. Started seeing lots of salamanders. Also saw a couple of Cascades frogs. Was able to capture one for close observation to verify that my identification was correct. Saw two here, the smaller one was missing the lower half of its left leg. On my way around the pond I saw some interesting things. Lots of small white pine seedlings. Some were in pretty bad shape with blister rust, others looked quite healthy. Didn’t see any large white pines but I also didn’t look over the surrounding forest extensively. Saw 60 salamander larvae and a number of egg masses that further confirmed my suspicions that the salamanders in this pond were northwesterns. Getting short on time. Got back to my pack and threw it on and headed down the hill following the outlet stream of the pond. This biggest pond was the highest one as I remembered so I hoped to follow the outlet down to the other ones. It didn’t lead me to another pond though. Twenty or thirty feet down the hill I started wondering where the other ponds were. I could barely see one of them from the road above so I thought it might be a little harder to find. Cut a little north and found a small pond mostly surrounded by trees. Didn’t think this was the other one I saw from the road but checked it out anyway. Not much in the way of wetland vegetation. Partway around the pond I climbed a small ridge on its northwest side and saw the next pond, the other one I had seen from the road less than a hundred yards away. Finished my circuit around the small pond. Saw several Cascades frogs. Tried to catch several just to double check my I.D. but no luck. Moved on to the next pond. This pond more open, like the upper, largest pond. Saw several more Cascades frogs, several northwestern salamander larvae and egg masses. Again tried to catch a couple of frogs but no luck. I got a good look at most of them and I had seen Cascades frogs in here years earlier so I was pretty confident of my I.D. but it is always nice to double check if you can. Didn’t have time to mess around any more today. Needed to get moving if I wanted to get out before dark. Stumbled across one last small wetland on the way out. Didn’t linger long and didn’t see any amphibians. I had originally planned on cutting back up to the road and taking a sidehill route from there but I just decided to head straight out on a sidehill track. There had been a nice spring in the area of the wetlands years ago but I couldn’t find it. More endless showers of needles in the reprod. At one point I considered just dropping down into the valley, crossing Irene Creek and climbing the ridge on the other side to the usFS road and walking that back. It is generally easier, at least for me, to go straight downhill and uphill through brush than to try to sidehill. The down side of this strategy would be that I would be dropping and extra several hundred feet and then climbing back up that far and even farther. If I kept with the sidehilling there should be a minimum of up and down. Decided to keep with the sidehilling. Got back around the ridge. Now had to decide whether I wanted to try to hit the spot where I had come in or take a different route. I could probably retrace the route I took on the way in fairly easily. I had come up next to a large talus slope so all I would have to do is sidehill until I hit that talus and follow it down. I decided to take a lower route. By doing this, I would be in big timber once I got across the creek. If I took the same route I did on the way in, I would have to wade through a bunch more reprod to get to the big timber after crossing the creek. Picked a good route and hit the creek right at the edge of the big timber. It was a good spot, right at the end of a flatter area. If I had hit the creek a little lower it would have been steeper and possibly harder to cross. It was a small creek though, the channel not counting the water was probably a little more than five feet which would have been pretty easily crossable in a much steeper area. Tanked up on water, drank about a quart and cooled down in the breeze coming down the creek channel. Ate a little trail mix and a candy bar and was off again. Still had plenty of light left but wanted to be sure I was out before dark. I was a little lower now than when I had come in and I wanted to hit the next creek close to the spot where I had crossed earlier. That was pretty close to a good spot to get back into the main Irene Creek valley and I wanted to hit it. If I missed, it looked like there would be some cliffs and bluffs to navigate. Figured that if I roughly maintained my elevation I would probably be pretty close to hitting where I had crossed earlier. Took a slight up angle in my travel. If I was a little high, I could correct pretty easily. Weaved my way over and through downed trees and devil’s club patches. In 15 or 20 minutes I could see the next valley and faintly hear the creek. I had crossed earlier in the timber just below the large opening in the valley created by the giant talus. I could see that now. I was a little high but it was easy to correct my route and hit the crossing spot dead on. Found a twin old growth Alaska cedar that had been a route marker and ended up walking the same logs crossing the creek. Made it down into the main valley of Irene Creek. Tricky part now was to cut across this valley at the right spot to hit where I had come in. This would be harder since I didn’t have any good land marks to go by. Kept a little higher on the valley wall because it seemed like there was less brush and devil’s club. The dizziness and heavy feeling of the morning was completely gone. I wasn’t worried about getting lost. Again, if I cut straight across the valley I would hit the road on the other side. I would just have to do extra uphill and downhill. If I went too far up the valley before cutting across, I would still hit Irene Creek which drains Basin Lake and could use that for a landmark. Even if I crossed Irene above LaRush Lake I would still probably hit the trail to Bear Lake. It looked like I was pretty high in the valley. The ultimate would be if I could see that I was at about the same elevation as the ridge on the far side of the valley with not much of a drop between me and it. The timber was too thick though. Guessed my relation to the far ridge by the amount of open sky I could see in the distance. Figured that I was close enough and started cutting across the valley. Back into the heavy huckleberry (oval leaved blueberry) brush and heavier going. Couldn’t hear Irene Creek now. I could hear it earlier. Came across a minor ridge before hitting the creek. Had to stifle a short surge of panic. I didn’t remember a minor ridge between Irene Creek and the valley wall on the previous times I had been in here. About that time my left leg started to get crampy, my thigh in the groin region. Lifting my legs high to get through the brush was getting to me. I did my best not to lift my left leg too high. Still couldn’t hear Irene Creek. Stopped for a moment and thought about it. There was no way I would miss either the road or the trail and I was pretty sure I hadn’t gone too far up the valley anyway. Either I didn’t remember this minor ridge or I had just never come across it before in my previous routes. Pushed on and in a few minutes I could hear Irene Creek. It was running through a flat and wasn’t as loud as it would have been had it been flowing through steeper ground. Navigated a small wooded wetland and crossed the creek. This area looked vaguely familiar. Saw another small Cascades frog at the creek crossing and tried to catch it with no luck. Saw some flagging as I started up the hill on the other side of the creek and figured I was pretty close to the road. However, the road kept eluding me. Passed between several more timbered wetlands that I thought I recognized from the very start of the trip. I had been through these several times on previous trips. Things didn’t look quite right but I just figured that I was coming through in a slightly different spot. Still the road eluded me and I was again in unfamiliar ground. I was topping out the ridge though, so I knew the road had to be right there. Finally saw the fringe of tag alders and reprod at the road’s edge. Worked through about ten feet of that and found myself about 50 yards up the road from my pickup. Not perfect navigation but definitely close enough. It was about 7:00 p.m. Plenty of light left though the sun was gone from the ridge where I stood. The mosquitoes in this spot were just as numerous and aggressive as they had been in the morning, probably the worst spot on the entire trip. A cloud of them followed me to my rig and a bunch ended up inside it when I climbed in. Headed down the road and opened the window and that took care of most of them. It had taken most of the day to do a trip that I used to do in about half an hour when the road was open. I don’t think I will be trying any hunting day trips on this route, assuming the USFS road up Irene Ridge will be open much longer.

Looking down at the largest of the ponds from the old logging road above. I missed the flat where the ponds sit and overshot too high. 

Looking north at the upper, largest pond. 

Northwestern salamander (Ambystoma gracile) in the upper, largest pond. 

Northwestern salamander pictured above surfacing. I don't know if they do this right before they metamorphose to terrestrial life or they do it all the time. Many amphibians absorb oxygen and other substances and compounds through their skin and mouths so this could be a way to supplement oxygen gotten from the water  from their gills. 

Cascades frog at the upper, largest pond. 

Looking roughly east at the upper pond. 

Looking north and east at the upper pond. There is a small western white pine (Pinus monticola) in the foreground. There were several small western white pines around the lake but I could not find any large ones. 

Looking roughly south at the upper pond. 

The middle pond, looking roughly east. I didn't see any salamanders here but I saw about half a dozen Cascades frogs. 

Looking roughly south at middle pond. 

Looking roughly north at the lower pond. 

Cascades frog at lower pond. 

Looking roughly south at the lower pond. 

Northwestern salamander egg mass at lower pond. Northwestern egg masses are usually about grapefruit sized and have fifty or more eggs in them but there is some variability. The individual eggs have green algae growing around them. The algae benefits from the metabolic wastes of the larvae inside the eggs and helps provide oxygen to the growing larvae. 

A number of northwestern salamander egg masses on a submerged limb. Northwesterns prefer sticks or vegetation that is roughly the size of a pencil though I have seen them use objects that are much larger, especially where they don't have an option of smaller objects. The blue damselfly in the photo is probably a species of bluet. 

Summer Trips 2021 September

Covid Shakedown II 9/2/21

Tried working from home for several days during Covid quarantine. My desk is not set up to be ergonomically friendly to someone sitting for hours and my back and neck were starting to hurt. Decided to just take sick leave on Thursday. Wanted to try a trip that I had done 20 years ago or more, probably around 1995. The spot was a small lake that drained to Big Creek on the Suiattle River, or at least it would have drained to Big Creek if it had an outlet. I hadn’t been taking very good field notes the first time I visited this lake and I wanted to do a follow up while the Tenas Creek Road was still accessible. In ’95 I had just gone straight up over the ridge from the Tenas Creek side into this lake. I had tried to get into it earlier this year by taking the trail into Boulder Lake and cutting off at the first big meadows. I got to a spot where I was overlooking the lake basin but I didn’t have enough time to finish the trip. Decided to take the more direct route again. In this case, it would be another good test of how well my body was functioning. It would require me to climb over 2000 feet and drop another 600 into the lake and then get myself back out again. Took some figuring to find out where I had gone up in ’95. Everything was so grown up I couldn’t recognize anything. Last time I followed a raw slide on a small creek up to its source near the top of the ridge and got over from there. As I recalled, there were pretty good landmarks on the way. After about half an hour of looking around I thought I had finally found the spot. The slide area had grown up so much that I didn’t recognize it. Started up on a ridge out of the stream draw. The ridge was had another, smaller stream immediately to the north and as both streams eroded the hillside, they created a minor knife-edge ridge. This minor ridge was surprisingly steep. I hadn’t remembered the route being like this but it had been almost thirty years ago. Still the ground was navigable so up I went. Now it was the old game of how much of the awful feeling my body was feeling was normal, the regular feel-like-crap until you get warmed up, and how much was Covid related. Kept on moving up the slope, keeping the stream within hearing. Planned to get to at least the top of the old skyline logging unit I was in. I knew I could do that for sure. Just above this old logging unit, the USGS map indicated that there was a stretch of pretty steep ground for about 200 feet. I figured that I could get there and see how I felt. If I ran into anything too bad, I would just turn around. I didn’t recall ever running into anything scary steep on the previous trip but, again, that was almost 30 years ago. Forest thinned out near top of the unit. Trees were still small but very sparse. Heavy growth of salal on ground. Finally spotted a few bigger old growth trees. Then more. Finally I was past the top of the unit. Felt pretty good. Stopped and looked at map. From the spot where I was, I should have been able to see anything steep coming up. The ground looked pretty good. Pushed on, staying within hearing of the stream and finally reached a big slide area that appeared to be where the stream flowed out of the side of the mountain. I knew that I should be within several hundred feet of the top of the ridge. One last climb up a steep cutbank and I was in a little flat just above the slide where the stream started. There was an interesting orphaned talus pile in the flat. There was no rock outcrop nearby that could have been the source of this talus so it most likely had been deposited by a glacier during the last ice age. I stopped and took a few photos before continuing on. The talus pile would be a good reference on the way back down since I was now above the stream. I continued on, veering a bit to the northwest. There was another small talus pile less than a hundred yards away through some timber. Then another steep slope. Looking upslope, it seemed like I could see a lot more sky through the timber, like I was nearing the ridgetop but I wasn’t there yet. The ground was more gradual on top of the slope which seemed kind of like another cutbank, though not as steep as the lower cutbank at the source of the stream I followed. About another hundred feet upslope I ran into another orphan talus pile. And then another talus pile maybe a hundred more feet up. Now I could definitely see the ridgetop. Hit it right at the saddle where I had been aiming. Large pile of bear scat on Big Creek side of ridge. Looked like a good trail down into the lake basin. I had seen a few flags farther down the ridge and thought that maybe a fisherman’s trail had been finally walked into the lake. I hadn’t seen much evidence beyond the flags but I thought maybe it wasn’t very well beaten and I had wandered off it. Looked like a little more obvious track in the timber just on the Big Creek side of the ridge. I was soon disabused of this notion. The “track” led through several small stream drainages and then into a little talus filled draw. At the bottom of the draw it was very brushy and surprisingly steep. I had remembered it being brushy the trip before but not this brushy. The brush was shoulder high, huckleberries, devil’s club, salmonberry and stink currant and probably white rhododendron. Be that as it may, the brush was actually an advantage. I could hold onto it for a veggie belay through the steep spots. One has to be careful using this method. The devil’s club is an obvious no-no to grab onto, though I usually end up grabbing one once or twice. Salmonberries are little better though, if you are careful, you can often get away with grabbing one in a pinch without getting stuck too badly. The huckleberries, stink currants and rhodies are preferable but you have to be careful to grab enough that they don’t break off in your hand. I found a decent route down, following some downed logs at several points and got into some more talus several hundred feet above the lake. Had to be careful here too. The talus was pretty loose. Got to edge of the full pool of the lake at about 1:00 p.m. The first time I had visited this lake I ran into a friend of mine, Tad Merritt (don’t remember exactly how he spells his last name) that I had worked with in the woods. He had brought his young daughter along. She must have only been six or seven, just learning to fish. Looking at the terrain this go around, I was pretty amazed that he had gotten such a young child into this lake. The inlet streams were dry and the lake was down at least fifteen feet from its high mark. This was an interesting spot. The lake was only at about a quarter of what its total surface area would be at full pool, according to the vegetation line. There was no outlet, the ground rising significantly on all sides of the lake. It looked to me like the lake fills with snowmelt every spring and spends the balance of the year until the snow flies again slowly draining to Big Creek through the side of the mountain and evaporating. I wonder what kind of shape this lake was in the summer of 2015 when we got very little snowpack, especially since this particular lake is at an elevation that would have gotten little, if any, snow in its watershed. The lake, in its yearly low condition was only about five feet deep at its deepest. As I walked around the shore seeing what I could see, I thought I heard a fish jump. A steady breeze was blowing, which was nice but it hid any rings. I thought it must be my imagination. I saw a northwestern salamander egg mass, then another one. These must have been in very deep water when they were laid. Continuing around I occasionally heard a splash like a fish jumping then I finally saw a ring in the water and then I saw a fish. Pretty amazing that they were surviving in a pretty limited area. When I was almost back around to the inlet stream I saw a collection of about 17 northwester salamander egg masses clustered around a mountain hemlock root wad in the lake. I don’t know exactly why they were clustered in this area but my guess would be that it was for protection from the fish. I finished looking the lake over and rigged up my fishing pole. I caught three fish in pretty short order. They looked like they were probably rainbow/cutthroat hybrids. They would have had to have been stocked. There was no way trout could have spawned successfully in this lake. Went back to my pack and got ready to head out. It was getting a little late in the day and I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to get out. I spent ten minutes looking for my cheapo thermometer. It had been laying on my pack when I had gotten back. The first thing I had done was unrig my pole and apparently, I had forgotten the thermometer when I went to put my pole in my pack and had flipped it off into the thick growth of ferns when I picked the pack up. This thermometer wasn’t the greatest. It is black so it is hard to get a temperature with it that I trust. If I leave it too far in the sun, the black case absorbs the sunlight and gives an abnormally high temperature. Of course, if I leave it in the shade, the temperature will be a little below the average. The thing I really needed it for was that it had a whistle built into it. If I ever got hurt and someone was searching for me, that whistle would be invaluable. You can whistle pretty much indefinitely but you will yell yourself out of a voice in very short order if you have to yell to get someone’s attention. So, if you are depending on yelling for someone to locate you, you better hope that they find you quickly before you lose your voice. You wouldn’t have that problem with a whistle. Finally I gave up. I needed to get going. Maybe I had thoughtlessly put it in my pack an just couldn’t find it at the moment. I slung on my pack and started out. In two steps, I saw the thermometer/whistle. It had been flung in a direction that I hadn’t expected and where I hadn’t looked. I pocketed it with satisfaction and continued on. It was almost immediately uphill and my legs quickly became crampy. They didn’t cramp outright but I could feel the precursors to some serious cramps run through my legs. I wasn’t too worried, I still had a good bit of daylight left and should have plenty of time, even if I had to stop frequently to let cramps settle. I only needed to get up about 600 feet. Maybe this was it for my legs. They had felt okay on the way in, though I could feel they were a bit tired. By the time I got to the top of the talus and into the brush, my legs felt fine. Maybe they just needed to break into the uphill. It was a fight to get through the brush. Again, it provided ample hand holds to get up through the steep spots but now I was going against the grain of the brush. The brush naturally wanted to lay downhill due to gravity and being buried under snow for the majority of the year and pushing up through that thick brush with it pushing back down at me made going a little harder. Fortunately it wasn’t too far until I got back into the little talus filled draw that I had taken down from the top of the ridge. From there it was another hundred feet or so to the ridgetop. The first talus slope on the Tenas Creek side on the way down was easy to find because it wasn’t too far below the ridgetop. From there I was expecting to find the edge of a big cutbank, a distinctive feature like a ridge that I would follow down to a big 4 or 5 foot diameter snag where I would cut down to the orphaned talus pile just above the head of the stream I followed up. I didn’t find the edge of the cutbank. It would have been nice to find the exact route I had taken up but I figured that I would probably be all right if I didn’t. Another hundred feet down or so, I ran into another talus pile. At first this didn’t add up but then I slowly remembered that there had been second talus pile. I saw a silver fir or hemlock snag that I remembered going past. Not too far below this was the edge of the cutbank that I had been looking for. I followed this down for what seemed a long time. I was beginning to wonder if I had gone too far but I hadn’t seen that big snag. It was pretty distinctive. Just after I started having doubts, I found the snag. From there it was fairly straightforward. I had to navigate some sidehill that seemed a lot steeper than it did going up and then I was at the orphaned talus pile. Just below that was the head of the creek I had followed up. On an interesting note, some of the slopes on the knife-edged ridge near the bottom of the slope didn’t seem nearly as steep going down as they had on the way up. Made it to my rig at about 3:00 p.m. Lungs, legs and head felt pretty good. Still a little off but I had been able to do the trip in a timeframe that I would have if I hadn’t been sick.   

Looking across the hillslope at the orphaned talus pile. There was no obvious source like a cliff for this pile of rocks. 

Looking downhill at the orphaned talus pile. 

Mount Chaval from just below the ridge on the way down to the lake. 

Zoomed in view of Chaval from same spot as previous photo. 

Just above the lake. Mountain in scene is in Grade Creek area, Big Creek valley in foreground. 

At level of the lake. The area in the foreground is part of an inlet stream which was dry at the time of the photo. This entire area appears to be inundated early in the year after snowmelt. 

Large sedge meadow in ephemerally inundated area on inlet (east) side of lake. 

Looking roughly west at lake. The ground rises all around the lake shore and there is no surface outlet. 

Looking east toward inlet of lake. 

Northwestern salamander (Ambystoma gracile) egg masses near eastern end of lake. There are probably half a dozen egg masses in this photo though they are hard to see. 

Mountain hemlock root wad where there was a concentration of northwestern salamander egg masses. My hunch is the egg masses are concentrated here because they are more protected from fish. I think these salamanders are adapted to the presence of fish but fish will still eat them. I did see several egg masses in much more exposed areas around the lake. 

Zoomed out view of previous photo. 

Rainbow or rainbow/cutthroat hybrids trout I caught in lake. These fish were 14 to 15 inches long. 

These fish had faint red slashes under their jaws which along with maxillary (upper jaw) which appears to extend past the orbit of the eye led me to believe that these fish were possibly hybrids.  

Mount Chaval on the way out. 

Whitechuck Mountain 9/6/21

Had plans to do a longer trip over Labor Day weekend but weather was kind of iffy and Sacha and Phoebe were sick with Covid so stayed close to home and did some day trips. I had noticed what looked like a route from Dan’s Creek Road into Thornton Lake on Straight Creek on the Suiattle. I had been into Thornton Lake in 2001 following a tributary a little below Rat Trap Pass. This trib drained the little Whitechuck Lake and I went from there to Thornton Lake. I had done that trip early in the year and Thornton Lake had actually been iced over. I decided that an attempt to get into Thornton from the Dan’s/Conn Creek side would be a good day trip. Over the years I had actually spent a lot of time in this area, working in the woods, doing stream surveys and doing personal trips, but it had been a while since I last been there so it took a little figuring to find my way. The road was pretty rough which cost me some time as well. I found the end of the road where the trail takes off without any detours. I figured that I should be pretty much healed up at this point but found that my lungs burned and could feel pressure in them. My legs were still working but felt like they had a bit of lead in them. Definitely didn’t feel as good as I had just four days before. Nonetheless, I could still walk and do the hills with very little distress so on I went. I missed the trail cutoff that led to a small lake on the Conn Creek side of Whitechuck Mountain, Raven Lake I have heard it called though it isn’t named on maps. I ended up following what was a climber’s route up Whitechuck until I got to a spot in the meadows where I could see that it wasn’t going to go in the direction I wanted. At that point I started sidehilling into Raven Lake. I have been into Raven Lake three or four times previous to this trip and I started to recall where the trail into it was. I picked it up just below the lake and followed it the rest of the way in. It was about 1:00 p.m. I spent a little time at the lake and then headed up toward the spot where it looked like I could get over the ridge and into Thornton Lake. It was pretty steep but doable, though one wouldn’t want to make a misstep. Got to ridgetop and found a spot where one could get down amongst the mountain goat trails and wallows. A goat could have done it easily but it was a little steeper and sketchier than I wanted to do that day. Plus it looked pretty steep on the other side and it was already 2:00 p.m. I would really be pushing it to try to get into the lake and out that day. If I had wanted to get in and out in a day, I would have to get an earlier start. And I would feel much better if I at least had a rope to hold on to in order to get down the first part off the ridge. It wasn’t far, maybe ten or fifteen feet, but, as I said, more than I was willing to try on this day. View was pretty impressive so I took a bunch of photos and watched the ravens circling in the updrafts. Headed back to Raven Lake and had lunch. Tried to take a short nap but the bugs were so persistent I abandoned that and headed out. Ran to the IGA in Darrington to get some items we were short on at the house. This was my first day off quarantine and I was the only one in the house off quarantine. Ran into an old friend, Clint Brown and we talked a bit. He told me that you could get into Thornton Lake by the route I tried but that it was really steep. He also told me that name of the little lake on Conn Creek was Raven Lake. When he mentioned the name Raven Lake, I vaguely remembered being told that years before but I had since forgotten it. If there are often as many ravens around as I saw that day, the name is a good one. 

Sloan Peak from Raven Lake. 

Whitechuck Mountain from Raven Lake. 

Looking south from shoulder of Whitechuck Mountain. Pugh Mountain and Sloan Peak in the distance. 

Pugh, Sloan to center of frame, Glacier Peak to the left. It is hard to see in this photo but there are two Ravens circling in the foreground. 

Glacier Peak to the left, Pugh and Sloan to the right. 

Rock outcrop, Pugh, Sloan and Big Four. 

 County Line Creek 9/11/21

I had plans for a longer overnight trip the weekend after Labor Day but the weather didn’t cooperate. I decided instead to go into a small lake on County Line Creek. This  was another one that I had been into years ago, again, early in the year. The last time I had been here the lake was just barely melting out from under a pile of snow left by an avalanche. I remembered that the trip was much harder than I had been expecting the last time but this still didn’t motivate me to get an earlier start. I spent the morning running around trying to get my hands on a Green Trails map of the Pasayten Peak area. It could have waited until later but I got on a mission and spent more time on it than I should have. Got started up the creek valley at about 11:00 a.m. Could feel that there was definitely something in my lungs. Legs felt like lead. Could still breathe okay, just coughing up a lot of phlegm every few minutes, not the type of coughing fit that caused me to stop. Either coughed while walking or during breaks. Didn’t really seem to need to take more breaks than usual. At the start couldn’t really tell if problems were due to Covid effects or just the regular start of the trip rotten feeling. Forest was an old burn, mostly second growth Douglas-fir, hemlock, Engelmann spruce, white pine, lodgepole pine and red and Alaska cedar with small patches of old growth that had survived the fire. Just above the highway was an exposed area that favored the growth of lodgepole pine. There was a large patch of these trees about 90 percent of which had been killed (beetles?) a number of years ago. The area was open here with a few standing live trees and the ground covered with a tangle of downed logs. Above this patch there was less lodgepole and the timber grew thicker so there were fewer downed logs to work through, though many of the trees were small and brushy which presented its own problems. My goal for first big break was right bank tributary coming into County Line Creek from the southeast at about 4000 feet elevation. This would be about a third of the way into the lake. The map indicated some steep ground about 800 feet worth, just above here. Got to trib. around noon and took a short break. Wasn’t too hungry and didn’t want to eat a lot of lunch with the steep ground coming up. It is hard to do heavy work on a full stomach. Took about a ten minute break before continuing. The main stem of the creek I was following split up over a large alluvial fan. I chose a channel where the water was still above the surface and followed it. This stream eventually went dry but by then I could hear water falling above. Continuing to the top of the alluvial fan I found a waterfall over bedrock at the bottom of the steep section of my route. This bedrock and steep section was the cause of the large alluvial fan. There wasn’t much area for sediment to be stored in the bedrock so it all washed down and formed the alluvial fan. Started up just to the south of the waterfall. In about 800 feet and I would hit a flat about 200 feet below the lake. The area was steep and brushy but there was nothing that was very scary. I was finally hungry enough that it was affecting my energy level so I stopped and had several handfuls of trail mix and a candy bar. I didn’t want to eat a lot with a bunch of heavy work ahead. I didn’t linger very long after eating and continued on. I was pretty regularly coughing up phlegm but it didn’t seem to affect my performance too much. My legs felt much better than they had at the start but I could tell they weren’t 100 percent. Got to the flat at about 2:00 p.m. Using the old gauge of about 1000 feet per hour, my performance was pretty good. It was getting late though. I should have gotten started sooner. Found a wetland along the creek in the flat. Wanted to look it over but was feeling pressed for time. Saw some salamander larvae in some oxbow ponds off the main channel of the creek. Got some pretty good photos, enough to determine that these were probably long-toed salamanders (Ambystoma macrodactylum). It would have been nice to have the time to inventory the wetland plants and surrounding forest-there was a lot of whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) which is a species of interest to me (and others) here but I called it good and started figuring out how to get to the lake. The creek split up into several channels in the flat so I consulted my map and it indicated that the lake sat on another bench about 200 feet above. Looking up, I could see what looked like a bench above me to the southeast. It looked a little higher than 200 feet but the main flow of water seemed to be coming from that direction. So I followed the main stream flow. It ended at a talus slope below what I thought was the bench. Sometimes lake outlet streams go subsurface but I seemed to remember following a definite stream all the way to the lake last time. I figured that I had just forgotten this part, it had been several decades since I had last been here after all. Started up the talus, kind of pushing it as fast as I could safely go. I was so close I wanted to get into the lake on this go round. Above the talus was some pretty steep ground. Didn’t remember this either. It was doable though so I sidehilled toward the bench above. Finally ran into a stream gully that was doable. I assumed that this was probably the outlet stream of the lake that had gone dry and I should be able to follow it up to the lake. The gully petered out though and I found myself in a field of talus. The ground was more gradual now. It seemed like I should be at the lake by now. What I thought was the bench where the lake sat was still southeast, off to my right so I headed toward it. Ten minutes later I was looking at another talus slope with no bench and no lake in sight. It was after 3:00 p.m. and I was pretty sure at this point that I was above the lake. I had been going uphill for much longer than it would have taken me to go 200 feet. Several hundred feet below me to the north I could see a large patch of talus and what seemed like a flat. It didn’t seem quite right though. I pulled my map out again. After carefully comparing the landmarks that I could see, a large knob or prominence on the ridge above me, a newly burned ridge to the northwest and the top of Beebe Mountain visible to the northwest above the burned ridge, I decided that the lake was actually to the northwest just below that burned ridge. I turned my steps in that direction. In about ten minutes I could see the lake. Just as it came into sight a light rain began to fall, medium sized drops widely space. Bummer. I was going to get wet. The day had pretty much been sunny with large clouds most of the day until I had started up from the wetland flat below. The forecast, I thought, had been mostly sunny with rain in the evening. Either I had misunderstood the forecast or the weather had moved in early. No matter. I couldn’t do anything about it now and it was getting late. Got to the lake a little before 4:00 p.m. Three hours of good light left. It took about 3 hours to get to lake, assuming that I had taken the proper route in. I should be able to get out in less time, I figured a little over 2 hours. This didn’t leave much time to explore the lake. I broke out my camera and notebook and did a rather hurried walk around the lake, taking vegetation notes and photos. There seemed to be more large whitebark pine that was still alive here. That was encouraging. This lake had some interesting features and I would have liked to have had time to look it over more closely. Some other day maybe. The lake had been almost completely buried in a snow slide last time I was here so I hadn’t had a chance to fish it. I had later heard that there were fish in it. I had thought I had seen fish surfacing as I walked around the lake on this trip but it was hard to tell between the wind and the raindrops on the water. I rigged my pole and started fishing. I figured that I would give it 12 casts and call it good. Working my way back around the lake, I got a hit on the sixth cast. The next cast I caught a fish. The cast after, I caught another one. They looked to be rainbows. Good enough. I headed back, put my pole and camera in my pack and headed out. I had planned to eat at the lake but I felt good enough that I thought I would try to get to the tributary stream where I had stopped on the way in, re-evaluate and, if I had enough time, eat there. The rain was still falling, widely spaced, medium sized drops, not super heavy but plenty enough to make the brush I would have to go through wet. It wasn’t raining enough to justify putting on my raingear. I would have gotten just as wet sweating inside my raingear and would also run the chance of ripping it up. The only problem with this strategy was if I got hurt bad enough that I couldn’t continue walking. In this case I had my wool coat in my pack and wool long underwear, along with my raingear that would probably keep me alive long enough for help to come or I was able to somehow drag myself out. The outlet stream from the lake was quite wide and well defined. I followed it out. Once in the steep ground between the lake and the lower flat though, the outlet stream split up into several channels over another alluvial fan. I followed the middle channel and, in about ten minutes I was at the lower flat. I realized how I had gotten off track on the way in. The two main channels that drained the lake had dried up above the flat and weren’t very well defined and were partially hidden in a patch of timber up to the edge of the flat. My guess is that the first time I came in here it was early enough in the year that the channels that drained the lake carried most of the flow so they were more obvious and I followed them up to the point where the outlet stream became a well defined single channel. It was nearly 5:00 p.m. when I got to the lower flat. I did a quick inventory of the wetland plants there. Though many were the same as at the lake above, there were some differences. It was a couple minutes before 5:00 p.m. when started out from the flat. Found some gullies a little farther from the creek than the route I had taken it. These provided good travel through the steep area and I was through it by about 5:30 p.m. It looked like I was making good time. The steep area was the most likely spot where I would have run into trouble and I was through it and I wasn’t completely soaked. I would still need to be careful though. It took longer than I expected to get to the tributary stream. I had thought it was just below the steep area but it was about 6:00 p.m. before I reached it. Stopped and ate the roast beef sandwich that I had originally packed for lunch, hanging out below a tree that gave me a little shelter from the rain and drip. A couple handfuls of trail mix and a candy bar for quick energy and I was on my way. The rest of the trip completed my soaking though I still wasn’t soaked to the skin like I have been before. Got to my rig at 7:15 p.m. with maybe a half hour of usable light left. I had a headlamp but I don’t like to use them off trail in unfamiliar ground. I won’t say that I would never do it but it is asking for trouble. Some wisdom passed along to me years ago by an old-timer who had spent a lot of time in the mountains is that when you run out of light you need to stop and hunker down until it gets light enough to see. Otherwise, you are liable to walk off a cliff in the dark because you can’t see it. 

Long toed salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum). Hard to tell in photo but the gills on this salamander are greatly reduced and it is beginning to develop of yellow dorsal stripe. So this one is beginning to metamorphose, going from aquatic life to terrestrial life. 

Small wetland below the lake where I saw the salamander. 

View across valley of Granite Creek on the way into the lake. Wetland from previous frame is in the foreground. 

Looking southwest from near lake outlet. 

Looking north at wetland on lake outlet. 

Lake outlet. 

Looking south at lake. 

Looking northwest at lake. Rain beginning to fall. 

Looking west. 

West Fork Pasayten River  9/24-25/21

I did one short overnight trip into the West Fork of the Pasayten River near the end of September. Didn’t take any photos. Saw lots of moose tracks and canid tracks that were probably a large coyote or small wolf.