Summer Trips 2020 Volume II, September

North Fork Canyon Creek, Anacortes Crossing 9/4-7/20

 

Got a fairly decent early start. Still a long way to drive over Rainy and Washington Passes and then up over Hart’s Pass. I had scouted the route to the Anacortes Crossing trailhead on North Fork Canyon Creek with Andy Zitkovich on the previous Sunday after I had gotten back from the scouting trip to Monte Cristo. Andy had been over Anacortes Crossing 25 years or so earlier. He had remembered that it hadn’t been too bad, plenty of water and fairly open forest with a little brush here and there. We had found that it had taken a little more than an hour to walk from the gate at Slate Creek down to Chancellor, an old mining town. The road was driveable from the gate to Chancellor but only people with active mineral claims had access to a key. It is public land so everyone else could use the road, they just had to walk. My plan was to head over Anacortes Crossing, hit an unmapped pond northeast the crossing and then hit four more mapped lakes draining to North Fork Canyon Creek between Anacortes Crossing and Devil’s Pass. I had four days to do it but hoped to get it done in three, though I packed for four days. I had two distances for Anacortes Crossing Trail from North Fork Canyon Creek to Jackita Ridge Trail. Computer mapping program said 4.4 miles and Green Trails said 5.5. I was trusting the Green Trails map. It was also about a mile along the trail from Chancellor to the Anacortes Crossing trail. Figured that if I could get to Anacortes Crossing Trail by 11:00 a.m. or noon, I would have plenty of time to get over the crossing. With any luck, I would be able to hit the unmapped pond and get to the first lake, near the headwaters of Elk Creek, to camp on the first day. So I thought. Got to gate on Slate Creek, where I would start walking, a little after 9:30 a.m. Figured the walk to Chancellor would help warm up legs. Got to Chancellor a little after 11:00 a.m. and to Anacortes Crossing trail a little shy of noon. Took short break there but didn’t eat lunch. Wasn’t hungry yet and always feel slow and gross after eating. My plan was to eat where the trail crossed Cascade Creek where I knew I would have water. I hoped that it wouldn’t take too long to get there. The trail was pretty rough which I had expected. Talked to several people on the scouting trip and it sounded like at least one person had been over Anacortes Crossing within the last year but reports were that it was rough. Lots of rocks and deadfalls in trail but tread was readily visible. Within a few hundred yards I ran into a new windfall patch of grand fir and cedar. This created a massive tangle of stiff limbs and large tree trunks. It took a lot of effort to get past this with a full pack on. The trail was still there though. Then came a rapid succession of slides of loose scree across the trail. The trail tread was easily visible and in good shape in between these areas but the areas themselves were difficult. The trail tread was buried in these areas but there was usually a slight track made by people, and probably a number of critters walking across. So while it was harder, it wasn’t like breaking new trail. I encountered Several slides before the first switchbacks. It got really sketchy spot after the first switchback. The trail was completely buried in a slide of fine soil with a steep drop into what looked like an abyss between two bedrock outcrops. Several tag alders in and around the former trail provided good hand holds and I made it through area in a few steps, without breaking stride, with a nervous glance down. I hoped the trail would improve soon. This was looking bad. Another switchback and back into slide that had created the sketchy spot below. It was another sketchy spot here though not as bad as the one below. I took an alternate trail a little higher on slide, crossing there with a little more margin for safety. Had to get through one more slide area that wasn’t too bad and then the trail wrapped around the ridge from North Fork Canyon Creek into Cascade Creek. From here trail was in excellent shape though with lots of windfalls to climb over. Tread really wide, 8 feet or better but mossed over. It was obvious that not many people had been this way in years. However, I had been seeing newly broken branches and breaks a year or two old about the height where a person would break them to get through more easily. So it looked like trail had been used this year as well as earlier. The trail was steep from the start. The USGS Quad indicated that it was a pack trail. Well the grade seemed like it was pretty much constant right at the limit that livestock could handle, though it looked wide enough to pass loaded pack strings going in opposite directions. Speaking of packs, my pack was pretty heavy, with provisions for four days in addition to a few things that I could have left behind. This, along with the heavy effort it took to get through the slide areas along the North Fork of Canyon Creek, was wearing me down quickly. The day was warm, not really hot but with the exertion I was having to put forth I worked up a heavy sweat. I was stopping fairly frequently. Finally I stopped as I was crossing a windfall, resting my pack on it for a bit when I noticed that I was feeling a bit light headed. I held my hand up. Sure enough, it was shaking. I needed to eat lunch. Looked at my watch and saw that it was nearly 2:00 p.m. Wasn’t making very good progress but it was definitely time to eat. Wasn’t really that hungry but forced myself to eat. Didn’t eat a lot but drank most of my water. Wasn’t too worried. Could hear Cascade Creek below. It was still a good distance away down below but figured I would be at the crossing before too long and Andy had said that there was plenty of water along the way. After about half an hour rest I started going again. Within half an hour of starting I hit a large avalanche area filled with tag alders. I had seen this on air photos and wondered about it. If a trail isn’t being used or maintained, areas like this it gets choked with whatever brush, tag alders, vine maples, Douglas maples, that happens to be growing in the area. I had asked Andy about this area but he hadn’t remembered anything other than forest. The trail tread headed right into the tag alder patch. I could see fresh broken vegetation so looked like whoever had gone over the trail, or some critter had gone that way. I started following but lost the trail tread almost immediately. If I kept going this way it was going to be a serious brush bash and it would probably take hours to get through the area. I knew from air photos that this area was probably at least half a mile long. Still no water evident. Good thing I hadn’t tried to make it to Cascade Creek crossing before eating lunch. There is no way I would have made it. There was open forest just above the tag alder. Ground was steep but navigable though sidehilling through it was going to be a pain and lots more exertion. However, it was still much preferable than bashing through the tag alders. I backtracked a bit and got up into the forest and started sidehilling. Wondered if whoever had gone ahead of me this year had made it past the tag alders. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to pick up the trail on the other side of the tag alders either. Finally got to an area where a small patch of trees had blown down or been knocked down by an avalanche where I could get out and see. From this spot I could see the meadows below Anacortes Crossing above as well as the avalanche track leading from them into Cascade Creek and a large patch of timber between this avalanche and the avalanche track coming down from Hell’s Basin and the headwaters of Cascade Creek. The trail switchbacked up through that timber after crossing Cascade Creek just upstream of the avalanche track heading at Anacortes Crossing meadow. Figured that I should be able follow the timber up on my side until I got to the timber patch where the trail was, cross creek there and probably pick up trail. If not, could probably just cut straight up mountainside through the timber. The meadows and Anacortes Crossing looked very close but I knew that this could be very deceiving. I continued on up through timber until I was about opposite timber patch on other side of creek and cut towards it. I hit the trail almost immediately. Trail tread was surprisingly free of brush and very easy to see. Watered up and took a short rest before crossing creek and continuing on. The trail on the other side of the creek was another story. It followed the creek up for quarter mile or more and several avalanches over the years had knocked a lot of trees down into it. I finally got clear of that area but the trail was now so overgrown with waist high brush and buried by windfalls that it was very hard to see. I followed a faint track that looked like a likely spot for a trail and where I could see vegetation had been crushed, either by humans or other critters, and continued on, again, assuming that if I lost the trail I would just cut up the hill. I guessed right because I was able to pick up the trail again at the first switchback. It was very overgrown but the tread became very evident at this point. From the first switchback the trail was a little easier to see because it had been cut into the hill slope from that point on and this cut was easy to see. Lots more broken brush here and trampled vegetation. So someone had apparently made it past the tag alders. I could also see a number of spots where a bear or bears had dug into rotten wood after grubs or yellowjacket larvae. So humans weren’t the only ones using the trail. I found a spot after the second switchback where someone had made a camp this year. After the third switchback trail became even easier to follow. To this point it had been in old-growth forest with lots of thick undergrowth, now it was in stand of timber that was probably about 60 years old and in the stand exclusion stage. This meant the canopy was so heavy that not much light got through and there was very little undergrowth, just needles and sticks and smaller windfalls that had lost the race with their neighbors for light and other resources. Whatever resulted in this younger forest was a stand replacement event where all the old-growth or second-growth forest before the current one had been killed. I didn’t look too closely to try to determine what was the cause of this stand replacement. I would suspect a forest fire because there weren’t many large old logs on the forest floor. Usually after an avalanche there are massive piles of logs left behind that persist long after a new forest grows back. There are certainly lots of logs after a forest fire but a lot of stuff gets burned and the logs left as snags fall don’t seem to persist as long, probably because they have already reached a pretty advanced stage of decay as snags before they fall and become logs. Going was pretty easy now. The trail was still steep but quite visible and I didn’t have many large logs to get over, lots of small ones that were fairly easy to navigate. The USGS Quad showed a mining prospect near the trail after fourth switchback and I was curious to see what would be there. I found it not too far after the switchback. An ore cart, the box in the trail and the wheels down the hill 30 feet or so next to a tailings pile and a caved in excavation on the uphill side of the trail. What looked like a half caved in tunnel extended back into the hill but I didn’t investigate any further. Adits tend to be unstable and I didn’t really want to mess with it. I continued on up the trail and about half a mile farther up I came into a small, brushy opening. I was surprised to find quite an elaborate set up of large machinery. This was a lot bigger operation than just a prospect hole. It looked like several large log buildings built into the hillslope or a single large building with two levels to house machinery. A little smaller log cabin just above that looked like it was set up for a living space. Pipe about six inches in diameter led down hill. This was most likely the water source for driving the Pelton wheel or whatever they used to power the operation as well as a source for drinking water. It looked like it was a set up for a concentrator as they called it at Monte Cristo or a reduction mill where raw ore was processed so only relatively pure ore with as little waste as possible was sent down the trail for further refinement, either at Chancellor or further on. I had been reading a series on the history of the Upper Skagit in the Concrete Herald over last few months and it had mentioned the Canyon/Slate Creek area but don’t know or remember if this spot on Cascade Creek/Hell’s Basin in particular was mentioned. I am sure there is some history about it somewhere. I remembered reading in the series in the paper that there were a number of investors in the mines in this area from Anacortes which might explain why this particular trail is called Anacortes Crossing. The machine works explained a lot about the trail and why it was so wide. This was quite a large operation and would need a big trail to get machinery in and pack strings or wagons in and out. It took a lot of effort to get that stuff all the way up into the mountains so I assume that it paid pretty well, though obviously when it was done it wasn’t deemed worthwhile to move all the machinery out to another location. I didn’t have time to explore more at the moment, I still hadn’t found any more water and I needed to keep moving but I definitely wanted to stop on the way back and get some photos. Operations like this quite often concentrate and release heavy metals and other pollutants. While I recognize that this isn’t a good thing, I have to have a lot of respect for the folks who put in a lot of hard work and a lot a figuring things out to get that machinery to where it was and the folks who took the chances to make it work. Looking at the machinery, there was obviously a lot of potential for a bad industrial accident, either with the machinery or in mine tunnels and this was a long way from any help. There might have been some medical facilities at Chancellor but even so, it was a long way to a hospital. I think it also needs to be recognized that our current lives, where I can write these words and the few readers who have struggled this far through the text can read them in a digital format was made possible by such things. The minerals that make our current technology driven world possible all came from some hole in the ground somewhere on this earth. And our current civilization was built on previous civilizations that dug the materials needed to support their technologies from the ground somewhere. So we are all responsible for such activities to one degree or another. After a quick look over of the mill works I was on my way again. Still had plenty of light left, it was about 3:30 p.m. Map showed one more long switchback, then a bunch of short ones and I would be in the meadows. I lost the last long switchback in tag alders at edge of avalanche track in Hell’s Basin. I was able to follow it around the switchback itself, wading through tag alders but then it looked like the ground had sloughed or something. I couldn’t see any definite track or tread. I finally just went back into the timber and started up the hill. I hit the trail again, plain as day within about ten feet. There was kind of open area at the end of the long switchback where the short ones started. This looked like it might be another adit or something. The trail narrowed down to normal size at this point. A couple of windfalls in the trail made going a little difficult but I was able to stay on the trail okay. I hit the lower end of the meadows at a little after 4:00 p.m. The tread was visible at the lower end of the meadows but began to slough and fade the farther I went into meadows. I finally abandoned trying to follow it and just headed straight up the hill. This is pretty much what one map I had showed. The USGS Quad showed what looked like a lot of tight switchbacks but they were nowhere in evidence that I could find. The ground was very steep where I finally lost the trail. Only about six hundred feet to go to top of ridge but I had reached my limit. It happened pretty suddenly. I had been making pretty good pushes, probably about 40 feet at a clatter between rest stops but suddenly I was only able to do about 10 or less and I needed to take longer rest stops. My legs didn’t cramp. They just didn’t have strength to push on any longer. To make it worse, I developed horrible cottonmouth. I had filled my water jug at the Cascade Creek crossing below but hadn’t found any water after that. It was pretty much full when I started up the meadow and I resisted taking a drink until I was sure I would be able to get water before camping for the night but I finally started drinking sparingly at rest breaks. The swigs helped the cottonmouth but only for a short time. Once I started again and started breathing heavily through my mouth, the cottonmouth roared back. Occasionally I picked and ate ripe blueberries. These were very good, sweet and moist. The trouble was they were so small it would have taken a long time to pick enough to amount to much and now I was finally starting to run out of light. The berries also increased the cottonmouth. My pack felt like an anchor on my back and I regretted a lot of the stuff I had packed. I need to lighten my pack. Still I figured I would be able to make it over a ridge to the north to an unmapped pond before dark. I wouldn’t be going over Anacortes Crossing this night but that was okay, I had planned to check out the unmapped pond anyway, only in my fantasy, I would drop all the overnight stuff out of my pack and make a quick trip with a light pack into the pond before continuing on to the first mapped lake on the first day. Now I was going to be happy to just make it to the unmapped pond on the first day. I finally topped the ridge overlooking the unmapped pond at about 6:00 p.m. It had taken me about two hours to get the last six hundred feet up the meadows. Actually it was less than six hundred feet because I was still below Anacortes Crossing. I could have gotten down to the pond through some small scree where I broke over ridge but it was very steep. I headed down the ridge a bit before dropping my pack and going even farther to try to find a better spot. I found several more spots to get down but all were about the same. The spot where I dropped my pack would do. I went back, loaded up and headed down. The scree wasn’t as loose as I expected which actually made traction worse. My feet wanted to slip on small rocks sitting on hard soil underneath. There were game trails here and there which helped a lot. Got to the pond a little after 7:00 p.m. Dropped my pack and went to a small stream flowing into the pond to water up. I was feeling nauseated even before drinking. I had read a about phenomenon of throwing up if you drink too much too fast after being severely dehydrated. I had experienced this once before in a hayfield. Then, I hadn’t drunk enough for a long time and finally when I gave in and started drinking, I drank a lot and got sick. I didn’t think I was severely dehydrated this time but apparently I was dehydrated enough. I pitched my tent and debated even eating dinner. I finally decided that I had better eat, even if I couldn’t finish everything. I had burned a lot more calories this day than I had taken in. My appetite returned a bit while I was cooking dinner. I managed to eat the noodle dinner I cooked but didn’t try to eat anything else besides a small package of fruit snacks. It was dark by the time I had cleaned my cooking pot. So refilled water jug and turned in. My new plan was to get up as early as possible to try to get an early start. I wanted to check out the pond and hopefully get into four more lakes the next day. The next morning I lingered a bit in my sleeping bag before getting up. It is always hard for me to get up in the morning. The morning wasn’t too cold so that made it much easier. Got a few sunrise photos right after getting up. Cooked breakfast and did a quick survey of the pond. It was only a few feet deep, way too shallow for fish. No amphibians that I observed either. I was packed and on my way by 8:00 a.m. Found a really good spot to get up on the ridge out of the unmapped pond. It was a little lower on the ridge but I didn’t lose too much elevation. Legs felt really good. Not sore and no sign of exhaustion of previous day. I was at Anacortes Crossing by about 9:00 a.m. There was an old sign on a rock cairn and I could see the tread of the trail switchbacking down on stable ground on the other side of the ridge. I could see what I thought was the saddle or pass into the next lake I wanted to go to. I headed down the trail after taking a few photos. I lost the trail in a talus/scree slope after about half a dozen switchbacks. Again I decided to strike out on my own way. Lots of steep, loose rock. Finally I stumbled into a track created by animals. Then I found a track that seemed to be the trail again. I followed that into nice stable heather covered slopes. My plan at that point was to continue down and hit the Jackita Ridge Trail and cut back up to the saddle to the next lake. It seemed like I had gone a long way down and still couldn’t see the Jackita Ridge Trail. I finally realized that I really didn’t need to go all the way down to the trail. It would be pretty easy navigation across the timbered meadows to the saddle I wanted to go to. There was a rock outcrop between Anacortes Crossing and the saddle but I had gotten past that on the trail in the scree. I started to angle back upslope in the direction of saddle I wanted to hit. At some point heard voices and looked down to see several people walking on the Jackita Ridge Trail several hundred feet below me. I got up to saddle that I thought I needed to get to but it turned out it was the wrong one. I would need to go the next one farther north along the ridge. Traveling was fairly easy and I made it to the saddle overlooking the first mapped lake. This lake one drained to Elk Creek and then to the North Fork of Canyon Creek. Decision time now. I had planned on taking full pack down into this lake then around a ridge to another lake at 5783 feet in elevation draining to the NF Canyon Creek. From there I would continue around another ridge on NF Canyon Creek and hit two more lakes, eventually climbing back up to the Jackita Ridge Trail at Devil’s Pass. I would complete the loop by going back up over Anacortes Crossing. However, looking at the ground from the top of the ridge it looked like the ridge I would need to go around to get to the 5783 foot lake was full of brushy, scrubby trees growing in an avalanche track. This ground looked kind of steep too. It was probably still navigable but it would be difficult to get through, especially with a full pack. There was also the possibility that I wouldn’t be able to get through and have to backtrack. Also the route off the ridge into the lake was very steep, about at the limit of what I was willing to do. It would be a lot easier getting down with a lighter pack. I thought about it for a bit and decided to drop most of my heavier, overnight gear on the ridge and hit the lake with a light day pack then backtrack to the ridge top and drop back down to the Jackita Ridge Trail and go to Devil’s Pass and do the rest of the lakes on day trips. There was one just below the Devil’s Pass that I figured I should be able to get into on this same day. The others I would have to try to do the next day (Sunday). I hoped I might be able to get into those lakes and back with enough time to start back out so I wouldn’t have to try to get all the way back to my rig from Devil’s Pass in one day on Monday. Decision made, I dropped my overnight gear and headed down into the lake. It took a little over half an hour to get down. I had lunch at the lake and took a short nap and then checked out the lake. No great views but still a very pretty spot. Deep enough for fish but none in evidence. I was disappointed that I wasn’t seeing any salamanders. I take notes on all the lakes and if I have something like fish or amphibians to note kind of makes my visit official in some way because sightings mean data points with my name on them. I got all the way around lake to some little bluffs at the deepest part of lake. I had planned on backtracking back around because this area had looked too steep to traverse but now it looked like I could get through. As I continued through steep area finally saw a salamander, then another one and then another one. I saw seven in total. It was a good thing I had continued on. I had planned on turning around before I would have seen any of them. Funny how chance things like that sometimes make all the difference whether you are hunting big game or fishing or looking for something like salamanders (which the majority of people probably don’t really care about). I got back to the ridge top a little after 1:00 p.m. Repacked and checked my map. It looked like the ground was pretty steep just below me to the north or my right but it was pretty good to the south, my left. So I should be able to head down making sure to keep angling slightly to my left and I should be able to hit the Jackita Ridge Trail without too many problems. I made it to the trail without any problems in about half an hour. It was little less than two miles to Devil’s Pass from here. According to Andy there was a shelter there and a spring that had had water in late September when he had been there about 25 years ago. I hoped this was the case. The USGS Quad showed a building and a spring there. I wanted to get into a small pond a little below the shelter and hopefully have time in the day to get back up and go out Jackita Ridge Trail another mile or two to where it crossed NF Canyon Creek to see if there was water there. This would be important information for a trip I planned to do next year. I could see the small pond I wanted to get into next from the trail above Devil’s Pass and I could see the next, larger lake down the valley. I planned to go into that one the next day. I found the trail to the spring and shelter a little beyond Devil’s Pass. Several hundred yards down this trail there was a wet spot with a couple of little puddles. I hoped that this wasn’t the spring. The ground was well trampled and there was a well traveled side trail to it where people had been diving off the main trail for water. The main trail continued on so I followed that. Another half mile or so and I could see a steadily flowing stream just below and then I saw the shelter, or what was left of it in a small meadow next to the stream. The shelter had collapsed perfectly so the roof was laying on the ground. It took me a minute to realize that it had actually collapsed and wasn’t designed to be the way it currently was. There was a well used camp spot in the trees next to the shelter. I decided to pitch my tent out in meadow a bit. I hung my food up and started out for the small pond below. I assumed that the stream next to the meadow flowed into the pond so just started following that. After a while though it felt like I had gone too far down the hill. It should have only been a couple hundred feet, about fifteen or twenty minutes traveling to get to the pond and I had been going for longer than that with no pond or flat area in sight. A quick consultation of map showed that the stream I was following did not actually flow into the pond (so much for assumptions) and that I was a little too far north. I started back uphill in the direction of the pond. Fortunately I caught myself pretty soon in the process and only had to climb about a hundred feet to get into the flat where the pond sat. I checked this pond out. Too small for fish and I didn’t see any amphibians either. I am pretty sure there were salamanders in this pond but they just weren’t out where I could see them. The land form that created this pond was an interesting. It looked like it could possibly be a SAIL or Snow Avalanche Impact Landform. These landforms usually sit below a steep valley wall and the theory behind them is that avalanches off the valley wall hit the valley bottom so hard that they excavate a crater. This pond seemed to fit a lot of the characteristics of a SAIL but there were other things that didn’t quite fit. SAILS usually occur where the valley floor sediments are fine and there were a lot of large boulders here. I was a bit skeptical on this one. I started back to camp at about 4:30 p.m. and made it back in about half an hour. I figured that I had time to make it back up to the trail and walk to the NF Canyon Creek crossing and back before dark so kept going through camp with that goal in mind. I saw the first part of the next day’s route from the trail to NF Canyon Creek. It looked like lots of brush but there were some good open areas in between. The best route looked like hitting the pond I had just been to and staying high above it and a small patch of big timber until I could get into a bare slide area and follow that down to a big talus patch and then try to keep either to timber or talus to avoid the brush. From the lower lake, I needed to get into the lake at 5783 feet elevation that I had decided not to try to cross country into earlier in the day. From where I was, it looked like an awful long way to go in one day. I would have to deal with that tomorrow, no use worrying about it at the moment. I got to NF Canyon Creek and found what appeared to be the main channel, actually several major channels. All were dry. It looked like I would have to adjust my plans for the following year. On a whim I decided to go a bit farther and found a nice spring in about a hundred yards. I was back in business. I planned to do the trip into this area earlier in the year so there should be plenty of water here. Headed back to camp, made dinner and turned in. I usually brush up on the day’s notes but skipped it this night. I wanted to get up and get started as early as possible in the hopes that I would be able to start back out that day. The moon was bright that night and sometime during the night at least one deer came through camp. I could hear it blowing and stomping, probably spooked by my presence. Wasn’t dedicated enough to poke my head out of tent to see if it was a buck or a doe though. I was just getting gray when I woke up. I could hear mountain chickadees twittering. I coasted for about five minutes, not going back to sleep but not getting up either, just laying there and relaxing for one last little bit before starting the day. I was on my way by about 7:00 a.m. I almost missed the little pond again. I went down in the same spot that I came up the night before but I missed where I needed to cut across a slope to get to the pond. Again, I caught myself before I had gone too far. I started following route I had seen day before, cutting across above a small patch of big timber. Instead of going uphill after the timber I cut down a small valley. Wrong move. I soon found myself in a thick patch of avalanche battered brushy trees. The going wasn’t very good here. Finally I decided to head for the valley bottom. I had blown the route I had spied the night before. Hopefully the valley bottom wouldn’t be too bad. I lucked out and found a spot through where it wasn’t too brushy. This spot was next to the stream that flowed by camp up above and that I had accidentally followed the day before. I could have just followed it this morning and ended up at the same place. I found myself on a fairly flat, nice talus slope with a minimum of brush bashing. The talus was nice. It was a good size for traveling and not too steep. Within a few steps, a large boulder shifted under foot and it was only with an extreme effort I was able to keep from planting my face in the rocks or breaking some toes. Looks were deceiving in this case. I crossed talus without further incident. There were tag alders on the other side but only a thin strip before more talus. I went through several more thin strips of brush before entering old growth timber. The going was really good now. I made my way down hill through the timber. There was a nice flat at the bottom at the edge of a large alluvial fan and talus slope of boulders, some of which were nearly house sized. This talus was interesting. It was like an orphaned talus pile. It sat more toward the middle of the valley rather than against the valley wall as most talus piles do. Also its crown, or highest point was toward the middle of the valley. Usually the high side of a talus slope is nearest to the valley wall or against it. There was a pretty cool patch of almost solid Arnica below the alluvial fan. Arnica is a yellow flower in the aster family and this area would have been almost solid yellow when they were in peak bloom. That had been at least three weeks ago though. Still it was impressive. Saw a whistle pig, or hoary marmot in the talus on the other side of the alluvial fan. A talus slope of giant boulders extending from the previously mentioned orphaned talus pile led to the next lake. This lake was pretty deep and a very pretty blue. It was mostly surrounded by tag alders and willows except the side next to the valley wall which was talus. I got to this lake at about 8:00 a.m. I was making pretty good time. I started looking over the small area that I could access on the lake and pretty quickly saw some salamanders. That meant no fish. Usually if salamanders are out in open, there aren’t any fish in lake. I was okay with that. Like I mentioned before, this would be a data point anyway because I did see something worth noting. I stayed at the lake about 45 minutes before starting out for my last destination for the day, the lake at 5783 feet in elevation that I had skipped trying to get around a ridge into on the previous day. This small lake almost 900 feet higher and around a ridge from the valley I was in now. On the map it looked like there might be a short cut across the upper part of the ridge but looking at it in real life, it was pretty clear that that route was way too steep. The upper part of ridge was steep, probably too steep to navigate. The lower part of ridge was still steep but navigable. The plan was to head down the valley I was in and at the same time head uphill on the ridge until it got too steep to navigate. At that point I would sidehill around the ridge. This way I could get as high as possible on the ridge before going around it. This would save me some walking because the lower I was on the ridge, the farther I would have to walk to get around it. It would be fairly straightforward navigation. As long as I kept the hillslope on my right hand I would be going in the right direction. I didn’t need a compass or GPS to figure that out. If I did somehow lose my direction, I was in the NF Canyon Creek valley and could find my way out from that. I got to a part of the ridge where I was having to grab brush, mostly white flowered rhododendrons and blueberries, to keep going. I started sidehilling from there and after a bit, I could tell I was passing around the nose of the ridge. Shortly after that, the slope got a lot mellower and easier to travel. I consulted my map to make sure I wouldn’t walk past the lake. The map showed that the stream draining the lake was in a pretty significant valley that I shouldn’t walk across without noticing. I soon hit what looked like a flat. I figured I was close at that point. I consulted my map again and it indicated that there was a decent sized flat just to the west of the lake. Everything seemed to fit so I continued on. Pretty soon though, I started wondering if I had overshot and come in above the lake. I started seeing what looked like openings below me, but these turned out to be sunlight on the boughs of smaller trees in the forest understory. I started wondering why I hadn’t gotten to lake yet and experienced a tinge of panic that urged me to go downhill to seek out the lake. The problem with panic is that it hijacks the thinking part of your brain and makes you do crazy things because they fit a theory that makes your brain feel better. I stopped again and looked at the map. There it was. There was a significant stream valley below the lake were the stream draining the lake flowed that I would have to cross in order to overshoot the lake. I hadn’t crossed any streams or valleys yet. There was also a large open spot and cliffs not too far above the lake. I hadn’t come to that yet either. Though it was pretty flat where I was, there was still a definite slope on my right hand so I maintained my elevation and continued on in the same direction with a slight upslope angle. Within 5 minutes of consulting the map, I came across a stream in a small valley. This was most likely the stream draining the lake though the valley it was in wasn’t quite as big as I had expected. I would follow this up and if I didn’t hit the lake before hitting some obstacle, I would continue sidehilling. I started uphill following the stream valley and within ten minutes I was at the lake. This was another very pretty spot. It was a lot steeper around the lake than I had expected. I walked around lake and checked it out. I was very disappointed not to see anything other than some blue darners (dragonflies) and camp robbers (gray jays). Bummer. No data point here. You can’t win them all. Though it would have been nice to have a data point here in the most remote of the lakes in the area. I did see small puff of sediment near outlet but didn’t see what made it. It could have been my foot on stick, shifting it and puffing up sediment. Or it could have been a salamander or something else. Since I didn’t actually see it, I couldn’t record it. Again, I am sure that there were salamanders in this lake, they just weren’t out where I could see them. The lake was deep enough and big enough for fish but no sign of them either. I had gotten to this lake at about 11:00 a.m. and headed out at about noon. I retraced roughly the same route I took in, this time keeping the hillslope on my left hand, aiming for the steep part of the ridge and, once I found it, traversing the slope below it. I took a little lower route once I was around the ridge and it worked okay. I got back to first lake I had visited in the day at about 1:00 a.m. I saw a salamander in the process of metamorphosing from aquatic life to terrestrial life.  Good deal. It is hard to positively identify salamander larvae but adults are fairly easy. This one had an obvious yellow dorsal stripe which meant it was a long-toed salamander. I had figured that is what the salamanders in this lake were but now I knew for sure what at least one was. At this point, I didn’t think I would have time to get started out this day. It would take at least an hour to get back to camp, maybe a bit more. Trouble was that there wasn’t a lot of water along the route. If I started out this day, I would have to make it over Anacortes Crossing and all the way down to the crossing of Cascade Creek to get to water. I didn’t want to make a dry camp. I figured I could make it out in a day if I pushed it. So the plan for the rest of this day would be to get back to camp and take it easy so I my legs would be as fresh as possible the next day. I took nice long lunch break at the flat below the big timber just above the lake. The temperature was just about perfect, warm in the sun, cool in shade. I got a little cold during lunch so I moved into the sun to warm up a bit. Started back for camp a little after 2:00 p.m. The first stretch after the flat was the patch of old growth timber then the talus and brush strips. I got a little higher on the hill going through the brush strips between talus slopes so I was several hundred feet above the main talus slope I had come through in the morning. I was in the scree area that I had looked at the day before as a route to the lower lake. I decided to head up in this spot and see if the route that I had abandonded earlier was a better one. Either way I would have to climb up the slope several hundred feet and the way before me was brush free and relatively easy travel. I got out of the scree and started cross-slope just above a rock outcrop. The route was good. I ended up about a hundred feet above the pond I had visited the day before. I checked out the pond again on my way by but still didn’t see anything of note other than some blue darner dragonflies which I had noted the day before. Got to camp a little before 4:00 p.m. I still had a couple of hours till dinner. I crawled into my tent to get away from the bugs and brushed up my field notes. Several different people came by to get water from the creek. After dinner, I disassembled my stove and stowed my cook kit. The plan was to just eat breakfast bars in the morning to save the time of cooking so I could get as early a start as possible. Went to bed at dusk, a little before 8:00 p.m. There had been a steady breeze all day, kind of nice. It really picked up at dusk and blew pretty hard all night. I heard sticks blown out of trees hit the ground several times. While the wind was heavy, it didn’t seem quite strong enough to blow trees down. I took the chance. Where I had pitched the tent it was a target for several large trees. I was awake at first light and got up almost immediately. The wind was still blowing hard, hard enough to make my eyes water and my nose run. I could see the moon and Venus and Mars, I think, here and there between large cloud banks. I choked down a cold breakfast. Breakfast has always been a pretty hard meal for me to eat. But I knew I was going to be burning a lot of calories that day so I had better eat as much as I could. I broke down camp and was on the trail by about 7:00 a.m. By 7:30 I was at Devil’s Pass. On a hunch, I went off trail a few steps and looked over ridge. Sure enough, there was the shelter right below me. I had thought that it was right below the trail. I could have headed straight up the hill and hit it but taking the side trail let me get my legs warmed up. I figured that if I could make it over Anacortes Crossing by at least 11:00 a.m. I would have enough time to get out that day. I was making really good time. I only had about two miles to go to Anacortes Crossing and I would only have to go up a few hundred feet from this side to get to the top. I stopped several times to take pics of Jackita Ridge and Crater and Jack Mountains. I had lost the trail below Anacortes Crossing in the scree so I hadn’t followed it down to the Jackita Ridge Trail. So I wasn’t really sure where a good spot to cut up off the Jackita Ridge Trail might be. The trail through the scree had seemed to be pretty faint anyway so I figured I would just cut up the hill when it made sense. The ground in the area would be easy to cross. Not too far from Anacortes Crossing, the Jackita Ridge Trail started trending downhill. I decided this was a good enough spot to cut up. I set my sights on Anacortes Crossing between patches of timber and started off trail. Within a few hundred yards I came across what seemed to be a flat tread of trail. I didn’t know if this was the actual trail from the Crossing but traveling on it was a little easier so I stuck to it. Sure enough it led right to the track through the loose slate scree coming down from the Crossing. In hindsight, this was probably the remnants of the Anacortes Crossing Trail. I don’t know if the track across the slate scree was maintained mostly by animals or humans but it was much better than breaking trail through loose stuff. Before long I could see the switchbacks of the built trail that still remained just below the Crossing. The wind was still blowing strongly. It made for nice walking, kept the sweat down, but was cold enough to make my nose run and my eyes water and it blew my hat off several times. Near the top of the scree the trail branched. It was pretty faint at this point but the good trail on stable ground was less than a hundred yards away. I took the high trail and soon realized that I should have taken the low trail, which was probably closer to the original trail, if not in the exact same spot. Still, I made it work. With only a few steps to go to get to the good trail switchbacking to the Crossing I slipped. I put my left hand out unconsciously to steady myself, jamming it into the loose scree and felt a sharp piece of slate cut into the web of my pinky finger. It actually seemed like I could feel it cutting slowly through the layers of skin but there was no help for it. I couldn’t pull my hand back. It was either leave my weight on that hand or a possibly nasty tumble down the slope. I recovered and made the last two steps onto the good trail. I walked up through one switchback before checking my hand. I expected it to be bleeding but not to be too bad. It was bleeding but it wasn’t very bad. I figured it might bother me for a day or two and then fade from my consciousness. It was one of those things where I might look at it in a couple of weeks and wonder how I did it. Once I was on the good trail I made my way through the switchbacks and was at Anacortes Crossing in about ten minutes. It was a little before 9:00 a.m. I was making really good time. I had hoped to be here by at least 11:00 o’clock and was two hours ahead of time. I took a short break to get numerous small rocks out of my shoes which had developed some holes in the sides and were natural collectors for rocks, especially in piles of loose rock like the one I had just walked through. Took a few last photos and started picking my way down the slope. I couldn’t really walk. I had to take baby steps because the slope was so steep and a misstep could result in a really bad tumble. It was pretty painstaking. I still got quite a few breezes but the wind wasn’t nearly as strong on this side of the ridge. I had a good landmark where I was sure I could pick up the remnant of the trail a little above the timber. I knew there was more trail farther up the hill from this spot but it wasn’t readily visible. On my way down I found a couple more prospect holes. The first one I thought was some kind of natural slump but the second one just below the first, had a bunch of metal roofing and a wheelbarrow in it. The wheelbarrow was of a newer design with a rubber tire on a rim. I don’t recall seeing a design like this before the 1970’s or 80’s. But its wooden frame had already rotted to the point of collapse so it couldn’t have been that new. Just below the prospect holes I stumbled onto the trail. Even though they were only about ten yards away, the prospect holes weren’t visible from the trail and I had walked right by them on the way in. I traveled a bit faster on the trail and got into the timber shortly and got through about eight tight switchbacks. Now there were five long switchbacks down to Cascade Creek. The first switchback on the way down was the one that kind of disappeared in the avalanche track from Hell’s Basin and I planned to just cut down the hill once I hit the brush. Before I got there though I came across a line of old, riveted six inch pipe running down the hill under the trail. I don’t know how I missed this on the way up but I did. I was pretty certain that this was the water source for the mill works just down the hill. Its source was almost certainly Hell’s Basin. I decided to just follow the pipe down. Sure enough, I was at the mill works in about fifteen minutes. It was just barely 10:00 a.m. I was making really good time. I spent about an hour taking photos of everything at the mill works before continuing on. I stopped at the prospect hole down the trail, the one that is actually shown on the USGS Quad, and took a bunch of photos there. The next switchback was not too far below this prospect. I stopped there. The timber was pretty open below the switchback and was for quite a distance down the hill. It looked like an old burn that had grown back to the stem exclusion stage where a lot of the new trees had died off leaving a fairly open forest without too much brush. The slope of the hill was pretty good too. I decided to just cut down the hill here. There was little chance of getting lost. I had good landmarks. The trail crossed Cascade Creek at the edge of the patch of timber I was in. As long as I followed the timber’s edge down to the creek I would hit the trail. Going this way I could see ahead and avoid windfalls and brush. If I stuck to the trail I would be pretty much committed to my path of travel and would have to crawl over, under or around windfalls rather than choosing a line of travel from a distance that would avoid them altogether. I also wouldn’t have to worry about keeping on the trail at the lower end in the old growth where it was very overgrown and hard to find. Following that plan, I made it to Cascade Creek at about noon. I took some time and cut some tag alders out of the trail near the creek crossing before crossing and having lunch. After lunch I followed the trail, which was quite open and nice at this point, for a bit until it seemed to dive into the tag alders. I hit the timber above at this point and continued down trying to retrace my route on the way in. There were a few minor issues with navigation but I was able to successfully get past the tag alder patch and pick up the trail on the other side. Not too far below the tag alders, I noticed a two mile board on a tree that I had missed on the way up. There were a lot of names scratched into the tag including a “Bink” 2020. I am assuming that Bink was probably the one who had been breaking all of the brush ahead of me. So at least one other person had been over Anacortes Crossing this year. Traveling was good until I got to the lower switchbacks. These switchbacks ran through some bluffs and were basically pasted onto the side of the hill. Over the years the hill slid between the uppermost switchback and the next one down the hill. The slide crossed the trail on the uphill side of the uppermost switchback and crossed it again below the switchback. These were the spots I had trouble with on the way up. The first crossing wasn’t too bad. The slope was oversteepened and it looked like if one fell or slid they would go a long way before hitting whatever bottom there was. There was a faint trail, basically minimal footholds across loose soil, even with the trail and another trail that went about ten feet up the hill before crossing the slide. After debating the lower trail for a bit, I took the upper trail like I did on the way in. The crossing below the switchback was another matter. It was the same oversteepend slope in loose soil that seemed to drop away into an abyss. Only there weren’t any footholds here. Worse, there wasn’t anything really in a good spot to grab onto as one crossed. All of the handholds were on the on the same side of the sketchy spot as I was. The bad spot wasn’t as wide as the upper crossing, only a few steps but it was really scary. I paused for a minute or two to study it. I remembered that this spot had been bad on the way up but not that it was this bad. It had been much easier to cross on the way up. There wasn’t any help for it. I wasn’t about to walk all the way back up over Anacortes Crossing and walk however many miles it took to get to the trail down from Sky Pilot Pass. I took a step and I think I went down on a knee and was able to reach a half buried cedar root as I maintained my momentum across the slide area. Made it. The rest of the trail wasn’t too bad, there were several more large slides to cross where the trail had been obliterated but nothing really steep or dangerous. I bailed off into the creek when the trail got to the valley bottom to avoid more slides and the mess of cedars and grand fir. I stopped at several nice holes in creek and rigged my pole. I wanted to see what kind of fish were in the creek. I don’t know if there was a fish migration barrier between here and the lower end of the creek near the confluence with Granite Creek but the guys we had talked to the week before had mentioned fish so apparently there were fish here. I caught nice rainbow trout about eight inches long on my second cast. I couldn’t catch any more and abandoned my fishing attempt after about ten minutes and continued on. I hit the Chancellor Trail about fifteen minutes after getting to the valley bottom. I stopped one more time to try to catch a fish along the trail. I debated doing this. This stop took about half an hour between digging the pole and gear out and rigging up. Passing up a fishing opportunity would have been sacrilege to my younger self but time was getting tight and I still had a good distance to travel to get out even though I was on a better trail now. I got to Chancellor at a little before 3:00 p.m. I had been making good time earlier in the day but seemed to have squandered it. I knew it would take a little over an hour to slog out of the hole and I wasn’t looking forward to that. I was looking forward to being done. I stopped at Chancellor for a few minutes to get the rocks out of my shoes and check out a few things I hadn’t been able to the week before. I started up the hill right at about 3:00 p.m. and got to my rig at about 4:20. I measured the distance out of Chancellor to my rig on a map later and figured it to be about four miles, so I made pretty good time. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. There was one interesting thing. I was listening to a radio station that had sites all over Central and Eastern Washington. I could get reception from this station all the way down from Hart’s Pass to where I parked my rig. This radio station didn’t mention the several numerous huge fires that had ignited that morning and were raging at the time. These fires closed I-90, Highway 2 and Highway 97. These were all in broadcast area of this radio station and not a peep about them. There wasn’t any smoke visible from Hart’s Pass and I didn’t even realize what had happened until the next day at work. My pack weighed 62.5 pounds without my water bottle at end of trip. I need to figure out how to lighten up. 

Looking south towards Cady Point from ridge just east of Anacortes Crossing. 

Small unmapped pond just east of Anacortes Crossing. 

Unmapped pond shortly after my arrival. I took this photo as I was getting water.  At this point I was terribly thirsty but also feeling nauseous. 

Pre-sunrise from the unmapped pond on the second day. 

Looking at the pond just before sunrise. 

Sunrise. 

First sunlight on the ridge above the unmapped pond. Anacortes Crossing is the left of the larger hump on the ridge. Devil's Creek is directly over the ridge. 

Full sunlight on the unmapped pond. 

Unmapped pond from the ridge top on my way out on the second day. 

Old USFS trail signboard indicating that this is Anacortes Crossing. The USFS shield has resisted weathering and now stands in relief to the rest of the sign with most of its paint still intact. 

Looking east at the first small lake on my itinerary. This lake drains to the North Fork of Canyon Creek via Elk Creek. The photo does not represent how steep the slope was down into this lake. The ridge in the near distance is the one I would have had to go around to get into the next lake. Again, the photo does not represent how steep and brushy this ridge looked. I decided that I didn't want to try it with a full pack.  

Looking west from the outlet of the small lake at the route I took down from the ridge. 

Looking east from outlet of small pond just below Devil's Pass. 

Looking north from small pond just below Devil's Pass. Trail 752 between Devil's Pass and Sky Pilot Pass runs below the ridge in the distance. The berm on the opposite side of the pond from the valley wall is obvious in this photo at center frame. 

Camp at spring below Devil's Pass. Collapsed shelter is visible at center left of frame. 

Orphaned pile of large talus along route into lower lake below Devil's Pass. The dense patch of Arnica is in the foreground. 

Whistle pig or hoary marmot (Marmota caligata) in talus on the way into lower lake. 

Last slope into lower lake. Lake is just visible beyond timber at left of frame. 

Looking northeast at lower lake. 

Looking north from lower lake at ridge between Devil's Pass and Sky Pilot Pass. 

Looking west at lake at 5783 foot elevation, the last destination on my itinerary, though it was supposed to be the second one in the original plan. 

Looking north from the outlet of the 5783 lake. This was certainly a very pretty spot. 

Metamorphosing long-toed salamander at the lower lake, my first destination of the day. I saw this salamander on my way back through. 

A little closer view of the salamander. The photo is a little small for this post but on the original one can just make out the remnants of gills on the side of its head. 

One final view. If you look closely at the salamander's rear left foot you can just make out the extra long third toe that gives these salamanders their name. 

On my way back to Devil's Pass looking at the orphaned talus pile. 

Orphaned talus pile from higher on ridge on route back. 

Looking south at north end of Jackita Ridge from Trail 738 (Jackita Ridge Trail) on route back.

Same view as previous photo zoomed in. 

Crater Mountain from Jackita Ridge Trail. 

Looking west from Anacortes Crossing. Jack Mountain to left of frame

Wheelbarrow in collapsed prospect just above the Anacortes Crossing Trail several hundred feet down from the crossing. 

Zoomed out view of previous photo showing more of the collapsed prospect. 

Collapsed building at mine works/reduction mill along trail. From the artifacts present, it looked like this building was set up as a bunkhouse. There appeared to be a couple of collapsed adits just beyond the far end of the building. 

Remains of a wood stove in the collapsed building. 

This appears to be part of a rock crusher, probably the first step in reducing ore in order to make it more pure to avoid transporting a lot of waste rock. 

Zoomed out view of previous. The long rods reaching down to the rock crusher appear to be rollers that might have been used to separate valuable ore from waste rock. 

This appeared to be a boiler. A large pile of tailings is visible at the left side of the frame.

Looking down at lower part of ore concentrator area. Tailings pile in foreground. The rock crusher and other machinery are just out of the frame to the right. Logs defining the online of the building are at the outer boundary of the treeless area. 

Collapsed walls of ore concentrator building. The rock crusher  was just downslope of these logs. 

Box of ore cart next to trail. This was down the trail 1/2 to 1/4 from the ore concentrator site. 

Different view or ore cart box. There is a collapsed adit going into the mountain out of the frame to the left side. 

Aforementioned collapsed adit. 

Ore cart wheels. These were down the slope from the ore cart box 30 or 40 feet just below the tailings which were quite big compared to other tailings piles that I have seen. 

Zoomed out view of previous. Ore cart wheels are at lower right side of frame. 

The Anacortes Crossing Trail just as it swings around from the Cascade Creek Valley into the North Fork Canyon Creek Valley. My pack is in the trail for a sense of scale. The pack is about four feet tall so the trail is easily 8 feet wide. It was this wide all the way up to the ore concentrator site except in brushy areas where it all but disappeared. The sketch spots were not too far down the trail from this spot. 

 

Unmapped Crater Mountain Pond (5009) 9/12/20

 

I wanted to get into an unmapped pond that I had missed coming out of Jerry Lakes earlier in the year while it was still fresh in my mind. I was pretty sure that I had the location figured out. The air quality was bad because of recent fires and I debated on doing the trip both because of the air quality and fire risk. The trailhead is right off Highway 20 and if some idiot flicked a burning cigarette out or there was a car crash (fairly common on Highway 20 in the summer) that started a fire, or even a car fire within a few miles of the trailhead, the fire stood a good chance of running up the hill. The lower end of the Jackita Ridge Trail crosses dry slopes for much of its distance to McMillan Park and, depending where one was if a fire got started, you wouldn’t have a chance. The fire could run up the slope much faster than a person could run, much less hike, up a steep trail. I gritted my teeth and decided to take the chance. Canyon Creek was very low like every other stream in area. It looked like I could get about halfway across without even getting my feet wet by hopping rocks. On a lark I decided to try it. The third rock in was a big one that looked really stable. It wasn’t. It shifted and I ended up ass over teakettle in Canyon Creek. I had succeeded in actually getting wetter than if I had just crossed without being a dumbass and I got a couple of extra bruises on top of it. I tried to take it as easy as possible up the trail. I stopped when my breathing started to get heavy and waited until I was breathing normally before continuing. When I got into the steep switchbacks I only went two switchbacks before stopping to rest unless there was a series of tight switchbacks. Then I would go a little more. I could feel that I was going through thermal layers in the air. It would be warm and then a little farther along the air would cool off quickly and dramatically. Sometimes I could smell smoke and my nose stung and lungs ached a bit then these sensations would be gone when I moved into a pocket where the air was a little cleaner (still really dirty but slightly better than other spots). I found the spot to cut up off the trail. Just above here there was a large ditch had been dug at some point. It was probably a couple feet wide and a couple of feet deep. The contents were thrown into a large pile downslope. Don’t know if this was an old fire line or maybe irrigation for some project. It looked like a lot of work. I ran into this ditch on my way down the hill earlier in the year. I found the remnants of a deer carcass that I had missed on the previous trip. It was just piles of hair and a few scattered bones that a bear (I assume) had crushed for the marrow. I walked right through this spot on the previous trip but didn’t remember the carcass. It was old, probably a winter kill. If the carcass had wound up there since I had gone through a little over a month earlier it would still smell pretty bad and there would be remnants of blood and sinew etc. on the bones but there wasn’t any smell and the bones were bare white. I found the unmapped lake pretty easily. It was in a pretty big flat, actually the ditch was in this same flat. I ate lunch before checking it out. It was down several feet and full of long-toed salamander larvae. I got some photos and took some notes and headed back out. I didn’t really want to linger on the hillside there. I was back out at about 5:00 p.m. I had planned to fish Canyon Creek a little bit but, once again, I was out of time. If I spent the time to really fish properly I would be getting home about dark. So I abandoned that idea and headed home and still got back after 7:00 p.m.     

The ditch or wireline that I encountered. Pack is for scale. 

Another view of the ditch. 

Looking roughly west at the unmapped pond below Crater Mountain. 

Salamander in pond. I got a rough count of about 135 salamanders which was probably significantly undercounting the number present. I believe that these were long-toed salamanders (Ambystoma macrodactylum).

Looking roughly northwest at pond. 

Looking north from outlet area. The outlet was dry. The tracks in the foreground are a sow bear and a young cub. 

Looking roughly northwest from outlet area. 

Another salamander. 

Looking east. 

Another salamander. 

Orange lichen unknown to me. I have encountered this or a similar lichen but do not know what it is. 

Another salamander. There were lots of salamanders. 

Looking roughly southeast. 

 

Deer Hunt 2020

 

I hunted a lot this year though I felt kind of ambiguous about getting one. Our freezer was pretty full. We still had about 100 pounds of meat from the last two deer I got that needed to be made into sausage and we had a beef coming. I had lots of work to catch up on and getting a deer would make even more work. Still, I like to get out a lot. Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. I always had the thought that Samhain, the Celtic precursor to our Halloween when the veil between our living world and the spirit world thinned or could be passed through was at this time of year because both worlds seem to be present, at least in the northern hemisphere. Plants are dying or becoming dormant so they aren’t producing any more food yet this is also the time of year when much of the harvest that perpetuates life throughout the winter is taken in. The twilight, when it is neither day nor night is long. In my mind at least, this all creates the feeling that both the living and spirit world are present. I had quite a memorable hunt down on my place in the last week of October a few days before Halloween. I had a little more than an hour of light after work so I hustled back from work and fed the cows before heading down to my place. I wanted to check out a part of the place that I hadn’t been to in a few years. I had spent a good bit of time in the area exploring and planting trees 15 to 25 years ago and was pretty familiar with it but hadn’t been there in a few years. I hunted without seeing anything until it was getting pretty dark. I revisited many places and communed with some ghosts from my past, a dispute with a neighbor and a deer that I had wounded and not been able to find. I was also over twenty years further along in my life since I had last spent a lot of time in this area and was that much closer to a natural demise if that is to be my fate. Since the last time I walked this ground the optimism of my younger self had been replaced by the cynicism of my older self and the weight of responsibilities and current events, Covid 19, the ugliness and politics of divided people and widespread misinformation and deceptions. My thoughts tinged dark with the growing dusk. I was about a quarter mile or so from my rig when I headed back. I was aiming for a spot where the brush would be thinner and the going easier. I had several landmarks to guide me. I crossed several river flood channels and got into some bigger trees and old-growth stumps. I knew generally where I was. I wasn’t lost but I was disoriented. I knew the general direction I needed to go but I wasn’t quite sure where the spot I wanted to go through was. It had gotten dark enough that trees were just dim shapes and they were quite a bit bigger than the last time I had been through here. This had the effect of making me feel like I was in a familiar place that wasn’t familiar any more. Everything was a little bit off, nothing was really recognizable. Usually you can hear traffic on Highway 20 from this area but traffic was pretty light this night, only a car or two. This created a pretty isolating feeling. I came to a large maple trunk that had recently fallen from a clump and crossed it. At this point, I was pretty sure where I was and I needed to head to my left, or west, a bit in order to hit the clear spot through the woods. Even though I was confident in my location, still nothing looked quite right or familiar. I continued on, using the rods on the sides of my eyes to pick out lighter objects on the ground in the dark so I wouldn’t trip as often, an old trick I had learned when I was a kid, useful for seeing, though not sharply, in low light conditions. At this point I had given up any pretense at hunting and trying to be quiet. I wasn’t panicked I was just trying to get back as quickly and efficiently as possible before it got completely dark. Suddenly a deer jumped up, maybe ten feet in front of me. It was too dark to tell if it was a buck or a doe. All I saw was a vague bulk in the dark as it crashed off. I had to have been making as much noise as a herd of elephants yet this deer had almost let me walk up to it. This was almost unheard of in my experience in this area. The deer at my place are usually quite skittish. The deer that I encountered this night had been bedded down beneath a cottonwood that I had planted in 1996 in an effort to shade out a large Himalaya blackberry patch (which was successful I might add). This cottonwood had been a stake about as big around as my thumb when I had planted it and it was now about 18 inches through. I knew exactly where I was now and everything was clear. From that point I was able to navigate back to my rig fairly easily though I got slightly off course at several points because it was so dark. The experience this night was quite moving. Though I made statements earlier about living and supernatural worlds, I am pretty skeptical about such things. Still, if I was prone to more superstitious beliefs, my experience that night certainly had an otherworldly feel. It was as if I had wandered through a veil into a spirit world where everything was a dark mirror of the real world and jumping the deer had broken the spell and brought me back from beyond. Almost walking on top of the deer even though I was making a lot of noise added to the strangeness of it, like the deer didn’t sense me because I was in another world until I stepped back into this one, almost on top of it. So I can understand why some people might find such experiences very spiritually significant. Whatever happened, when I got home that night, I yammered on, excited, to Sacha about it for at least half an hour.