Within One Watershed:

Essays from Hackleman Creek 

Part 3

The Lake

Winter

Wet snow sticks to our snowshoes like clumps of mashed potatoes as my friend and I make our way south toward Fish Lake, the final destination for the waters of Hackleman Creek. Three days of February rain have saturated the snow, slowing our pace to a determined plod. Every few minutes I stop and bang my ski poles against the sides of my snowshoes to release the clinging white lumps; the clanging sound reverberates through the dripping forest. If today’s clear skies hold overnight, the temperature will drop and the snow will re-freeze, creating what many Northwest snow-lovers call Cascade concrete. For now, though, the surface is soft and sticky underfoot.

These rain-on-snow events are common in the Cascade Mountains thanks to the Pacific Ocean. Maritime mountains like the Cascades owe their snowpack to storms rolling in off the ocean. But the precipitation sent by the sea can be a mixed blessing, alternately falling as snow and rain as ocean-moderated temperatures fluctuate frequently.

Slowly moving farther into the forest, we spot the familiar pattern of snowshoe hare tracks. Our noisy approach probably startled the hare as it foraged on conifer twigs and needles. The hare’s front feet left two small tracks, one slightly ahead of the other, while the hind feet left two larger tracks, side by side, in a position ahead of the front tracks. As a snowshoe hare bounds across the snow, its front feet land first and then lift off while the larger hind feet swing forward to land ahead of the spot where the front feet touched the snow; the result is the instantly recognizable triangular pattern. The tracks cross our route and disappear into a thicket of young trees.

A snowshoe hare can spread the toes on its hind feet up to four inches wide, making them like furry snowshoes that keep it atop the snow, much like our aluminum and plastic snowshoes keep us on the surface. While snowshoes allow winter recreation for humans, they can mean the difference between life and death for a hare. This adaptation enables it to flee pursuing predators like coyotes or bobcats, who sink into the snow. Once the hare finds cover, its snow-colored fur blends in with the surroundings, rendering it nearly invisible. Come summer, tannish-brown fur replaces its winter white coat.

Deeper in the forest, we stop to soak in the stillness. Thousands of water droplets sparkle on the trees. I focus on a single liquid pendant clinging to a Douglas-fir needle; it’s in no hurry to meet the ground. As I watch the drop finally give in to gravity and fall to the snow, I think about how it got here.

Its freefall from a mid-level cloud took no more than four minutes. Before that it may have spent years sloshing around in the sea. Maybe it passed through the gaping mouth of a basking shark or rinsed the salty rim of an orca’s blowhole. Solar heating lifted it into the atmosphere where it condensed into a cloud; warm ocean wind pushed the freighted cloud, along with others, a hundred miles east to the windward slope of the Cascades, turning raindrops loose to drench this forest. Tonight, it will likely become an ice crystal consolidated in the snowpack. Later, spring’s warmth will send it on a short trip to Fish Lake in snowmelt currents. There, it may trickle through porous volcanic soil to enter the neighboring Clear Lake basin via underground passage or evaporate from the lake in summer’s heat. This one raindrop is on an eternal journey in the endless cycle of all water on this wet planet.

Moving on, we hear a pair of honking Canada Geese flying above the trees, signaling our proximity to the lake, which drains annually to lie as a meadow for part of the year. Will it be a full lake now or a snow-covered clearing? In a few hundred yards, we have our answer.

Descending an easy slope, we pass through an opening in an old split-rail fence left over from cattle grazing days; ahead lies the lakebed covered neither with water nor snow. Instead, a slow stream winds silently through an expanse of brown grass and dried sedges. In spots, the water spills over the streambanks to form shallow ponds before returning to its narrow course. Foot-wide holes in the dry parts of the lakebed reveal the faint gurgle of water flowing underground. On the lake’s south side, slushy water stretches to meet the shore where a thin layer of snow covers the ground. Not cold enough to freeze solid or hold a deep mantle of snow, not warm enough to fill to full pool, the lakebed lies in an in-between state, waiting.

Tall cottonwoods stand in quiescence along the north shore; their branches point to the sky like naked fingers, having dropped their heart-shaped leaves last autumn to prevent damage from foliar frostbite. They, too, are waiting. Deep beneath their furrowed bark, a complex process moves water from inside living cells to the tiny spaces surrounding them. Concentrated sugars fill the cells to act as antifreeze during this time of dormancy. For this part-time lake and its bordering cottonwood trees, life has been put on hold for now. In a few short months, spring will return - and so will I.