Within One Watershed:

Essays from Hackleman Creek

Part 2

The Valley

Wetland Secrets 

The creek murmurs softly a hundred yards in the distance. Shafts of gentle morning light angle down through the tree canopy to bathe the forest floor in a cathedral glow. With no particular destination in mind, I walk the woods without benefit or need of a trail. Wandering westward through the middle portion of the Hackleman Valley, I am greeted by a loud chorus of rib-it, rib-it, rib-it: the familiar song of Pacific tree frogs.

The two-inch males are advertising their desirability to the slightly larger females, who remain quiet. To make his amorous call, each male frog shuts his nostrils and inflates his throat sacs, amplifying the sound of air rushing over his vocal cords. When a female hears a call to her liking, she follows the sound until she finds her chosen mate waiting in shallow water.

I’m drawn to the sounds, too, and soon find myself approaching an opening beyond the trees where they seem to resonate most loudly - but when I step out from the woods at the fringes of a wide wetland, the frog chorus stops immediately; apparently the males have sensed my intrusion.

A heavy sweet musk hangs in the air: the scent of skunk cabbage. The flowers, each a club-shaped stalk cloaked by a bright yellow hood, dot the saturated ground. Huge waxy leaves, each two feet long and a foot wide, look like something a stegosaurus would have relished millions of years ago. The scent these plants release mimics the smell of rotting meat to attract pollinating flies and beetles. Carefully picking my way from one dry spot to the next along the spongy ground, I nearly step in an enormous pile of coal-black bear scat filled with green chunks: partially digested skunk cabbage.

Beetles and flies aren’t the only ones attracted to the fetid aroma of this plant; black bears seek it out for its laxative properties after they awaken from hibernation. The last thing a bear ingests before denning up for winter is a combination of hair, dirt and conifer needles; this clump forms a fecal plug in the bear’s intestine. The bear will not defecate or urinate during hibernation, but when it wakes up in spring, it needs to unplug itself before it can begin feeding on fresh spring grasses and forbs. A large helping of skunk cabbage does the trick.

My next step sends a tiny Pacific tree frog leaping out of the way. After a minute of artful frog hunting, I have it in my hand. Its dark throat tells me he’s a male. He sports the black eye stripe typical of his species and his skin color is a gorgeous mix of bright spring green and coppery brown. This pattern may only be temporary, as these frogs have the ability to change their body colors in response to environmental conditions. Tomorrow he could be completely brown or green or an entirely new palette of earthy tones. I gently put him back and push deeper into the marsh.

 Parting a snarl of willow branches with my hands, I get a view across an open expanse of still water; then I notice it: a ridge of sticks and mud about three feet high stretches at least 100 yards along the edge of the flooded clearing, impounding the water. This pond is the work of beavers! Grasses, forbs and willows growing on the dam indicate that it’s been here for many years, harboring multiple generations of the aquatic mammals.

I slosh back to dry ground and walk along the bank to reach one end of the dam. Cut branches mantled with a criss-crossing of smaller sticks protrude from the mud. Gnawed tips point skyward; rocks and gobs of gooey vegetation plug the weak spots, making the dam nearly watertight.  In damming this tributary of Hackleman Creek, the beavers have engineered a deep-water haven for themselves and created a biologically rich wetland habitat that benefits multiple species.

As water pools in the pond, it gradually soaks into the soil, where it cools down and flows underground below the dam into Hackleman Creek, chilling the water downstream. The dam traps and holds sediments, creating clear water and clean gravel beds necessary for aquatic insect larvae and spawning fish downstream. Water impounded behind the dam inundates and kills trees, creating nesting sites for ducks, woodpeckers and other cavity-dwelling birds. Willows felled by hungry beavers re-sprout even bushier the following spring, providing excellent cover for songbirds. The pond’s rich insect life feeds fish, which in turn sustain Belted Kingfishers, Great Blue Herons, Bald Eagles and other piscivores. Occasional breaks in the dam offer fattened fish a chance to escape and join their kin in the main stem of the creek. Pond plants absorb phosphorus and nitrogen carried in runoff, slowly releasing the vital nutrients into the watershed over time.

Pondering the gifts that beavers bestow upon a watershed, I amble close to the water’s edge. Several sticks, stripped bare of their bark to expose the sweet cambium layer that makes up the bulk of the beaver diet, rest below the glassy surface: the remains of a recent meal. Looking closer, I see an underwater opening leading into the bank below me. Further investigation reveals countless sticks, gnawed on both ends, plastered with mud over a gap between exposed tree roots under my feet. Lost in thought, I’ve unknowingly wandered onto the roof of the beavers’ house. Instead of building the classic mounded beaver lodge in the middle of the pond, these animals have burrowed into the bank beneath the interlacing root system of an old tree to create a predator-proof home. Within its dark interior, adults tend to their infants with help from the kits born last year. The two-year-old kits left the family to strike out on their own when this spring’s newborns arrived. I quickly step away from the beavers’ home, hoping I haven’t disturbed any of the residents.

Afternoon shadows grow long, signaling the time to head back. I leave the pond and its skunk-cabbage perfume. My departure prompts the all-male frog choir to resume its performance. As I retreat deeper into the forest, the ardent sounds soon fade, replaced by the creek’s soft singing. I head for the car, thankful for the revealing of more Hackleman secrets and another day to witness the workings of this watershed.

Within One Watershed:

Essays from Hackleman Creek

Part 2

The Valley 

Snowmelt

The gushing song of gathering snowmelt reverberates through the valley. Rushing streams surge down to swell Hackleman Creek as the snowpack gradually morphs from solid to liquid. Liberated from the weight of its winter burden, the forest floor releases the first growth of spring; fern fronds unfurl from tightly coiled fiddleheads and early wildflowers burst into bloom. My trail, softened by a cushion of conifer needles, leads me to a bridge over the creek. Mid-span I close my eyes and stand motionless, listening to moving water.

A dozen gleaming western trilliums greet me on the other side. These familiar three-leaved plants are slow bloomers, taking many years to produce flowers. The multi-stage process begins when a trillium seed germinates; the first summer it produces one tiny slender leaf-like growth that barely rises above the ground. The following spring an oval-shaped leaf no bigger than a thumbnail replaces its predecessor. After a year or two in the one-leaf stage, a whorl of three leaves emerges, but no flower develops. It remains flowerless through the next growing season until, finally, the plant is mature enough to produce a solitary flower above its leaves: a trio of white petals surrounds a cluster of six golden pollen-producing structures, called anthers. Two to three weeks later, the aging white petals turn deep rose, then drop to the ground.

Carefully stepping among the blossoms, I scan the forest floor for other wildflowers and find a treasure: the western fairy slipper, also known as Calypso orchid. Five slim magenta petals splay outward from atop a purple stem only two inches high. A white slipper-shaped pouch, speckled with pink dots, hangs below the petals. The interior of the slipper is dark red with thin white stripes. Tiny white hairs line the lip of the slipper’s opening.  

This little nymph never fails to take my breath away; on hands and knees I sniff the delicate scent of vanilla and study its intricate details. The small orchid is equipped with all the cues – bright colors, nectar guides, enticing scent – to attract insects to sample its sugary liquid, but it’s all an elaborate ruse to trick inexperienced pollinators. The fairy slipper actually has no nectar at all. When a naïve insect visits this orchid, it crawls all over the blossom searching for the sweet reward. Finding none, it will fly on to the next fairy slipper and search in vain for nectar. It might visit a third and fourth blossom before finally wising up to the deception, but by that time pollination has occurred and the fairy slippers have accomplished their mission.

Once the fairy slipper has produced seeds, it relies on another organism, a fungus, to help the seeds germinate and grow. Orchid seeds are the smallest of all flowering plants; each one is the size of a speck of dust. A seed this tiny has no room for stored food to sustain the developing plant. When an orchid seed hits the ground, it only has enough energy to send out a single miniscule root. If a compatible fungus exists in the soil, the fungus will connect its root-like filaments to the fairy slipper’s root to provide carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous and water to the embryonic orchid. Later, when the fairy slipper has grown strong, it will return the favor to the patient fungus by giving it carbohydrates produced by photosynthesis in its single leaf.

Back on my feet, I climb a slight rise. Over the next half mile, I find several piles of dark coyote scat deliberately placed at regular intervals in the middle of the wide path. The droppings are scent markers proclaiming a boundary between territories. Coyotes, like all canines, have anal scent glands that release chemicals indicating the identity, status and physical condition of an individual. Apparently, I’m following a well-traveled coyote highway this morning.

Soon I encounter another territorial proclamation: the sweet pensive song of a male Hermit Thrush staking his nesting claim. A single piping note precedes a fluty warble. His melody tells other males to stay away while simultaneously announcing his availability to prospective mates. His ethereal song fades into the forest as I hike on.

Heart Creek drops in frothy whitewater steps to flow beneath another bridge. After crossing it, I pass the lacy cascades of a tiny unnamed stream and stop to dip my hand in its flow; my fingers tingle with cold. The trail continues uphill and brings me to un-melted snow. At first, it’s only a few inches thick but, as I continue, it deepens to almost two feet. I walk over its still-crusted top; later today it will soften with warmth. Fallen conifer needles curl in green crescents on the old snow, defining melt patterns on its surface.

Snowpack melts from the top down as the upper layer absorbs daytime heat. Snow crystals change to water drops, which flow over the surface and percolate down to underlying soil. Absorbing water like a sponge, the soil releases liquid in an underground flow. Freezing temperatures stop the melting each night, but water continues to flow beneath the ground. Warmer spring temperatures eventually cause constant melting, both day and night. The ground becomes completely saturated and surface flow begins. Spring rain adds more water to the runoff and streams rise to deliver the increased volume down the valley.

My boot plunges through a weak spot in the snow, and I post-hole nearly to my knee. Struggling to extricate my foot, I notice that the snow around me is pink. Called watermelon snow, it’s colored by algae that thrive at low temperatures. The red pigment absorbs heat, which provides the short-lived algae with a small amount of meltwater for growth. These strange one-celled plants form the foundation of a little-known snowpack food chain. Snowfleas, tiny cold-loving invertebrates that aren’t really fleas at all, come up through the snow layers looking for food; watermelon snow makes a perfect meal. The snow fleas are eaten by early spring insects, which are, in turn, eaten by migratory birds. I look all over for the speck-sized snowfleas, but have no luck.

When a clearing appears on my right, I walk to its center; bright sunshine has softened the top layer of snow so much that it’s like slogging through a milkshake. Looking to the north above the surrounding trees, I see the open slope of Echo Mountain, already melted out thanks to its south-facing exposure. A small group of elk crosses the steep meadow, looking like a herd of Jersey cows grazing in a vertical pasture. As I lift my binoculars to watch them lower their heads to feed on lush greenery, I think about the melting snow beneath my feet.

Snowpack is the savings account that holds precipitation in solid form and then gradually releases it each spring to hydrate everything downstream. When winter snowfall is light, water savings dwindle and the watershed operates in a deficit the following summer. Every living thing I’ve chanced upon today depends on a plentiful snowpack for survival. What does a future impacted by climate change hold for them? Will the gushing song of gathering snowmelt still reverberate through this valley? I fervently hope so.

 

 

Within One Watershed:

Essays from Hackleman Creek

Part 1

The Uplands

A Sense of Urgency

Fire fills my thoughts this morning. A watercolor wash of radiant blue paints the smokeless sky thanks to favorable winds, but the charcoaled smell of a burned forest fills my nostrils, an invisible reminder of a wildfire eighty miles away in the southern Oregon Cascades.

A long-forgotten two-track lane, barely discernable under the encroaching bushes, leads me toward the east end of Browder Ridge and another day of high-country rambling. I inhale unseen particles of Douglas-fir, huckleberry, vine maple, sword fern, brush rabbit, fawn lily, raven, moss, black bear, lichen: all that’s been incinerated in the blaze. My head understands that fire can be a beneficial part of a forest ecosystem; it clears the woods of built-up fuels, reducing the intensity of future fires. My heart feels something much different: fear at the very idea of flames burning even a small part of my watershed, a beloved landscape with which I identify strongly. I feel compelled to explore every corner of the Hackleman before a future fire brings great change.

Hiking west toward the base of the ridge, I startle a couple of black-tailed deer. The doe bounds up a hill to my right, dark tail held erect in the universal alarm signal. Her still-spotted fawn bolts out of the shrubs directly in front of me and follows its mother. The doe’s single offspring suggests that she is a first-time mother. Female black-tails typically give birth to one baby during their first pregnancy, then have twins with each succeeding birth. Nature gives the mother a break when she’s new to the business of raising young. Both doe and fawn stop to look back at me with limpid brown eyes, then slip away into the forest.

Vegetation grows completely across my faint route; I recognize the shiny oval leaves and white flower clusters of a species of “California Lilac,” or Ceanothus, native to this area. This shrub is the first to grow in an area disturbed by logging, road building or fire. Its seeds, covered by a hard coating, need to be cracked in order to germinate. Heavy equipment scraping the earth did the trick here several years ago, but the heat of a wildfire is the most effective way to open the seeds. When ripe, three-lobed capsules eject seeds into the surrounding soil where they can lie dormant for up to 200 years, waiting for flames to trigger germination. Once germinated, the plants grow rapidly in open sun, creating the first layer of post-fire life. Later, trees will overtop the Ceanothus, making too much shade for the shrubs; they gradually die out, having done their job of colonizing the singed landscape after a fire.

I struggle through the Ceanothus thicket and once again find traces of the narrow road. In a few steps the forest’s silence is shattered by an explosion of feathers and flapping at my feet. I’ve flushed a chicken-like Sooty Grouse from the undergrowth. I watch as the brown hen flies low between the trees and disappears. Two steps later her nearly-grown chick erupts out of the bushes beside me. The Sooty Grouse depends on camouflage for protection. It will freeze on the spot when danger approaches and rely on its cryptic plumage to blend into the surroundings. If a predator or an unsuspecting hiker comes too close, as I have, the grouse will explode into flight.

These birds may have been eating berries or swallowing grit from the ground to help with digestion. They will separate as the youngster becomes independent with the onset of cold weather. While other mountain creatures hibernate or migrate in winter, the Sooty Grouse toughs it out by roosting alone on snow-covered branches and eating conifer needles.

It’s time to climb. Leaving the relative flatness of the nearly-vanished road, I ascend an extremely steep tree-covered slope. Navigation is easy in this trail-free terrain: I keep a recently dried seasonal creek on my right and simply go up. The forest around me is a mixed stand of noble fir, western hemlock and Pacific silver fir. Stiff curved needles cover the blue-green nobles, growing upward from twigs and branches like the bristles on a hairbrush. The lower portions of the trees’ columnar trunks rise completely free of branches; near the treetops, cones stand erect like fat green candles. The hemlocks have delicate short needles and droopy branches; their olive-sized brown cones generously sprinkle the ground. Pacific silver fir needles shine dark green on top and silvery below; they grow horizontally from each side of the twig and point forward like ski jumpers along its top.

Struggling to catch my breath, I gaze at this diverse forest assemblage, my mind still preoccupied with fire. The variety of trees here tells the story of recovery after a burn. Sun-loving noble firs were the first to appear on this steep slope after the last fire, perhaps 100 years ago. They grew in tight masses, each limbed all the way to the ground. After a few years, the stand thinned itself, the tallest nobles outcompeting their shorter kin for sunlight. As the forest canopy closed, it shaded the lower limbs; they died out and dropped, creating tall branch-free boles. Decades passed as shade-loving western hemlocks and Pacific silver firs established themselves under the noble firs. Eventually most of the tallest nobles aged out and died, leaving only a few of their species towering above the canopy. As time goes on, the Pacific silver firs will outgrow the western hemlocks and replace them as the major component of this forest, perpetuating themselves in a state of relative stability. One tree species makes room for the next in a succession of growth stages until the next fire burns through the forest, resetting the entire process back to the beginning.

Pushing on, I climb over several old logs. A moth with a wingspan of at least four inches drops to the ground at my feet: it’s a pandora pinemoth. Not found in great numbers here in the old Cascades, it’s common on the east side of the mountains where it periodically defoliates large swaths of pine forest. Black and yellow bands stripe its thick furry body; brown-and-black forewings partially cover its gray-and-pink hind wings. The bright-yellow feathery antennae indicate that it’s a male. Females have small lightly-fuzzed antennae. The large size and feathering of the males’ scent-detecting headgear create a greater surface area for an increased number of smell receptors, enabling them to single out pheromones emitted by females miles away. Apparently, this moth located a female and mated, then fell to the ground in the throes of death, his mission accomplished. The female will die after she lays eggs. I move him to the base of a tree and climb on.

After gaining 1000 feet of elevation in a half mile, I break free from the forest and see the bare ridge above me. Climbing through a rock garden of purple larkspurs, white buckwheat and lavender phlox, I zigzag back and forth to avoid stepping on any of these plants, each of which has worked very hard to produce blossoms in this harsh environment.

Twenty yards of scrambling up a sun-warmed patch of gritty soil finally brings me to the top. Angular lava fragments welded together by an ancient volcano’s heat make up the bedrock along the narrow crest. Eroded remnants of volcanic vents point skyward like gnarled fingers, framing the velvety meadow-draped northern peaks across the Hackleman Valley. I sit on a knuckle of one of the fingers and wait for my heart rate to return to normal after my taxing climb. Immediately below me, forested slopes plunge to the valley floor. To the west, Iron Mountain pushes its enormous wedge shape above the horizon. A thin avalanche chute lacerates the face of Echo Mountain.

Side-hilling below the jagged crest, I head north along the short side of the L-shaped ridgetop and reach its end. This perch allows me to see the entire stretch of the long side of the L, which is the main part of Browder Ridge. Near the point where the sides meet, a glacial cirque cups Heart Lake in an elevated bowl. I see a thin crescent of the water’s dark surface; the rest of the lake is hidden by a jutting shoulder slope. This hanging valley is the only part of the Hackleman high country that I haven’t seen until now. My collection of upland explorations complete, my thoughts turn again to fire.

Closing my eyes, I imagine what this watershed would look like if it were burned. The grim monochromatic scene in my mind’s eye includes blackened snags, scorched earth, eroding hillsides and a sediment-choked Hackleman Creek. Whether it happens as a patchwork of smaller blazes or a huge conflagration escalated by climate change, fire will one day come here. But nature heals itself, and the forest will return over time. Recovery wouldn’t happen in my lifetime, though, so my desire to know the living landscape of this little watershed in its current state feels urgent and intense.  

Next time: We leave the uplands and explore the valley.

Within One Watershed:

Essays From Hackleman Creek

Part 1

The Uplands

Meadow Communities

A trio of mountains flanks the north side of the Hackleman Valley: Cone Peak, South Peak and Echo Mountain. Neither stiletto point nor raw massif, each gently contoured summit rises in pastoral softness. Aligned west to east, the mountains stand shoulder to shoulder; a vast meadow drapes over their south-facing slopes like a swath of crushed velvet.

I stand alone at the foot of the meadow, having spent the last hour bushwhacking through a thick forest of Douglas-firs and snarled vine maples. Iron Mountain, the eroded remnant of a once-huge volcano formed six million years ago, looms at the western end of the valley. A narrow rock spire stands just left of the main body of the peak; together they look like the thumb and fist of a mittened hand thrusting out of the earth. A much-loved trail encircles Iron Mountain and climbs to its summit. Even at this early hour, it will be crawling with people: botanists, photographers and hikers, all eager to see the spectacular June wildflower show. Many will post selfies on social media, attracting even more visitors. I prefer the challenge and solitude of off-trail travel.

Above me a patchwork of meadow communities covers the open slopes, each with a unique assemblage of wildflowers, depending on moisture and soil type. Leaving the shadows, I step into the sunlight and skirt a rocky seep formed where solid rock lies beneath soil. Underground water from snowmelt flows above the bedrock and up to the surface before eventually drying out later in summer. 

Dozens of monkeyflowers look up at me from the wet ground. The color of egg yolks, their lip-like petals open to the sun; orange dots act as pointers directing hungry bumblebees to nectar deep within each blossom. Just above them, slim-leaf onions offer delicate clusters of star-shaped lavender flowers; a nose-to-ground investigation reveals their spicy aroma. Still higher, clumps of fool’s onion sway in the breeze like floral metronomes. Looking closely at an individual flower, I see six white petals, each with a dark green mid-rib, joined at the base to form an up-turned bell. Every plant in this soggy community will bloom, attract pollinators and produce seeds before the seasonally saturated soil dries out later in the summer. 

A few yards above the seep the ground changes abruptly: my boots scrape over the gritty surface of coarse particles. Called a xeric meadow, this porous ground loses its moisture immediately after snowmelt yet manages to foster a vibrant community of hardy flowers. Spikes of bright owl clover punctuate the transition zone between wet and dry with magenta exclamation points. A broad brushstroke of gold washes the slope above with miniature sunflowers called Oregon sunshine. Soft hairs fuzz their leaves in a dusty gray pubescence. The hairs help to conserve water by reflecting sunlight and reducing the effects of drying winds. 

Hiking on, I spot a black-tailed deer nibbling on trumpet-shaped scarlet gilia, another wildflower that prospers in xeric meadows. The young doe slowly turns her large ears to catch my sound, then cranes her neck to get a better look at me. I take another step; she snorts and bounds through the bushes and out of sight. Approaching the spot where she stood, I find severed shoots and fallen red petals scattered on the ground.

Deer can’t resist scarlet gilia and will munch it down to a nubbin. Although this much damage would kill most plants, the gilia has a unique defense. Instead of protecting itself with thorns or toxic compounds, it simply grows more flower stalks than it had before it was eaten. Grazing deer improve the plant’s reproduction rate. When very little grazing occurs, it will produce fewer flowers resulting in fewer seeds. The two species have evolved together so both can thrive.

Carefully winding my way through the blossoms, I climb a short distance to another plant community: a mesic (moist) meadow spreading across a broad terrace the length of two football fields. The flat terrain holds fine dirt particles and organic matter – the kind of soil that retains moisture; plants grow lush and tall here. Not wanting to crush any vegetation, I trace the edge of this huge mountain shelf.

Alpine knotweeds stand four feet high; loose floral clusters holding dozens of white blossoms bend with their own weight above long lance-shaped leaves. Bumblebees rumble from one flower to the next as tiny black beetles cling to round petals. Red and yellow columbine flowers hang like fairy lanterns among the dense growth, their nectar-filled spurs pointing straight up in anticipation of a hummingbird’s visit. Here and there the strange blossoms of coneflowers rise above the tangle, their bare heads resembling petal-plucked daisies.

Reaching the terrace’s east end, I glance upslope to a scene that stops me in my tracks: as far as I can see, the mountainside blushes brilliant red with thousands of scarlet gilia blooms. Immediately changing course, I aim for a rock formation a hundred yards above me, jutting like a ship’s prow into the morning sky. As I climb, the softly focused blur of red sharpens into crisp definition; individual scarlet gilia stems with multiple blossoms come into view. Five fused petals flare out into pointed lobes on each tubular flower.

Scrambling onto the rock outcrop, I find a flat surface for a seat and settle in for a long gaze; then I hear them – dozens of Rufous Hummingbirds zooming back and forth. Wings humming, they scold each other with warning chips and trills; midair skirmishes erupt all around. In between battles, each feisty little bird hovers in front of a scarlet gilia and inserts its thin beak into the elongated flower to sip nectar. Just three inches tall, males are the color of shiny copper, females a subdued green with copper shading. Two feet from my boot, a female methodically works her way up a stem, hovering at every one of the sixteen nectar-rich blossoms. Each time she pulls her beak out from a flower she actually flies backwards, something no other bird species can do. Exceptionally flexible shoulder joints and enlarged chest muscles enable this unique maneuvering.

After nearly twenty minutes of hummingbird-watching, I swivel on my rock to look at Echo Mountain. A thin ribbon of water slides down the crease between it and South Peak; grasses, sedges and herbaceous plants cover its slopes. Near Echo Mountain’s summit at 5600 feet, sprawling circular mats of dwarf juniper look from a distance like subalpine putting greens. Halfway down the mountain an elk trail, worn deep by the hooves of many generations, bisects the steep meadow. Elk favor open slopes like this for grazing; here, a 600-pound adult could easily consume ten to twelve pounds of succulent forage in a day.

An elk herd’s day starts with grazing at dawn; each animal fills the first chamber of its four-part stomach with food. Once all the members of the herd have eaten their fill for the morning, the group travels the well-trodden path to settle into daybeds on a cooler north-facing slope. While resting they regurgitate cud, chew and swallow again. The masticated food passes through the stomach’s other three chambers as each elk dozes periodically through the warmest part of the day. Come dusk, the herd heads for the open slope to feed again and then beds down for the night in a secluded spot under cover of vegetation.  

Sitting on this high perch I ponder the biological diversity I’ve seen today. Although not as large as the forest surrounding it, the meadowed landscape I’ve explored adds rich strands to the assemblage of communities that, woven together, make up the complex fabric of this watershed. 

Within One Watershed:

Essays From Hackleman Creek

Part 1

The Uplands

Echo Basin: In the Footprint of a Glacier

The shady trail climbs steeply at the start, leading me over rough, rocky ground. The rocks, some as large as watermelons, were once embedded in a glacier that pushed its way down this small valley about 15,000 years ago. As the ice age came to a close and the climate gradually warmed, the glacier retreated up into its box canyon and disappeared altogether, disgorging this rubble as it withdrew.

I stop to study the surrounding forest. Fir trees planted after a timber harvest thirty-five years ago stand straight and tall, shading Echo Creek as it tumbles over small riffles on its way southeast to join Hackleman Creek. A length of rusty cable lines the trail. Left over from logging days, it is composed of thin wires twisted into strands which are in turn bundled together to form a strong wire rope an inch and a half thick. In addition to chainsaws, the long-abandoned cable was one of the most crucial tools at this logging site.

The harvesting work began when fallers cut down trees, de-limbed them and bucked them into transportable logs. Then choker-setters wrapped a cable noose around each log and attached it to the thicker main cable, the remains of which I now hold in my hand. A radio-triggered whistle gave the yarder the go-ahead to mechanically drag the cable and attached logs to a landing site, where a chaser unhooked and readied them to be loaded onto trucks bound for a local sawmill. Running my fingers over the old cable, I imagine the growl of chainsaws, the smell of diesel and the roar of industrial machinery that once filled the air. This morning, the regenerating forest stands silent and soft with new growth.

Hiking on, I leave the plantation and enter an old-growth forest of mixed conifers. A lush layer of shade-loving plants spreads across the forest floor. Shiny heart-shaped leaves crowd each side of the trail. Kneeling down, I gently push aside the leaves until I find the deep brown blossom of the western wild ginger. The flower has three lobes, each tapering to a thread-thin point. Hidden under the leaves, the blooms go almost completely unnoticed by insects; they are scentless and harbor no enticing nectar. In fact, this species of wild ginger is only receptive to insect pollination for about six days. After that brief window of opportunity, each flower’s pollen-bearing stamens straighten up to join the pollen-receiving stigmas and the plant pollinates itself.

Once its flowers produce seeds, the western wild ginger enlists the aid of local ants to disperse them. Each seed has an oily sweet jacket, which ants find irresistible. The ants carry the seeds to their nests, where they eat the sweet substance and then discard the naked seeds in the nest chambers or nearby, where they may germinate.

The trail brings me to a narrow footbridge over Echo Creek. Crossing its wooden planks, I spot enormous devil’s club plants growing on the opposite bank. A lover of cool temperatures, deep shade and wet soil, devil’s club can grow to be nine feet tall. I examine the huge maple-like leaves without touching them; large, sharply barbed spines grow on nearly every exposed surface. Only the plant’s bright red berries, which will develop later in summer, are spine free.

Arriving at a meadow bursting with knee-high bracken ferns, I get a glimpse of the valley’s headwall and then spot something much closer. Twenty-five yards away, a young black bear wades through the lacy fronds and stops. Ears pricked and nostrils flared, it looks my way. About the size of a Labrador retriever, it’s probably a yearling female. The mature sow who lives in this valley has raised at least two sets of cubs here. She will allow her young daughter to establish a territory partially overlapping her own, while her sons will travel miles from their natal grounds to claim their territories. This youngster’s muzzle is cocoa-brown and the sleek black fur on her head is slicked down; she looks like a diver who just climbed out of a swimming pool. Perhaps she took an early dip in the small lake just over the ridge in the neighboring watershed.

Black bears have keen memories about food; this bear may be revisiting some of the feeding spots her mother showed her last summer. It’s possible she has spent the morning on the high slopes above the valley digging up the roots of Hall’s lomatium, a plant with delicate yellow flowers and parsley-like leaves. She may be on her way to raid an ant nest for nutritious larvae --unknowingly ingesting wild ginger seeds, too. She could be checking on the ripeness of the devil’s club berries, always prized by black bears. She’ll spread the seeds of numerous plants in her scat, or droppings, as she forages across this valley. New plants will sprout one day to feed her and her future offspring in a food web that connects wild ginger, ant, devil’s club and black bear. She and I make eye contact; instantly she pivots and sprints into the bushes, crashing loudly through the vegetation. I wait several minutes and then continue up the trail in the opposite direction.

Climbing a small rise, I find myself in the presence of giants: several mammoth Alaska yellow cedars surround the trail, each easily six or seven feet in diameter. My hiking poles look like toothpicks leaning against one gigantic trunk. I slowly circle the buttressed base of each tree, touching the shaggy gray bark as I go. Peeling back a strip, I inhale the starchy aroma of the inner bark; it smells like raw potatoes. Blue-green scaly needles hang from droopy branches above my head. A little farther on, two cedars are joined at the base, each trunk at least eight feet wide. The Pleistocene glacier that carved this bowl-shaped valley created a basin where cool air pools, fostering a moist, chilly habitat perfect for Alaska yellow cedars; these ancients, growing at the southernmost end of their range, have thrived here for at least six centuries. Leaning into one of the huge twins, I ponder the brevity of my own time on this planet. Shafts of soft light angle down through the canopy to bathe the forest floor in a cathedral glow.

The trail pulls me onward. After a quarter mile, it leaves the shadowy forest to enter a meadowed amphitheater, the abrupt change akin to stepping from a dark lodge onto a bright balcony. High rocky walls encircle the sunlit meadow on three sides. Spring-fed streamlets gurgle under boardwalks built to keep boots from damaging delicate plants. Bright wildflowers called Jeffrey’s shooting stars punctuate the meadow like neon-pink exclamation points. Each rocket-like blossom has five magenta petals streaming straight back from a yellow tube with a purplish-black tip. Favored by bumblebees, each flower’s downward facing tip will point up once these pollinating insects do their job and the seed capsule begins to form.

Looking beyond the shooting stars, I notice another group of bright pink blooms. Known as elephant’s head, this flower has erect stems topped with clusters of miniature flowers that do look exactly like the heads of tiny elephants. Each individual blossom sports a curving spur that forms the elephant’s trunk flanked by two lateral petals resembling pachyderm ears.

Stopping to take a photo, I hear the rapid buzz of a bumblebee procuring protein-rich pollen from one of the flowers. Its whining buzz has a much higher pitch than that of flight. In a process called buzz pollination, a hungry bumblebee lands on a blossom and holds on tight. As the bee clings to the flower, it moves its wing muscles rapidly, causing the flower to vibrate. The vibration shakes loose a puff of pollen, which sticks to the insect’s hairy body. After the bumblebee releases the flower, it uses its front legs to brush its haul into basket-like structures on its back legs. Not being very tidy, the bee can never manage to scrape all the pollen into its baskets. Flying on, it will unknowingly transfer the leftover pollen from its back to the next flower it visits. If that flower is the same species as the one it just left, pollination occurs and seeds will eventually form. Elephant’s head and Jeffrey’s shooting star both rely on the bumblebee’s buzz pollination for reproduction.

As I sit on the edge of a boardwalk encircled by wildflowers, a rock suddenly dislodges from an outcrop on the steep slope above. It tumbles from its high perch, reminding me that I’m sitting in the footprint of a long-vanished glacier. Fifteen thousand years ago, thick ice covered this idyllic spot. Hundreds of feet below the top layer of this frozen mass, the enormous weight of slow-moving ice scoured and quarried the bedrock into a cirque open on the downhill side. The ice, studded with rocks plucked from the steep walls that held it, deepened the bowl’s concave floor and then slowly flowed out of its circular basin to move downslope. A warming climate eventually halted the glacier’s advance, causing its retreat and ultimate disappearance. Although the glacier is gone, this sculpted valley with its varied collection of wildflowers, insects, trees and animals testifies to its immense power and ongoing legacy.  

 

 

Within One Watershed:

Essays From Hackleman Creek

Part 1

The Uplands

Witnessing A Reclamation

Rocks and ruts slow my progress as I drive up the twisting road. Going as far as I dare without high-centering the car, I pull over, come to a stop and continue on foot. I’m at 4,100 feet on the northern side of the Hackleman Valley. Feeble rays of sunlight manage to penetrate November clouds; the season’s first serious snow will arrive any day.

Built for hauling harvested timber, this primitive road has been free of log trucks for forty years. It cuts an ever-narrowing slice through a sea of green conifers. Abandoned by humans, the thin corridor gradually reverts to its feral ways as the forest reclaims its territory.

The road leads me uphill and then flattens out high above the valley. Looking up at a Douglas-fir tree, I see that a Common Raven has been silently monitoring my progress up the road. Peering down its aquiline beak, the large black bird fixes me in its dignified, intelligent gaze. With a gurgling quork it scolds me and flies away on fluid wingbeats. As I walk, the outstretched limbs of Douglas-firs brush my arms. A deep cushion of moss softens the road edge. Moss is the earth’s most primitive plant: lacking roots to take up moisture from the soil, it absorbs water directly through its leaves. A luxuriant mat of moss contains thousands of tiny plants, each one tightly packed against its neighbors. This crowded community holds rainwater like a sopping sponge.

Using a small stick, I pry a tiny patch of moss from the gravel. Despite a brief autumn dry spell that’s brought four rainless days, each miniscule plant clings to a drop of moisture. Every year as summer’s drought arrives, the microscopic leaves curl in on themselves and twist as they dry. When the rain finally returns, capillary action swells each leaf with water until the entire colony is rejuvenated.

Crushing the velvety green clump in my fingers, I notice a dark layer of soil on its underside. Moss binds precious soil together and provides a place for beneficial bacteria and fungi to decompose accumulating leaf litter, slowly deepening the humus. Eventually the soil receives wind-blown seeds and tiny herbaceous plants sprout. Their roots loosen the hard-packed earth and prepare the way for shrubs and trees to take hold and eventually erase the last vestiges of the old road.

Hiking on, I come to several fallen trees lying like enormous toothpicks scattered across the road. I crawl under one that has lost its bark and notice a perfect pyramid of powder-fine sawdust on the ground beneath it. Crouching beside the log, I run my finger over its rough surface just above the tailings until I find a tiny hole. Soon I find several more, each one directly above a neat pile of shavings. This work is the telltale sign of the ambrosia beetle, a tiny black bug no longer than a grain of rice. Ambrosia beetles bore into fallen trees, but they don’t eat the wood.  They eat ambrosia fungi instead, the spores of which they carry with them in tiny pocket-like structures called mycangia. As the beetle bores an intricate network of tunnels in the log, it pushes sawdust out small exit holes and deposits the fungal spores on tunnel walls, cultivating a ready food source for adults and larvae in the process. Females lay eggs in chambers excavated along the tunnels. When the young hatch and mature, they fill their mycangia with spores and travel to a newly fallen log to repeat the cycle.

Along with other beetle species as well as carpenter ants, termites, fungi and bacteria, ambrosia beetles do the vital work of decomposing fallen trees. Decomposition and growth are the yin and yang of nature. Without decomposition there would be no new plant or animal growth in a biological community. Nutrients locked up in dead organisms would be unavailable to sustain new generations of life, leading to the community’s ultimate collapse. These fallen trees will decompose and disintegrate, transforming an old roadbed into fertile forest soil.

Weaving my way around, over and under the logs, I find open ground again; the old road has narrowed to two sketchy tracks. I reach a tangle of young alder trees growing where trucks traveled years ago. As I thread my way through the thicket, my hands slide over unblemished gray bark as I grab slender trunks. Glancing down to the ground, I spot a mass of orange nodules pimpling an exposed root. As I brush away the duff and touch the small lumps, I am reminded that alders heal degraded land as they grow. They are one of the few tree species that can extract nitrogen from the atmosphere. Each alder slowly dispenses some of its stored nitrogen into the soil through root nodules like the ones I’ve found. Every autumn, alders let their leaves fall while they are still green. As they gradually decompose, these extra-nutritious leaves fortify the soil with another slow-release dose of nitrogen. Surrounding trees and plants grow stronger and more robust, giving animals food and shelter. Nature revitalizes itself.

Beyond the alders I follow a vague trace of the old road. Above me, a hardened volcanic mudflow, called a lahar, coats the slope like a thick layer of gray fondant icing on a wedding cake. Formed when an ancient volcano released hot ash and lava fragments that mixed with water, the slurry moved with the viscosity of wet cement before it solidified. Over the ensuing millennia, erosive rainwater and snowmelt shaped the formation into rounded columns and hummocks. Several columns reach down to a cliff edge, resembling giant toes hanging over a curb.

Studying the sculpted hillside, I spot a shallow cave partially obscured by a fallen tree. Scrambling up loose rubble, I find a space three feet wide between the opening and the splintered upright end of the log. A ribbon of water pours down a mossy groove above the cavern, spilling over a lip above the entrance and free-falling to the threshold before trickling to a miniature pool hidden under the log. I slip around the waterfall and duck into the hollow behind it. Sitting on the dry floor of my secret grotto, I lean back against its rock wall. The only audible sound is the soft splash of water in front of me; I watch the crystal spillage for several minutes. The water in this tiny stream will seep into the soil under the log and flow underground below the old road. Moistening and softening the soil under the compacted road scar, it will do its part to nurture fungi, microbes and green growth, before continuing its journey down to Hackleman Creek on the valley floor. One day all signs of the road will disappear. Nature reclaims its own.

Next time: In the Footprint of a Glacier

 

Within One Watershed:

Essays from Hackleman Creek

Part 1

The Uplands

Hilltopping on Browder Ridge

 

Hundreds of butterflies flit above me, heading upslope. They look like rising confetti against the brilliant blue sky. Standing shoulder deep in a tangle of lacy bracken ferns and orange tiger lilies, I crane my neck to watch this elevated migration. The butterflies and I share the same goal: the top of Browder Ridge.

In a behavior called hilltopping, many species of butterflies head to the highest point in their world to find mates. The high ground serves as a rendezvous point where potential mates mingle and pair off. Mated females then lay their eggs just downslope on specific host plants that will later provide food for their hatching young. Males continue to cruise the highland, pursuing additional partners.

I seek the ridgetop for an entirely different reason: to stand on the high divide separating the Hackleman watershed from its neighboring watershed to the south. I wish to walk the prominence that determines the directional fate of each drop of precipitation this upland receives.

My pace slows as I follow the trail’s unspooling thread in switchbacks up the steep south-facing slope. The gradient and the morning sun combine to soak my shirt with perspiration. After a mile, the trail tops out and contours eastward two hundred feet below the ridgecrest. I leave the trail, climbing toward the high divide. Butterflies by the dozen float on the breeze, spiraling around me. A warm updraft from the Hackleman side of the ridge brings countless more to swirl in a descending pool toward me. I notice the bright orange and dark brown on the upper sides of California tortoiseshells; one lands on a rock and raises its wings to the upright resting position, revealing its mottled brown-and-gray underside. Hoffman’s checkerspots, blue coppers and a handful of Lorquin’s admirals join the tortoiseshells. Each checkerspot is a mosaic of orange and black, while the coppers are silky silver-blue. The dark admirals flash their white wing bands. I step on a flat boulder and a startled mass of butterflies takes wing in a whirling kaleidoscope of color. I feel as if I’ve walked into an artist’s rendition of light, color and motion.

Arriving at the ridge’s crest, I turn in a slow circle to take in the panorama. To the north the meadowed slopes of Cone Peak, South Peak and Echo Mountain rise above the Hackleman Creek valley. South of me, a sea of green peaks stretches to the horizon under the commanding presence of the Three Sisters, each rising over 10,000 feet. Browder Ridge runs westward in a series of rocky steps that narrows to resemble the edge of an enormous serrated knife. To the east, the ridge broadens into a much wider tree-covered crest.

As I head west toward the jagged rocks, the ground below the outcrop feels gritty and rough underfoot, reminding me that soil-building begins right here. Freezing and thawing fractures this sharply angled bedrock, dropping small fragments that slowly disintegrate into rudimentary soil at the rock’s base.

Long horizontal rows of succulent plants line the barren ground like snow fences placed in a ski area to prevent avalanches. These are sedum plants, commonly found in this harsh habitat. Sedums reproduce by sending out runners whose tips sprout clones. The resulting bands of fleshy plants strung out above and below me could all be clones of parent plants that colonized this area up to a century ago. Each row is spaced about five feet from the next, creating a series of narrow terraces that form the first line of defense against erosion in the watershed.

And it’s a much-needed defense. Taken one at a time, raindrops seem soft and refreshing. Each dampens, cleanses and revitalizes the land. But collectively raindrops are a force. If left unchecked, rain washes soil downslope, eroding the mountainside and dumping loads of sediment into the watershed’s largest stream. The sedum terraces hold small amounts of soil—helping stabilize the ridge despite their tiny size. Retained soil promotes the growth of additional wildflowers necessary for the survival of butterflies and other mountain-dwelling insects. These tiny creatures spur more plant growth through pollination and the resulting seed production. An expanding latticework of roots retains even more soil, protecting the forest downslope with a slow release of water that eventually reaches Hackleman Creek 1,700 feet below.

I step carefully over a row of tiny green sedums and stop to examine one closely. Its waxy leaves are swollen with water, the perfect survival mechanism for life in an environment that provides little protection against desiccating sunlight and wind. Sedums also avoid drying by absorbing and releasing gases through tiny pores in their leaves, called stomata, that close up during the day to prevent water loss. At night, when the absence of sunlight keeps evaporation to a minimum, they open to collect carbon dioxide and release oxygen. I gently squeeze a fat leaf and cup the custard-colored flowers in my hand before moving on.

Reaching the outcrop, I begin to climb. Carefully watching each foot placement, I notice a tiny white pouch stuck in a small crevice. Looking closer, I realize it’s an inch-long butterfly chrysalis. It hangs from a small patch of silk, cemented to one wall of the cleft. Brown and black spots speckle the white casement; one orange band and one black band encircle its upper end. The pouch’s coloration helps me identify the butterfly species that made it: Edith’s checkerspot. I sit down on the warm bedrock to look even closer; the chrysalis remains motionless, its inhabitant not yet ready to emerge.

One year ago, this tiny creature hatched from a miniscule egg that was one of hundreds its mother laid somewhere on this slope. Traveling on orange wings with black, red and cream-colored checkerboard markings, the female searched for a proper place to deposit her eggs. For this checkerspot, the only suitable location is the underside of a leaf on one of a small number of plant species that the young will consume after hatching: a penstemon, owl’s clover or valerian. This female used chemical receptors on her feet to taste the leaves of one plant after another.  Finally finding the desired plant, she laid a mass of tiny green eggs.

Two weeks later my little friend hatched from its egg as a hairy black caterpillar with orange spots; it ate voraciously to prepare for the energy-draining process of metamorphosis. As the host plants died back in late summer, the caterpillar crawled upslope to this rocky outcrop and crept under a stone to enter a dormancy that lasted through the fall and winter. Waking up with the arrival of spring, it devoured freshly sprouted leaves nearby, then found this secret spot and swaddled itself in its protective chrysalis. Within two weeks it will emerge as a wet wrinkly adult butterfly. After hanging upside down from the split chrysalis to straighten and dry its wings, the checkerspot will fly away and find a mate, and the year-long cycle will begin again.

My mountain stairway steepens and I decide to skirt below the crags on the grassy southern slope. Regaining the ridge in a gravelly saddle, I find myself in a sea of purple larkspur flowers bending in the breeze. A swarm of California tortoiseshells mobs me, landing on my sweaty arms and legs. My sweat-seeking guests are most likely all males, who transfer large amounts of bodily salts to females when mating. This nutrient boost helps to ensure that the female’s eggs will be healthy. Feeling like a human salt lick, I stand still as each butterfly extends its proboscis to tickle my skin and drink its fill.

After ascending a six-foot-wide catwalk along the narrow crest, I reach the mile-high summit of Browder Ridge. Looking east along the ridgeline is like looking along a giant partition with each rocky point resembling a post in a fence. Left of the barrier is my watershed, the Hackleman. The butterflies, hardy plants and thin soil up here are each as integral to the watershed as the deep forest, lush valley floor and rushing creek far below. Everything flows together in a stream of connected being. Water unifies all.

Next time: Witnessing A Reclamation