Within One Watershed:

Essays from Hackleman Creek 

Part 3

The Lake

Spring

Newly leafed cottonwood trees tower overhead as small waves lap at my feet. A warm mid-May breeze ripples Fish Lake, brimming with spring runoff. Its main pool, at least a half mile wide, narrows to a slender fjord and curves around a bend out of sight. Snow melting from the Hackleman watershed’s uplands has once again filled the lake, but not for long.

Three thousand years ago, lava oozed out of Nash Crater and flowed three and a half miles to block the ancestral valley of Hackleman Creek. This basalt barrier now briefly impounds the creek’s flow each year. Gradually, as spring gives way to summer, the inrush of snowmelt will slow and the remaining water will seep through the porous lakebed, shrinking the lake until it vanishes altogether.

Walking along the eastern shore, I spot two chartreuse heart-shaped leaves floating on the water’s surface; they seem to glow with green energy. These new leaves fell, perhaps in a strong gust this morning, from one of the cottonwood limbs hanging over the lake. Below them, curling and clumping on the soil beneath the shallow water, are last season’s fallen brown leaves. This layer of decomposing foliage will nourish meadow plants when they sprout after the meltwater disappears.

Turning away from the shore, I head into the narrow cottonwood forest hugging this end of the lake. The breeze carries a honeyed aroma, reminiscent of a sun-warmed beehive, emanating from thousands of freshly unfurled leaves above me.

Each newly emerged cottonwood leaf is covered with a sweet tacky resin that protects the tender leaves from hungry bugs. Honeybees collect this cottonwood glue and use it in the hive to seal out insect invaders and disease-causing microbes. Solitary bees use it to line small cavities where they lay eggs. I look down to see my boots adorned with resinous leaf bud scales that have fallen after bud burst.

The sweet-smelling leaves fluttering all around me formed as tightly-packed buds last summer and spent the cold winter months wrapped inside protective bud scales like those gummed to the soles of my boots. After the appropriate amount of time chilling in dormancy (which varies by tree species), growth inhibitors within the nascent leaves’ inactive cells began to break down. As temperatures rose and daylight lengthened, hormones kick-started photosynthesis, resulting in the riot of green above me.

Moving on, I come to several huge cottonwoods, each about four feet in diameter. A burly root reaches up from beneath the moist soil, reminding me that most of a tree’s workings take place out of sight. Beneath my feet countless tree roots draw in vast volumes of water from the soil. I lean against a gray trunk, furrowed with age. As this cottonwood’s roots soak up moisture, the vascular tissue in its inner bark pulls as much as 200 gallons of water up through the tree to its leaves each day. The leaves use most of the water to convert sunlight into food for the tree. Microscopic pores on each leaf transpire the remaining water as vapor into the atmosphere. This process hastens the annual drawdown of Fish Lake. When the last of the lake’s water disappears, cottonwood tap roots will strain to reach water trapped in underground pockets within the volcanic bedrock.

Paralleling the south shore, I watch two kayakers glide across the lake, floating above an area where, in a manner of weeks, black-tailed deer will leave pointed tracks in the mud as they nibble fresh grasses covering the lakebed.

Stopping for a sip from my water bottle, I sit on a large rock at the edge of the trees above the lakeshore. Looking out across the water, I notice my sole companion: a chubby little duck floating in the middle of the lake. Its chocolate-brown head, gray back and steep forehead confirm that it’s a female Barrow’s Goldeneye. I watch as she swims in small circles, repeatedly diving and surfacing. Each dive launches a new set of concentric ripples across the surface. Her hungry search for aquatic tidbits creates a moving piece of monochromatic line art on a liquid canvas.

Soon another bird paddles into view beyond the circling goldeneye. Looking through binoculars, I notice a dagger-sharp bill, smooth black head, black and white necklace and checkered back – it’s a migrating Common Loon pausing for a break on its journey to Canadian breeding grounds. As it slowly turns to show its profile, I see water beading up on the sleek dark feathers surrounding a ruby-colored eye. Scientists disagree about the purpose of the brilliantly colored eyes: some say it helps the loon see underwater when diving for fish, others maintain the coloration is a visual display for attracting a mate.

The loon floats low in the water as the goldeneye continues to circle and dive. These avian companions are transients on an ephemeral lake slowly draining away beneath them. I wonder how soon the lake will vanish this year . . . and the next . . . and the year after that. Because of the changing climate, it may eventually disappear forever.

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. 

Within One Watershed:

Essays from Hackleman Creek

Part 2

The Valley

Knee-deep in Hackleman Creek

Despite its name, Tombstone Prairie pulses with life this morning. As my friends and I skirt this small meadow near the headwaters of Hackleman Creek, bees buzz from one flower to the next, grasshoppers leap across the path and an Evening Grosbeak forages for insects near the top of a tree, its bold yellow plumage standing in vivid contrast to the conifer’s deep green.

Named for the stone monument that marked the spot where a teenaged boy died in an accidental shooting in 1871, the clearing was a popular camp spot for European-American settlers traveling between the Willamette Valley and eastern Oregon. Prior to that the meadow was a traditional stopover for countless generations of Indigenous peoples on their seasonal rounds of hunting and gathering. Back then, this open area was much larger thanks to the Native American practice of regular burning to promote huckleberry growth and grazing areas for game animals. A century and a half of fire suppression has allowed many trees to encroach on the meadow. Some huddle in small groups among the bracken ferns and grasses; others stand alone, casting solitary shadows on the peach-colored Jacob’s ladder blossoms covering the ground.

Enticing as it is, Tombstone Prairie is not the object of our focus today. Wearing old tennis shoes and rubber boots, our trio is here to investigate the creek, knee-deep if necessary. We’re in search of tiny aquatic creatures that form the foundation of a stream’s food chain. They’re called macroinvertebrates: they lack backbones and are small, but not small enough to require a microscope for viewing. We hope to find mayfly, stonefly and caddisfly larvae, the species most sensitive to pollution; their presence in a stream indicates good water quality and a healthy aquatic ecosystem.

Reaching the midpoint along the northern margin of Tombstone Prairie, we meet the creek. At this point the spirited current carries water newly issued from the spot where it gurgles out of the mountainside, a few hundred yards upstream. Shallow and narrow enough to step across, the creek will gain depth and width as it receives the flow from several side streams along its course down the valley. Here, the newborn stream splashes over a four-foot waterfall, slides between tree roots and bounces gently over bagel-sized cobbles.

Resting my palms on the rocky creekbed, I let the chilly water wash over my hands; goosebumps rise on my arms. Looking into the creek, I notice small pebbly cylinders, no more than an inch long, speckling the submerged rocks; they are the protective coverings of case-maker caddisfly larvae. In its larval stage, a caddisfly is a caterpillar-like creature that scrapes algae from rocks in the stream. Each larva gathers tiny pebbles and sand grains from the bottom and glues them to its body with silk from glands near its mouth. It then crawls slowly over rocks to search for sustenance, safely cloaked in armor. The caddisfly spends up to two years in this larval form, then seals both ends of its case and pupates in an underwater cocoon. After two to three weeks, it emerges from its casement, rises to the surface and flies away as a moth-like adult.

In fact, caddisflies are closely related to butterflies and moths. I think of their butterfly cousins flitting 1,200 feet above us in search of mates and wildflower nectar atop Browder Ridge. I look down at a caddisfly case and think of the butterfly chrysalis I found not long ago hanging in a tiny cleft high on the ridgecrest. These larval creatures, one bound to the streambed and the other to the rocky heights, evolved from the same ancestor in the distant past. Each took a different route to their present ecological niche; their presence in the watershed is the sign of an untainted ecosystem.

Moving downstream, one of my companions finds another type of macroinvertebrate – a mayfly nymph. As she holds the rock upon which it squirms, I see a slim body separated into three parts: a flattened head, a dark thorax and a long, segmented abdomen. Three filamentous tails extend from its back end. Each of its six legs ends in a tiny hook for clinging to rocks in rushing water.

Seconds later, my other friend finds an adult mayfly resting on a boulder and gently guides it onto her thumb. Holding its fragile wings in an upright position above its slender body, it lifts its elongated abdomen and head like a winged ballerina performing a perfect arabesque. All six legs are the same length, indicating this delicate dancer is a female. Males have extremely long front legs for grasping females while mating.

As a nymph this female shed her skin dozens of times, emerging a little larger with each molt. She spent over a year crawling underwater in search of algae to eat, using her brush-like lower lip to scour it off of rocks. Eventually, she rose to the surface and molted again, this time emerging as a sexually immature subadult. Hours later, one last molt released the mature female mayfly. Her adult life will only last for 24 hours: she won’t even be able to eat, as she has no functional mouthparts; her sole purpose is to reproduce. Later today, as afternoon fades into evening, she will join a swarm of other adult mayflies for a communal courtship dance in the sky. After mating, she will lay hundreds of eggs and die, her mission accomplished. My friend carefully returns the little female to her boulder so she can carry out her short but intense adult life.

We head downstream to find a stretch where the water runs deeper. As my friends climb down below a footbridge, I wade up to my knees. A thin layer of biofilm covers each melon-sized rock like slippery mucus; this organic slime sustains hungry macroinvertebrates and makes each step a challenge for me. I carefully wedge each foot in a flat spot between rocks and lower my hands into the current. An American Dipper flies low over the water and lands on a midstream rock. The gray robin-sized bird bobs up and down as it eyes the flow. Suddenly it plunges in and walks upstream completely submerged, resurfacing with a beakful of mayfly nymphs. As the stream-dwelling songbird flies to the bank to enjoy its meal, an adult mayfly flutters above the surface, repeatedly dipping her abdomen into the water to release a small batch of eggs each time. Fortunate to have evaded predators, she gives the next mayfly generation its start.

Joining my friends below the bridge, I see they have two more discoveries to share: stonefly and dobsonfly larvae. The stonefly larva looks like a flattened cricket with a three-part body, widely separated eyes, long antennae, six sprawling legs and two thin tails. The finger-sized dobsonfly larva resembles an aquatic centipede. Thread-like gills line each side of its abdomen; its reddish head sports two strong pincers for capturing prey. Both these species are highly sensitive to pollution. Our discoveries today confirm that the Hackleman watershed, my watershed, flows clean and pure, supporting a robust assemblage of underwater inhabitants. May its purity continue to sustain this richly complex community for generations to come.

Next time: We leave the valley and explore Fish Lake.

 

Within One Watershed:

Essays from Hackleman Creek

Part 2

The Valley

The Quarry

The map in my hands, dog-eared and splitting at the folds, is forty years old. I’ve brought along this paper relic, borrowed from a friend, because of one tiny symbol: a pair of crossed mining picks, the cartographic mark for a quarry. Missing from current maps and GPS devices, this little insignia could lead me to one of my favorite mountain mammals – the American pika. Potato-sized denizens of rocky slopes, these diminutive creatures frequently colonize quarries after the digging ceases. The boulders and rocky debris left behind provide a ready-made habitat for the charismatic little animals. Heat sensitive, pikas need the cool sanctuaries under rockpiles to survive. Throughout most of the western U.S. pikas are restricted to high elevation alpine areas. Here in Oregon, though, they frequently live below 1,000 feet. Ongoing scientific studies seek to determine how pikas can survive the warmer temperatures at this low elevation and how climate change will affect them. Carefully handling the fragile map, I slip it into my back pocket and head out on a pika quest.

The trail leads me west at the foot of the valley’s north slope. Hackleman Creek lies a half-mile away, the sound of its flow absorbed by dense forest. A luxuriant mat of ground dogwoods spills over disintegrating logs on either side of the path. Resembling a miniature version of its cousin the dogwood tree, the ground species is only three inches high. Each blossom displays creamy petal-like bracts surrounding a cluster of miniscule purplish flowers. Bright red berries, favored by squirrels and birds, will replace the flowers come fall.

Rounding a bend, I spot a dollop of white foam stuck to the stem of a spindly baldhip rose bush. Most people think the frothy mass is the work of a spitbug, but that name is misleading: it’s not spit at all, but rather a protective nest of bubbles made by an insect called a froghopper. Each autumn, female froghoppers lay dozens of eggs on plant stems. Pale green nymphs, looking like tiny frogs an eighth of an inch long, hatch the following spring. Each baby then finds a stem of its own, turns upside down and begins to suck the plant’s juices, which serve as food and shelter. The nymph ingests some of the juice and excretes the rest; a pump-like structure on its underside then blows air into the liquid, creating a blob of bubbles that cascades down over its inverted body. I gingerly remove the froth from between the rosebush’s thin thorns and separate the bubbles to find the infant froghopper inside. Two dark eyes the size of pin pricks stare out from a round head; six stubby legs carry the creature down my finger. I gently return the nymph to its stem and hike on.

A quick check of the dilapidated map shows that it’s time to leave the trail and strike out through the dark woods. The thick canopy here allows very little light to penetrate; the forest floor holds no green growth. Up ahead, I spot an apparition rising ten inches above the needle-covered duff: a solitary coralroot orchid. A dozen small flowers climb its milky pink stem, each bloom featuring three filmy pink petals hovering around a tiny lipped pouch. The subdued light and decaying tree limbs around it give this orchid the look of an otherworldly visitant. Its habit of parasitizing underground fungi rather than relying on its own photosynthesis adds to its creepy aura. I quickly decide to put this eerie spot behind me and move on.

An open space in the forest ahead suggests that I’m nearing the quarry. I wend my way around tree trunks to arrive at the foot of a sloping collection of big rocks. Clambering up the mossy boulders, I arrive at the top and walk to the edge of a 25-foot cliff curving around an open pit. Trees and shrubs cover the old entrance road, nearly erasing it from existence. Barrel-sized boulders and pumpkin-sized rocks lie scattered below me on the floor of the abandoned quarry. Excavations like this dot the western Cascades. Dug years ago, they were the source of the raw material used in road building; the basalt fragments extracted from this site probably formed the base layer for several local roads.

Following the edge of the cliff to its northern end, I find a spot where I can make my way down through the jumble. Testing each rock before I put my full weight on it, I find firm footing as I descend. Halfway down I hear a muffled cry from a crevice deep within the rocks . . . meep . . . I immediately freeze in place . . . meep . . . a long silence follows . . . meep. It’s a pika! Once safely at the bottom, I choose an angular slab for a seat and settle in to watch for the furry little creatures. 

The smallest members of the rabbit family, pikas have lots more personality than their long-eared cousins. Each little scamp has gray-brown fur, wide round ears, a rabbit nose and no tail. A pika stakes out a territory amid the rocks and guards it diligently. Trespassing neighbors are met with a loud squeak and chased away. When it’s not protecting its domain, a pika repeatedly scurries from the rocks to the adjoining vegetation where it gathers plants in its mouth and carries them back to a hay pile in the rocks to dry for winter. These low haystacks are usually built under the shelter of overhanging boulders for protection from rain.

I scan the rocks nearest me and spot the remains of a hay pile from last year; the leftovers are old and brown. I see no evidence of fresh green haystacks nor any movement in the habitat. I take a sip from my water bottle while a Steller’s Jay chatters in a nearby tree. Fifteen minutes go by; I wait and watch. Finally, a blur of fur zips over a boulder and ducks behind a rock. Meep! It announces its presence, then climbs to its sentry post ten yards away and stares right at me. Irritated at my presence, this grizzled old pika lets loose with another cry: meeep! Its scarred ears and patchy fur tell the story of a life filled with territorial battles. It continues to stand its ground; I defer to the ragged warrior by retreating several yards back. Satisfied, the pika responds by disappearing between the rocks.

My gaze falls upon a miniature cavern just ten feet to my right and, as if on cue, another pika silently creeps out onto its front porch. I hold my breath as it takes a few tentative steps out into the open. Much smaller than the previous one, this little pika licks its front paws and rubs them over its smooth perfect ears; it’s one of this year’s young. I wonder how it’s managing to avoid the wounds of battle as it grooms its glossy coat. Perhaps the ragged elder is its mother, tolerating her offspring’s proximity to give it a good start in life. The little one retreats into the rockpile, signaling an end to my viewing session.

Leaving the pikas to their secret lives, I depart. Once back in the forest I pull out my tattered map and eye it one last time, happy that it carries the obscure symbol that led me to this forgotten quarry.          

 

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.