One Seacoast Mile

Fall 

Early fall has come to my seacoast mile. Alder trees release their umber leaves, each one blotched with faded green; tawny seed pods rise above dry hillsides replacing the pink, purple and yellow wildflower blossoms of the recently departed summer. Standing on Cape Sitka at the northern end of my chosen stretch of shore, I scan the pocket beaches and rocky coves along the border between land and sea. Cape Tolowa, its open slopes the color of baled hay, rises at the southern end of my mile. Just offshore, towering rocks stained white with guano hold deserted seabird rookeries waiting for winter rains to wash them clean.

Today I’ll walk my mile from one cape to the other, traversing the Sitka spruce forest just above the shore. Along the way I’ll search for the season’s first mushrooms and visit an old friend.

Departing the grassy cape, I follow a narrow trail into dense forest where thin beams of sunlight penetrate the canopy. Stopping to let my eyes adjust to the shade, I soak in the soft air sequestered by these spruce trees. Soon my eyes acclimate to the dim light and I leave the trail to move slowly among the trees, searching the forest floor for fungi. Almost immediately, a purple mushroom the size of a soup bowl catches my eye. Its curled-up cap reveals white gills on its underside; a rosy blush colors its stem. Kneeling, I pull a small chunk from its edge, crush it between my fingers and sniff – I detect no odor. Finding an older specimen, I try the crush-and-sniff test again – it smells like spoiled seafood. This stinky morsel confirms its identity: shrimp russula. Nearby, dozens more rise above the duff.

Moving on, I navigate through the shadows by keeping the muffled sound of breaking waves on my right and continue in a southerly direction. I find a brilliant mushroom the color of a lit Jack-o-Lantern. It’s a lobster mushroom, prized by gourmet cooks. Like others of its kind, this specimen has engulfed another fungus in lobster-tinted tissue.

Not far away, a gemmed amanita, its flesh the color of lemon custard, peeks out from between two exposed tree roots. Despite its pleasing appearance, this species is toxic and should never be eaten. Touching its firm stem just above the soil, I’m reminded that a mushroom is only a small part of a fungal body. The largest part grows below ground, completely unseen. There, a cobwebby lattice of thin root-like structures, called mycelia, spreads its way under the forest floor to form connections with trees by encasing their roots in gauzy sheaths.

Once fungus and tree are linked, a mutually beneficial relationship begins. The fungus delivers water and nutrients absorbed from the soil to the tree roots while the tree provides the fungal filaments with sugar to live on – a true partnership benefiting both parties. The fungal threads also connect each tree with many others in the forest, creating a vast interconnected web only inches beneath my feet.

Wandering back to the trail, I hear what sounds like raindrops slowly plopping on the ground. Puzzled, I pause to listen more closely: thud . . . thud . . . thud. Something is falling from the canopy, but it’s not rain. Raising my binoculars to my eyes, I find the sound’s source: the dark shape of a small body with a wildly twitching tail – a Douglas squirrel. Normally very vocal, this arboreal resident cuts spruce cones from the highest branches without uttering a sound. After about a dozen of the two-inch cones litter the forest floor, the squirrel descends a thick trunk to carry them, one at a time, to its larder under a mossy log. When winter arrives, the rodent will return daily to this food cache to extract edible seeds from the damp cones. Twisting a cone and pulling it apart, I find tiny winged seeds, each the size of a grape seed, under the papery scales. This squirrel has a lot of work ahead to fill its cache with enough seed-filled cones to sustain it until spring.

Leaving the squirrel to its autumn harvesting, I continue south on the trail. Breaks in the trees allow me needle-framed window views of breaking waves and circling gulls below. Trailside trees swell in girth as I enter the oldest part of this Sitka spruce forest. Ahead, I spy my old friend: five massive trunks rise from a single base; pendulous branches, each with a diameter greater than many of the surrounding trees, rest enormous elbows on the ground.

Reaching this venerable spruce, I step off the trail to touch its rough gray bark. Fallen patches reveal purple underneath; hundreds of cones lie at the tree’s feet. Since it’s probably two or three centuries old, the fungal network connected to this ancient one likely includes miles of interlacing root-like threads that link dozens of trees, many that began life as a sprout from one of its tiny seeds. Like any good parent, it protects its offspring by sending extra water to them in times of drought, additional minerals in times of stress and chemical warning signals when it’s under insect attack – all via the vast underground web.

Settling in on one of the tree’s huge exposed roots, I ponder the course of its life. How many nestlings has it sheltered? How many squirrels has it fed? How many young trees has it nourished and nurtured? My old friend is truly a wonder.

Soon I hike on, leaving the spruce forest and heading out across gentle open slopes to reach the tip of Cape Tolowa. Here, I find a spreading mat of dwarf shrubs reminiscent of mountain heather: crowberry. Its narrow evergreen leaves remind me of tiny needles on miniature conifer trees. Carefully parting the stems, I discover black berries the size of peas. Knowing these berries are nontoxic, I pop one in my mouth; its flavor is earthy and slightly bitter. Several hands full leave my fingers and tongue black with juice.

Resisting the rest of the crowberry bounty, I turn to face the sea. A squadron of Brown Pelicans glides by, barely twelve inches above the waves. Each one flies with its head held back over its shoulders and giant pouched bill resting on its chest. Two small boats bob on the waves, and the pelicans join them in a quest for fish. One by one the big birds plunge into the water head-first. Resurfacing, each floats on the surface and presses its pouch against its chest to drain the water, finally tipping its bill back to swallow its catch.

Watching this scene and thinking back to all that I’ve witnessed this year along my seacoast mile fills me with both a deep peace and a keen awareness that, as a human, I am only one part of life on this beautiful planet. Mystery, awe and universal connection coalesce here for me. I feel completely at home.

One Seacoast Mile

Summer 

A thin layer of scraggly summer clouds drifts overhead this morning as I stand next to a rock-ringed tidepool at the foot of Cape Tolowa. Just above me, the cape’s green slope rises steeply to meet a trio of velveted pinnacles halfway up the hillside; above these grassy points, the gradient eases until the flower-dotted incline finally reaches the summit. As I ponder the juxtaposition of lush meadow and rocky ocean shore, a quote from Rachel Carson, the scientist whose seminal writing sparked the environmental movement, comes to mind: The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place.

 I intend to dawdle the day away by examining both the strange and the beautiful, starting with the limpid pool at my feet. Six inches below the pool’s surface, froth the color of bubblegum covers the rocks. Dipping my hand in the cold water, I run my fingers over the pink surface: it’s hard as cement. Called coralline algae, this odd seaweed uses minerals from the saltwater to create a calcified lining within each of its cells, rendering the algae inedible to grazing snails and other herbivorous tidepool residents. Trying to ingest this organism would be like eating gravel.

In the neighboring tidepool another coralline species drapes its mass of pink feathery fronds down the side of a boulder exposed by low tide. Each branch has calcified segments alternating with tiny flexible hinges, allowing it to bend with the waves.

Coming upon a third tidepool, I kneel for a closer look. Kiwi-colored sea anemones extend their soft tentacles in hopes of stinging unsuspecting prey. Harmless to humans, an anemone can immobilize a small fish, crab or snail and then slowly shove the meal into its mouth.  Several pendulous anemones droop from a rock wall above the pool. Without the water’s support their limp bodies sag like flaccid bags. Next to them, three ochre sea stars hug the rock. A net-like pattern of stubby white spines covers each star’s orange skin. Microscopic gills at the base of each spine take in oxygen from the water. Five strong arms radiate from the central body like spokes on a wheel.  A sea star has no head, and its mouth is on the underside of its body. 

When the tide returns, a hungry sea star will slowly crawl on top of a mussel, wrap its arms around the bivalve’s shells and begin to pull. The helpless mussel will strain to keep its protective shells closed, but its fate is inescapable. Once the shells are open, the sea star pushes its stomach out through its mouth and inserts it between the shells. Digestive juices liquefy the mussel’s tissue into an easily absorbed meal. Gently touching the sea stars, I find each to be firm and healthy, unlike so many soft mushy specimens found along the coast a few years ago during the widespread occurrence of sea-star wasting disease.

Next, I find a small apron of sand separating two rock patches. A little crab, the size of a cucumber slice, pauses in the center of this miniature beach. Looking closely, I see a blue shell and flattened claws: it’s a flat porcelain crab. The glistening blue top on this creature’s shell brings back memories of childhood moments spent admiring the delicate blue teacups in my auntie’s china cabinet.

Without touching it, I count this crab’s legs and notice a total of six, two fewer than on most crab species.  Not true crabs at all, these creatures are crab-like crustaceans descended from a 200 million year-old ancestral line that includes lobsters. When the tide comes in, this would-be crab wedges itself in tight spaces between rocks, where it flutters its fluffy mouthparts to capture plankton brought in by the waves.

Turning away from the sea, I step up from the gritty surface of a wave-worn rock to the soft turf of the sloping meadow. I’m immediately ankle deep in green growth; the tidepool habitat a few feet behind me seems worlds away. As I begin to climb, I see a bright brigade of blue-eyed grass flowers marching up the hill. Purple and white varied lupines release their enticing perfume to the breeze; pollinating bees flock to the scent. A shallow depression in the terrain overflows with golden blossoms as five-petaled silverweed cinquefoil and daisy-shaped goldfields spill out of the bowl.

Just above, tall brown ears flick away flies; soon the moist nose and deep brown eyes of a black-tailed doe rise above the vegetation. She gives me a long look, then turns and vanishes into the tall grass. Seconds later I interrupt a brush rabbit’s foraging; it disappears below the tangle of a coyote bush.

Skirting the rabbit’s hiding place, I spot a series of neatly trimmed runways crisscrossing the slope. About the width of a garden hose, each route leads to a hole no wider than a golf ball. These narrow avenues are the work of meadow voles, mouse-like creatures with gray fur, a blunt snout and tiny black eyes. They dash back and forth on their well-maintained paths looking for food. Should the shadow of a hunting raptor darken its runway, a vole will scurry to the nearest hole. Each of these three mammals thrives on the bounty of lush vegetation growing here.

Catching my breath on the smooth summit gives me a chance to mentally trace my route from the tidepools far below up the verdant slope of Cape Tolowa. I reflect on the diversity of species that I’ve encountered today: each organism filling its own unique niche, each an integral part of the strange and beautiful life at the edge of the sea.

One Seacoast Mile 

Spring

A sprinkling of yellow footprints brightens the grassy slope leading to the tip of Cape Sitka, the northernmost point of my chosen mile. Not actually footprints at all, these matted patches are native wildflowers. Called footsteps of spring, they have yellow maple-shaped leaves that lie flat beneath clusters of half-inch-high canary-colored flowers. Keeping a low profile helps this species to survive the strong winds that buffet the cape.

Stretching out to lie prone on the hillside, I become part of this plant’s ground-hugging world. Just downslope, I see another group of blossoms peeking above the grass: Menzies’ baby blue eyes. As the name suggests, these flowers are usually blue, but sometimes, like the ones growing below me, the plants produce bright white petals lined with purple dots.

Nearby, a tiny fish skeleton no more than two inches long lies in the lee of a small rock, the remains of some seabird’s sardine or anchovy catch. The hungry bird unknowingly gifted the cape’s shallow soil with a miniscule dose of growth-boosting nutrients from the sea. Dropped from the bird’s bill as it flew above the cape, the tiny fish’s flesh decomposed into the soil, where shallow roots absorbed the minerals transported from the saltwater below.

Plants with ocean-derived minerals in their cells can grow up to three times faster than those without. As this nourishment delivered on the wing accumulates bit by bit over time, organic material builds up, creating rich soil. Slowly, the rocky cape becomes meadowed and wildflowers spangle its slopes.

The water where the fish spent its brief life is part of a highly productive coastal ecosystem that owes its existence to one phenomenon: wind-driven ocean upwelling. In spring and summer, the prevailing winds come from the north and drive surface water offshore. Scientists have discovered that, in the northern hemisphere, surface waters always move to the right (west) of winds blowing in a southerly direction; this phenomenon is known as the Coriolis Effect.

Winds blow down the coast, forcing the top layers of water westward, away from the shore. Deep nutrient-rich water moves up to replace the dissipated surface water, bringing seafloor sediments enriched with nitrogen and phosphorus to the top. Here, the infusion of nutrients fuels an explosive growth of plankton and seaweed, the foundation of a marine food web that feeds tidepool creatures, schooling fish, salmon, seabirds, seals, whales and humans. Looking out to sea, I witness an upwelling in progress: a mass of brownish-green water meets the blue as the winds bestow their life-giving gifts on the nearshore waters.

Leaving the blustery cape behind, I hike down toward the rarely-visited beach at its foot. Descending along a faint trail, I find myself at the top of an extremely steep sand chute only twenty feet wide. Looking around for another route, I conclude that this precipitous slope is, indeed, the main access. Gazing downhill, I notice something else: a meandering course of animal tracks descending the narrow opening. A thicket of conifers edging the sand prevents the wind from erasing the footprints. Closer examination reveals each round track to be about two inches wide with four toes, no claw marks and three lobes on the back edge of the heel pad – a bobcat! This reclusive cat normally hunts at night but occasionally sneaks out in daylight, too. The tracks reveal nothing about the hour in which this creature prowled, but their condition indicates that they’re several days old.

Still curious about the secluded beach below, I plunge my heels in the soft sand and make a slow glissade down the unstable slope, obliterating the cat tracks as I go. Safely reaching the bottom, I scramble over driftwood pushed up by last winter’s storms and step onto firm sand several yards from the surf. No footprints blemish this wild strand; I have it all to myself, or so I think.

Walking south, I find evidence that I’m not alone: multiple pointy impressions in the sand border each side of a pencil-thin drag mark. The tracks lead me closer to the water and soon I find their maker: a northern kelp crab brought in by the waves. About three inches wide, the top of its slick brown shell forms the shape of a small shield with a large point in the front and a smaller point tipping each forward corner.

As the crab slowly ambles sideways, I watch its eight legs and two claws emboss the sand with tiny tracks while the posterior end of its shell inscribes a shallow furrow. Kelp crabs are seasonal carnivores, eating small clams and barnacles each winter and switching to an herbivorous diet of kelp and other seaweeds during the warmer months. I resist the urge to pick this one up, knowing from painful experience how hard they can pinch.

Gentle waves part around barnacled boulders as I continue south. Thousands of clam-like blue mussels wait for high tide, their shells snapped shut like calcified coin purses. Rocky towers and turrets rise above gardens of shiny seaweed. Picking my way through a stretch of basketball-sized rocks, I come upon one of the most bizarre creatures inhabiting the intertidal zone: a Pacific giant chiton. Resembling a partially deflated football, this mollusk has thick leathery skin and can grow up to a foot long. Lacking a head and eyes, it uses its muscular foot to clamp onto rocks. A flattened mouth on its underside contains tiny teeth for scraping algae from hard surfaces. To resist abrasion, the teeth are capped with magnetite, a mineral thought to be produced by some animals (sea turtles, birds, whales) to help them navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field. Although the chiton’s mineralized teeth are magnetic, it does not use this adaptation to find its way; it’s simply reinforcement for the tools needed to obtain its slimy meal.

Reaching down to touch its pebbly skin, I find that this chiton has been knocked loose from its rock, likely by a strong wave. Turning it over, I see the cantaloupe-colored foot flanked by a groove on either side, each filled with a row of rounded gills. Tucked safely in one of the grooves, a skinny white scale worm moves its head, but will not harm its slow-moving host. Instead, it forages for tube worms and organic debris as the chiton carries it around. 

Returning the chiton and its wriggling passenger to the spot where I found them, I look back to the sand chute I must scale to return to the car. It promises to be a slow breathless climb, but it’s a small price to pay for today’s exploration of the wildest part of my seacoast mile.

 

 

One Seacoast Mile

Winter

January along the Oregon Coast can be brutal. High winds slam storm after storm against the shore; pelting raindrops sting one’s face like tiny projectiles launched from afar. Calmer days bring chilly fingers of fog that reach through layers of clothing to grip one’s bones. This miserable weather torments the length of Oregon’s coastline – except for the one location where a jumble of peaks (the Klamath Mountains) stretches from 80 miles inland to meet the sea.

Here, mild spring-like weather occurs anytime high pressure builds east of the Klamaths and low pressure settles off the coast. Winds from the east blow over the mountains, where the peaks funnel them into the deep gorge holding the Chetco River. As the narrow canyon walls compress the air mass, the molecules of nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide bounce off each other, creating heat. Arriving at the sea, the balmy wind pushes cooler marine air offshore and bathes the local coastline, including my chosen mile, with warmth.

Leaving the car, I hike north along an elevated trail in shirtsleeves and jeans, happy to be free of confining sweaters and raingear. A wall of close-growing Sitka spruce trees borders the uphill side of the trail. Spiky needles brush my arm as I step on reddish-colored cones littering the ground. Below me, a moorland cloaked in low shrubs and coarse grasses sweeps 300 yards down to the shore. To the south, Cape Tolowa’s mesa-like profile stretches seaward to dip and then rise again to a rounded hump hunching above the surf. 

At the north end of my chosen mile, Cape Sitka towers above a narrow strip of dark sand. Just offshore, jagged sea stacks rise from the water like a giant carnivore’s canine teeth; gentle waves break around them.

One hundred yards beyond the outermost sea stack, a heart-shaped plume of steam rises a dozen feet above the ocean’s surface, the tell-tale silhouette of a gray whale’s spout. As the whale exhales air through twin blowholes on its head, its warm breath condenses to create a misty heart that vanishes almost immediately. I glance at my watch, timing the rhythm of its breathing. It disappears underwater for 30 seconds, then surfaces to exhale and quickly draw in its next breath. The whale repeats the pattern three times before arching its knuckled back and thrusting its tail flukes above water to propel it into a deeper dive.

This huge creature, 45 feet long at maturity, is taking part in the longest mammal migration on Earth. Each winter, thousands of its kind swim from Alaska to Baja, Mexico, to mate or give birth in lagoons along the peninsula’s Pacific shore. Come spring, gray whales return to their nutrient-rich Arctic feeding grounds, completing a 10,000-mile round trip. Thrilled by my luck in witnessing the whale’s brief appearance, I hike on.

An unmarked side path leads me down the open slope toward a tiny beach curving below Cape Tolowa. I wade through waist-high grasses crowding the path; coyote bush, an evergreen shrub with gray-green leaves above a skeleton of bare branches, dots the open hillside. One of the bushes erupts in a rattling chirrrr as I pass by. I freeze in my tracks, scanning the twiggy maze for the call’s source. Chirrrr – a second call emanates from a neighboring bush. Standing perfectly still for several minutes, I finally spot a pair of Wrentits – tiny gray-brown birds with rounded wings and upturned tails. They hop from branch to branch, foraging for insects and spiders, while concealed from the view of hungry raptors by the cover of leaves crowning each bush.

Wrentit pairs stay together year-round, uncommon behavior for songbirds. Mates for life, they pair up shortly after learning to fly and establish their territory within 1200 feet of the nests from which each bird fledged.

Standing motionless in the birds’ tiny world, I can’t help but compare them with the gray whale that I saw just a few minutes ago. One creature fits in a teacup, the other is as long as a school bus. One spends its entire life within a territory no larger than a city block, the other travels 10,000 miles every year. Despite vast differences between coastal bird and marine mammal, each must do two things to survive: eat and reproduce. Eating ensures survival as an individual, reproducing ensures survival as a species. I leave the little birds to their thicket and scramble down to the beach.

A weathered 20-foot western red cedar log rests on cobbles covering the landward side of the beach. Two feet in diameter at its widest, this stranded tree once graced the banks of a coastal stream. Likely toppled in a storm, it began its tortuous journey downstream to the sea, where waves bashed it against boulders, fuzzing its fibrous bark and splintering its brick-colored heartwood. I lean down and sniff the moist log; the spice of cedar and the tang of saltwater mix in a rich distillation of forest and sea.

Boulders exposed by low tide shelter bunches of red and green seaweed in small pools. I linger near a knotted heap of slimy vegetation on the sand. Ripped from seafloor rocks by powerful waves, these thick strands of kelp bring to mind a giant helping of briny spaghetti. Until very recently they were part of the vast underwater kelp forest growing just offshore. Beach-bound humans can only glimpse its canopy; hidden below the surface, countless creatures seek food and shelter in this undersea jungle.

Continuing south on the beach, I find a white finger-sized tube lying on the sand; one end of the tube is open and the other closed. Called a sea pickle, it’s a bizarre lifeform normally found off tropical shores in the South Pacific. Dozens of  bumps cover its rubbery surface, each a small organism in a tightly joined colony of multiple individuals. Free floaters, these colonies, also called pyrosomes, feed by filtering plankton in deep water of the open ocean. Southern storms occasionally push them thousands of miles north to wash up along the west coast of North America.

As I study this strange pickle-shaped creature in my hand, I think about where I am. I’m not just standing on a small beach on the Oregon Coast; I’m at the edge of a biome that covers 70% of our planet. Geographers recognize five distinct oceans on Earth: Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern and Arctic. In reality there are no rigid boundaries: strong currents swirl, stir and share the waters between all oceans, creating a continuous body of water across the globe. The liquid connectedness of the ocean biome makes neighbors of all of its inhabitants, each residing in a worldwide saltwater community. The seemingly alien sea pickle washed ashore on my tiny beach is really no foreigner at all, but rather just another resident in a constantly moving global ocean.

Reaching the foot of Cape Tolowa, I scramble up an embankment and follow a deer trail that joins the main trail at the top. There, a wooden post lets hikers know they’re on the long-distance route called the Oregon Coast Trail, which traces the entire length of our coastline. I’ll leave a trek like that to more ambitious hikers and be content to explore my single mile slowly, one intimate step at a time, witnessing the wonders of everything from Wrentits to whales along the way.

 

One Seacoast Mile 

The Place

One Seacoast Mile

One mile: an elite runner covers the distance in about four minutes; cars going at freeway speeds travel it in less than 60 seconds. Many people think of a mile only in terms of how fast they can traverse it. As a naturalist, I don’t always view a mile as something to put behind me quickly. While hiking over captivating terrain, I consider one mile to be a distance to tarry over, to investigate, to savor – especially if it’s a seacoast mile.

The Oregon Coast, one of the most geologically complex and biologically diverse coastlines on the planet, spans more than 360 miles of beaches, capes, dunes and sea cliffs hugging the North Pacific. My chosen mile lies on the southern coast, not far from the California border. Bookended by meadow-covered capes, my little stretch of shoreline follows an irregular path between the two promontories. From Cape Tolowa at its southern end, the ribbon of shore curls around a jumble of dark rocks, caresses a small sandy beach, slides by an eroded sea stack still connected to the shore and crimps the rough edge of three bouldery coves, each backed by a tangle of driftwood logs. From there it traces the curving crescent of another tiny beach to arrive at the foot of Cape Sitka, where each wave rasps its erosive tongue against a rocky cliff.

My mile is part of a coastal stretch that owes its ruggedness to an ancient geological past. The rock formations in this area were once part of the ocean floor in a subtropical sea. Back then, as North America began to move westward, it slowly collided with the oceanic crustal plate, pushing up the mountain range known today as the Klamath Mountains. The collision between the plates folded and faulted the seafloor slab, then pushed it underneath the continental plate. Over time a succession of slabs descended below the edge of the continent, one under the other, like tilted slices of bread. Heat and pressure transformed these layers into rocks of varying hardness. Millions of years of wave and wind action removed the softer rock to reveal the resistant headlands, scoured inlets and ragged shore visible today.

This dramatic topography forms the setting in which coastal organisms of all kinds conduct the business of survival. Windblown thickets hugging the capes’ lower slopes shelter songbirds and black-tailed deer. Flattened headland summits support grasses and wildflowers that feed wary rodents who sustain raptorial hunters patrolling overhead. Seabirds nest on cliff-face ledges while seals and sea lions haul out to rest on nearshore rocks rising above the water. Where the ocean deepens, gray whales navigate by the sound of the waves hitting the shore as they swim by twice a year in the longest mammal migration on Earth, a round-trip journey of 10,000 miles.  

Though no longer than a quarter mile, each pocket beach within my chosen reach of shoreline hides countless invertebrates who spend their entire lives buried in the sand. Clumps of kelp and eelgrass stranded on the beach provide food and shelter to beach hoppers, tiny crustaceans resembling fleas. Shorebirds probe the sand and seaweed with long beaks in search of tasty morsels. Meanwhile, tidepools protected by erosion-resistant boulders harbor sea stars, anemones, crabs, sea slugs and numerous other creatures inhabiting the intertidal zone, a place where the ocean’s ebb and flow blur the boundary between terrestrial and marine habitats.

This single mile will keep me occupied a long while. I’ll explore it at an easy pace, investigating slowly and deeply. It’s only one mile, but it holds much that is measureless and vast.

Note: Cape Tolowa and Cape Sitka are fictitious names that I created to protect these infrequently visited sites from increased human impacts. Readers may recognize these places from photos, but I won't reveal any more about their actual locations.

Last Entry in this First Series

Within One Watershed:

Essays from Hackleman Creek

Part 3

The Lake

Fall

An autumn breeze gently lifts needled boughs as I follow a faint path through an old-growth forest just above the dry lakebed. My plan is to descend to the seasonal meadow and walk west until I reach water, where I hope to spot Hackleman cutthroat trout, the genetically isolated population that was cut off from its kin 3000 years ago when a lava flow blocked this valley. For now, though, I slow my pace to enjoy the silent company of conifers.

Moss carpets fallen logs and drapes over tree branches; splintered sunbeams illuminate the trail as it rounds a bend, creating a scene like a Renaissance master’s depiction of divine light. Walking past a fallen tree, I spy what looks like a handful of lavender Easter eggs on the forest floor. A second look reveals that they’re actually freshly sprouted mushrooms the color of lilacs. They’re called gassy webcaps, an unfortunate name for these beauties.

Kneeling near one of the fungi, I take a closer look. It stands about three inches tall, with a lustrous round cap whose surface is silky smooth. Using a hand mirror, I examine the cap’s underside, where the remains of a fragile cobwebby veil cover thin flap-like gills. These gills bear the mushroom’s tiny primitive seed-like structures, called spores. The veil protects the gills while they develop and then breaks as the webcap grows. When the time is right the gills will release the spores for the wind to disperse, spawning the next crop of webcaps.

These fungal fruiting bodies add more than color to the landscape; they are an integral part of the forest’s health. Each fungus grows from tiny rootlets in the soil. These thin hair-like filaments form part of a huge web of gauzy fibers that can spread for several acres underground. Some of the tiny threads wrap themselves around tree roots and form a bond that benefits both tree and fungus. The mushroom absorbs water and minerals from the soil and shares them with the tree via the roots. In return, the tree provides photosynthesized sugar as sustenance for the fungus; each organism helps its partner. Without each other, fungus and tree would struggle to survive. A single tree in this forest could have more than a dozen fungal partners; nutrients can even travel from one tree to several others through this underground network. I look up to a giant Douglas-fir that took root two centuries ago and then down to the purple webcap at its feet; scientists have only begun to understand their hidden connections within the last twenty years.

Bending to tie a loose bootlace, I notice a hard hoof-like growth on the end of a rapidly decomposing log. I’ve found a bracket fungus called a red-belted conk. It secretes tiny water droplets that hang like jewels from its rounded edge. Woody fungi like this are crucial recyclers in the forest. Their thin filaments grow into the log’s moist wood and release enzymes that break down organic material into simple compounds. As the log slowly crumbles into the duff, essential nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous return to the soil to nourish newly sprouted plants and trees.

Stepping around an old tree snag, I spot what looks like a fossilized biscuit at eye-level on the trunk. Chalky white on top with tannish layers below, this fungus, called agarikon, is six inches long and three inches wide. The ancient Greeks used this species to treat tuberculosis, while Indigenous peoples of the Northwest prized it for its spiritual, supernatural and healing powers. Today, medical researchers study agarikon for its antibacterial and antiviral properties. It’s a treat to have such a close look at this mysterious life form, not often seen and rarely found growing this close to the ground. I gently tap it and then click a few photos.

Hiking on, I head down a gentle slope and wade into thick sedges mantling the dry lakebed; dew covers their wide leaf blades and soaks my pants up to the knees. Finding a waterless streambed, my boot prints join the two-toed tracks of deer and elk in the cindery channel; apparently, I’m not the only one who seeks the path of least resistance.

Basalt boulders at the lakebed’s edge bear a horizontal line showing the high-water mark like a bathtub ring. If I were standing here during spring’s full pool, the water’s surface would be just above my head. A leafy curtain of red and orange stands just above the jumbled lava rocks: vine maple bushes, named for their twisting tangled branches, have transformed the slope into a radiant watercolor painting. These brilliant hues appear each year as daylight hours decrease and the trees prepare to shed their leaves before becoming dormant for the winter.

The dry creek bed leads me to an elk trail that winds through a head-high thicket of willow trees. Near the willows I find trampled grass where the huge animals bedded down; I notice branches rubbed bare by antlers. Sidestepping fresh scat, I expect to run into the herd at any moment, but they’ve moved on.

Still following the elk trail, I near the head of the fjord-like meadow, where a still-flowing Hackleman Creek feeds the narrowed lakebed. Hopping from one cobbled side to the other, I make my way upstream. Deepening pools hold finger-length fish skittering to hide beneath undercut banks; they disappear too quickly for me to identify.

I clamber up a muddy embankment eroded by countless elk hooves to arrive above a quiet pool, about three feet deep; just upstream, the creek bounces over a pair of shallow riffles before it slips into the deeper water. Taking a seat on an old log, I study the stream. Movement draws my eyes to an eight-inch trout waiting near the bottom. Every few minutes it zips to the surface to catch an insect carried by the current. The pool, this trout’s place of refuge, will provide it with food and cover while it bides its time, waiting for the lake to fill again. Is it the species I seek – a Hackleman cutthroat trout? Watching it repeatedly rise to the surface and return to the deepest part of the pool, I notice its green skin speckled with small black dots. Each time it rises, I try to spot the two red slash marks on the lower jaw that are the telltale markings of all cutthroat trout. Finally, I give up and, instead of trying to identify exactly what it is, I simply admire who it is.

This small aquatic being is perfectly designed for its fluvial life. Its streamlined body and mucous-covered skin enable it to move through the water with ease. A stiff tail and pectoral fins provide it with momentum, lift, and the ability to steer and stop its body. Eyes positioned high on its head allow it to spot predators approaching from above, while color vision enables it to recognize prey drifting in the flow. Sensory neurons within lateral lines running along each side of its body detect the smallest vibrations in the water emanating from either predator or prey.

I sit transfixed as the little trout slowly moves its tail from side to side to remain stationary in the gentle current. When something of interest floats above, a quick thrust of the tail propels the fish to the surface, where it engulfs the tidbit in its mouth, then turns and descends again to deeper water.

Eventually the amber light of late afternoon signals that it’s time to head back. As I return the way I came, my thoughts turn to everything I’ve seen in twelve months of exploring the Hackleman watershed. Having witnessed the rich complexity of the watershed’s uplands, valley and seasonal lake, I feel fiercely protective of this place.  My Hackleman year has forged a much stronger commitment to educating others about the fragility of all watersheds.

Next: It’s time to explore new environs as I travel to the Oregon Coast to focus on one mile of its magnificent shoreline. 

 

 Within One Watershed:

Essays from Hackleman Creek

Part 3

The Lake

Summer

For three millennia the waters of Hackleman Creek have followed a slow rhythm of pooling and draining in Fish Lake: filling the lakebed in April and emptying it to reveal a verdant meadow in early July. But now the pattern has changed; the undeniable evidence lies before our trio of hikers. The second week of June has just ended, August-like temperatures bear down on us and the lake is completely gone. Unusually warm spring temperatures depleted a snowpack already diminished by less-than-normal winter snowfall; the meltwater briefly filled the lake, but the porous lava sucked it dry sooner than ever before.

Grass-like sedges have sprouted in thick bunches on the lakebed. As their underground stems, called rhizomes, spread and produce new shoots, the clumps will thicken and join to carpet the ground in green, creating cover and forage for terrestrial insects, mammals and birds.

For some organisms, however, the meadow’s premature birth brings early death. As we follow a dry channel that curves across the lakebed between sedge-lined banks, in lieu of the usual shallow flow or lingering puddles we see dried mud cracking in the sun and countless dead case-maker caddisfly larvae. After hatching in water, these macroinvertebrates become miniscule stonemasons, each constructing a rigid case around itself made of tiny rocks bonded by silk excreted from glands near its mouth. On the dried-up lakebed, these cases no longer protect the soft larvae as they were intended; instead, they’ve become pebbly caskets holding desiccated corpses. The creatures’ aquatic habitat vanished way too early, depriving them of a chance to grow, pupate underwater and emerge as free-flying adults.

We follow the dry watercourse west, hoping to find moisture. After 200 yards we see the stagnant remains of a stream. Hundreds of caddisfly and mayfly larvae crowd the small pools, packed together like New Year’s revelers in Times Square. But these little creatures aren’t celebrating; caddisfly larvae pile atop one another in the confined space while the mayfly nymphs dart back and forth, bumping into each other as they frantically search for deeper, cooler water. Cramming into these shrinking pools bought these creatures a little time but, ultimately, they face the same fate as the dead ones we saw earlier.

Moving farther upstream, we eventually find a flowing creek bisecting the wide meadow. Crayfish patrol the bottom and a garter snake slithers through sedges, emerging in the shallows, a bright yellow dorsal stripe running down the length of its black body. Here, young caddisfly and mayfly larvae appear to be thriving in uncrowded conditions.

Working our way slowly along the water’s edge, we spot a large salamander, about eight inches long, lolling in the stream. Its marbled brown skin, thick legs and wide head indicate it’s a pacific giant salamander. Creeping closer, we see its vertically flattened tail and notice short fuzzy gills extending from each side of its head.

Unusual creatures, pacific giant salamanders can grow to be a foot long, and have been known to bark when disturbed. A juvenile will spend two to three years in its  aquatic form, then metamorphose into a terrestrial adult with internal lungs replacing its external gills. Each secretive adult spends most of its time hidden under logs or rocks within 200 yards of its natal stream.

In a strange evolutionary twist, some pacific giant salamanders remain in their juvenile aquatic form their entire lives. This baby-like appearance is misleading, though, as they are able to mate and reproduce.

Resisting the urge to catch this creature, I kneel in the hot sun and ponder its fate. If it’s the type that develops into a terrestrial adult, will the water linger long enough for it to complete its metamorphosis? If it keeps its gilled aquatic form into adulthood, will it be able to move upstream when this part of the creek runs dry? The odds seem stacked against it.

As we slowly head back, I realize that in our search for water, we’ve been looking down all afternoon. Lifting my gaze, I take in the larger scene: the peaked roof of a century-old Forest Service cabin rises above a hill overlooking the meadow. A winged shadow skims across the green as a warm updraft carries a soaring Turkey Vulture in slow circles. Old cottonwoods stand sentinel in the east as the breeze flips each individual leaf, alternately revealing dark green on the upper side and shimmering silver below. Hidden in this idyllic scene is the sad truth that, for some aquatic creatures, summer has come too soon. Their demise is a somber prelude to what may lie ahead for this small watershed and the planet as a whole.