Sunday, March 17, 2024
A few Irish music favorites
Saturday, February 24, 2024
Sunny Day Above Wallula Gap
I got a chance to get up on the edge of Wallula Gap. Alas access is very limited due to private property. The expansion of big ag ownership with irrigation has resulted access limitations.
I have put up a fair number posts on Wallula Gap:
https://washingtonlandscape.blogspot.com/2014/06/ice-age-floods-dem-and-lake-lewis.html https://washingtonlandscape.blogspot.com/2011/04/wallula-gap-and-john-mix-stanley.html https://washingtonlandscape.blogspot.com/2011/04/wallula-gap-and-prime-farmland.html https://washingtonlandscape.blogspot.com/2012/05/sheep-in-vineyard.html https://washingtonlandscape.blogspot.com/2012/12/columbia-river-treaty-and-cover-photo.html https://washingtonlandscape.blogspot.com/2013/01/grand-canyon-and-wallula-gap-its.html https://washingtonlandscape.blogspot.com/2013/10/wallula-gap-geology-and-art.html https://washingtonlandscape.blogspot.com/2013/11/lake-lewis-and-wallula-gap.html
Monday, January 29, 2024
Lodge Pole Transplants
I have observed that large swaths of Shaw Island and Lopez Island are covered with stands of lodge pole pine. The lodge pole appear to do well in silty glacial till soils. The glacial till is very dense and hard and has very low rates of permeability. The upper soil above the unweathered till is only about 1 to 2 feet thick. Hence, the upper soil layer becomes saturated in the winter. Lopez and Shaw Islands are within the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains so the total rainfall results in the till becoming essentially desiccated in the summer. Another climate factor is the San Juan Islands area subject to periodic very cold temperatures associated with the Arctic outflow of air from the Fraser River to the northeast. The combination of wet winter ground, dry ground in the summer and high very cold wind is a good match for lodge pole.
During a recent venture I came across lodge pole pines growing within a logging road on the steep upper northeast slope of Mount Constitution on Orcas Island. The logging road was beginning to get colonized by brush and trees.
The seedlings on the road were primarily western hemlock and lodge pole pine. There were a few Douglas fir seedlings, but they were heavily browsed by deer as was the ocean spray brush. There were couple of Sitka spruce seedlings as well. The dominant tree in most of this forest outside the clear cut is Douglas fir, but western hemlock thrives on this wet shady northeast facing slope and there are numerous clusters of Sitka Spruce in the near vicinity and scattered through this forest area likely due to the cooler temperatures and relatively high rainfall on the upper slopes of Mount Constitution. The lodge pole in this cool wet area appears to be a pioneer tree taking advantage of the wet hard ground of the old road bed. Large area of the upper part of Mount Constitution has stands of lodge pole possible due to the the same combination of wet winter and dry summer conditions but also the upper summit area gets very high wind from all directions and perhaps that and a periodic in the past lightning stikes provided the openings that lodge poles thrive in.
My home ground on Samish Island on the northern edge of the Skagit River delta is underlain by concrete like glacial till and goes from wet soggy ground to desiccated every year. It is also subject to very high winds. In particular the south and east winds knock trees down regularly in the winter on out portion of the island. Elsewhere on the island it is the north or west wind.
Given that the seedlings on the road were doomed I took a few lodge pole seedlings and one Sitka spruce seedling home.
Assessing the forest is not my area of expertise, but I have accumulated a few observations and try to keep learning. I did find some igneous rocks that I tentatively interpret to be part of the Turtleback Complex.
Thursday, January 25, 2024
A Few Notes on Israel Russell
Over the past several months I have encountered Israel Russell on several occasions. Russell did some of the earliest work on trying to figure out some of the remarkable features of Washington State (Russell (1893), Russell (1897) and Russell (1900). He made a significant effort in his writing style to appeal to non geologist readers as well as the technical detail needed for his USGS reports. Russell is referenced several times in a book I recently read, The Great Columbia Plain A Historical Geography 1805-1910 by Donald Meinig. I crossed paths with Russel again when doing some research for work I was doing in the Yakima Canyon.
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
Very Large Tree Spear
I made a side trip to confirm what I thought I was seeing.
This spear appears to have been the limb of a cottonwood. It was very firmly embedded in the wet ground and did not budge even slightly when I pushed hard against it. The soil here is silt flood deposits.
Saturday, January 13, 2024
Another Icy Bay - Alice Bay
I enjoy our periodic short burst of true winter weather. The cold periods in western Washington are short. I will say that while the areas subject to Fraser River outflow winds are a bit rough - 50 mph winds when the temperature in the teens and single digit range is not pleasant.
The north edge of Skagit delta does get cold due to the proximity of the Fraser Canyon winds coming down across Whatcom County and over Bellingham and Samish Bay. The delta is generally a windy place, but Samish Island deflects the north wind such that the south side of the island is cold but not windy.
Alice Bay, a bay that is separated from Samish Bay by a low peninsula of salt water marsh was completely frozen over. Alice Bay usually completely empties of water during low tides; hence, the shallow water during high tides freezes.
Friday, January 12, 2024
Icy Padilla Bay
This winter has been very mild with no hard freezes until last night. Not sure of the local low at Padilla Bay, but it was somewhere in the vicinity of 6 F. The bay is shallow with broad tide flats that extend about a mile from the beach. The shallow sea water froze. It was a chilly night for the locals on the north shore of the bay as power was out most of the night.