Willamette wildernesses

I visited two new Oregon wilderness areas this month, both situated on the western slopes of the Cascades. The sites were similar in terrain and flora, but conditions were markedly different. My visit to Menagerie on 8 October was at the tail end of a 3 month span of almost completely dry weather. Just a few days later the rain returned to the northwest. By 20 October at Opal Creek I was hiking in rain and hail.

Menagerie

The Menagerie wilderness lies just north of US route 20 in the Willamette National Forest. The trail from Trout Creek and US20 to Rooster Rock is almost a continuous ascent, terminating with a bit of switchback at the top. The Rooster Rock peak approaches 3600’ elevation, not terribly high, but it is about the highest point within decent radius. Two of the three peaks of Sisters were visible to the ESE and there was snow still present there. The lower part of this trail was vegetated by (apparently unlogged) Douglas fir forest with many big leaf maples and an understory of sword ferns, salal, other maples and Oregon grape. Western hemlock appeared to become more common as I gained elevation, as did rhododendrons. Towards the summit of Rooster Rock madrones appeared (impressively tall examples of this species) and the understory vegetation became less dense. In the fairly rocky soil at the top of this hill there were manzanita, and sloping to the north, cedars. Nothing seems to be in bloom, but some leaves are changing colors – yellow rhododendron leaves and red splashes of Oregon grape and poison oak and maples.

Vine maple, Acer circinatum.

Rhododendron.



A stately madrone.

Opal Creek

Much of the vegetation here is like the Menagerie – Douglas fir, western hemlock, lots of salal, maples – and at higher elevation, manzanita, rhododendrons and deer grass. Many of the trees on the south face of the mountain are shorter and in high densities, though there is no obvious sign of logging here. Maybe this is evidence of an intense fire some decades ago. I started my hike late in the day so I was not able to make it quite to the top of the Henline Mountain trail. The impressive gorge of the Little N Santiam River runs east to west and would be in plain view if the gray cloud had not overtaken in the later afternoon. I reached the “snowline” on my hike, though there was only a relatively light dusting on the trees and exposed rocks.

(Clouds creeping up the valley. Movie from just outside the wilderness.)

 

New snow.

Sisters

The three snow-capped peaks of Sisters, each rising to over 10,000 ft, sit right in the middle of the Oregon Cascades. To the north are Mts. Washington and Jefferson. The Sisters peaks are home to many of the glaciers found in the state of Oregon (1). The wilderness that surrounds the three peaks was created in 1964 and is part of the Willamette and Deschutes National Forests (1). At 439 square miles, it is the second largest wilderness in Oregon (2).




South, Middle and North Sisters from the south. Photo by Lyn Topinka, USGS, summer 1985.

28 July 2012. I entered the wilderness from the Lava Camp Lake trailhead, just east of McKenzie Pass and stopped at South Mattieu Lake along the Pacific Crest Scenic Trail (PCT). Here there was essentially a ridge (Scott Pass) at about 6000 ft with the mountains dropping to the west and into the plateau of central Oregon to the east. It was a warm day, but in the evening there were now gusts of wind that started to chill me. This lake was tiny, perhaps only an acre or two in size. I took the PCT south to the western side of Yapoah Crater. The crater was a steeply-sloped and nearly barren hill of volcanic rubble. There were lava fields present throughout the northern part of the wilderness – grey in some places, rust colored in others. Firs, mountain hemlock, and pines comprised the forest at lower elevations but up near the base of Yapoah Crater (elev ~6250 ft), the trees were mostly mountain hemlock with some interspersed pines.

There were quite a few ghost trees at higher elevations in the wilderness – dead mountain hemlocks (or other species) that add an element of history to the landscape. These trees, sometimes silver with the sun low on the horizon, still stood tall but had variously broken-off limbs. Piece by piece they will decay and lend greater depth to the forest’s history. Plant life here is determined by the availability of soil. There were vast fields of barren volcanic rock inhospitable for woody species. Even then, where there was soil, the trees were small. A few herbaceous plants were in bloom – lupines and a common blue trumpet-shaped flower that hangs on in the smallest patches of soil amid the rubble. The north peak of sisters came into view at various times along the trail. A decent percentage of its slopes were still covered in snow. Mts Jefferson and Washington were easily visible to the north. There were a few tiny meadows or drying pond basins there. At one opening in the forest, dragonflies danced about in abundance. Perhaps foraging in the warm air, they would not settle for even the slightest moment so that I could get a decent photograph.




Damselfly near North Mattieu Lake.




Lupines.

11 August 2012. I entered the wilderness as I did two weeks ago, but pushed further south along the PCT than before. I arrived at a wonderfully beautiful alpine meadow where the Scott Trail meets the PCT. A few channels cut through this flower-filled basin much like shallow tidal channels in an estuary. There was just a trickle of flowing water in a creek, probably sourced mostly by continuing snow melt. The meadow was sprinkled with bright pinkish-red paint brushes (Castilleja), bluish-purple lupines (Lupinus) and yellow buttercups (Ranunculus). Small sedges, mosses and rushes contributed to the low-lying carpet of vegetation in the valley. There were also extremely dwarf shrubs that appeared to be willows – such a stark contrast to the tree habit these plants have elsewhere! Even though this was a meadow for all practical purposes, I did not notice any grasses. Interestingly, in their place, other plant families have filled in the dense, but very low-lying vegetation. It would be interesting to study the effects of the annual snowfall on the plants in this ecosystem: Are most of the species annuals? How long is their growing season? Can individual plants survive many months under thick snow cover or in frozen ground?

Continuing south along the PCT, I reached the Opie Dilldock Pass area and stopped on a barren ridge of sharp cinders. At ~6800 feet elevation, I had reached a zone of snow patches. The air was very warm and the remaining snow was rapidly melting. I was now near treeline though in some places the trees extended higher than my current elevation. From this vantage point, there was a wide vista of central Oregon, obscured only by a hazy sky and the even higher peaks present to the east and south.



A 180 degree panorama of an alpine meadow at about 6300 ft elevation. North Sisters (L) is to the south.

The Cascades are a relatively young mountain range having formed starting about 7 million years ago (3). Subduction of the small Juan de Fuca plate under the North American Plate in the Pacific Northwest provides the friction that generates magma production and builds the volcanoes (4). The mountains lie in a gently curving chain from southern British Columbia to northern California. Mt. Shasta and Lassen Peak are the southernmost of the Cascades in California. Geologically, the region is very active, with many of the major mountains having erupted in the last several thousand years (5). The two northern peaks of sisters are considered dormant, but South Sister erupted as recently as 2000 years ago (1). The Cascade Volcano Observatory of the US Geologic Survey monitors volcanic activity in the region.



~270 degree panorama from Opie Dilldock Pass.

North Mattieu Lake from the PCT.

Cone of mountain hemlock, Tsuga mertensiana.



A feeding moth.

North Sisters with Castilleja in the foreground.

A small stream cut through the overlying snow to form elegant shapes.

Spring blooms

Over the last month, I made two trips to Finley National Wildlife Monument in the southern Willamette Valley and two to the Cascades in central Oregon. It is a beautiful spring in the Northwest!

The refuge at Finley is a patch of protected lowland in the most urbanized region of Oregon, the Willamette Valley. A variety of habitats exist at the refuge: hardwood forest, grassland, oak savannah and freshwater wetlands. Like many federally-managed lands, some wildness persists in the refuge, but there are also unmistakable signs of human influence – non-indigenous species, buildings, roads, and bridges. And yet, these small patches of lowland habitat are sorely needed. Across the country there is so little lowland that isn’t burdened heavily by the long shadow of human land use practices. Worldwide, much of our coastal plains and broad low-lying valleys and plains have been devoured by agriculture and urbanization.


Findley was full of flowers: Iris, Claytonia, apple blossoms, Ranunculus, sedges, Camassia, Fritillaria. Here are some specimens below.

Towards the western edge of the refuge, there is a small hill at the base of which is a population of the bright perennial Castilleja levisecta, commonly known as the golden paintbrush. Natural populations of this species no longer exist in Oregon (its native range only spans the Willamette Valley to southern Vancouver Island), but some populations have been reintroduced to western Oregon. The Institute for Applied Ecology, a non-profit group based in Corvallis, Oregon, has been working with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and community volunteers to plant and monitor the species. Castilleja is a species-rich genus with which I am only a little familiar (Castilleja ambigua grows in the coastal wetlands of Oregon and I remember encountering reddish ‘paintbrushes’ a number of times in the chaparral of California).

Currently, some snow remains in the Cascades, at least above about 4000 ft. Spring blooms aren’t as abundant, but in my drives and hikes this month I came across blooming dogwood trees, Trillium ovatum, and other flowers. On one short excursion yesterday, I hiked around a pair of waterfalls along the McKenzie River near Clear Lake in the Willamette National Forest. The falls and rapids were roaring with snowmelt. I found two small populations of a beautiful orchid, Calypso bulbosa, growing under cedars on a sloping bank near the river. These plants have just a single basal leaf and a flower stalk not typically more than a few inches above the soil.

Lastly, enjoy this video of Sahalie Falls:

Reference:
Turner, M. and P. Gustafson. 2006. Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest. Timber Press.

Western pearls

The Cascades and Sierras are like a string of pearls lying from north to south along the western edge of the United States: Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood, Crater Lake, Mt. Shasta, Tahoe, Yosemite, Sequoia. Over the last few years I have come to love these beautiful mountains. The white peaks of the Cascades are volcanic in origin and still active: the violent eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980 and the bubbling sulfurous mudpots found in Lassen National Park attest to this. Many of these mountains have a beautiful conical shape, like the revered symmetry of Mt. Fuji in Japan.

Mt. Lassen in northern California is the southernmost major peak of the Cascades. But topographically at least, the mountains continue to the south with the Sierra Nevada range. The Sierras tell a different geologic story than the Cascades. Some 250 million years ago, the collision of the Pacific and North American plates melted rock that formed under the ocean in plumes (1). These structures fused. Then about 80 mya, this massive chunk of rock pushed up through the ocean floor and carried the marine sediments that had been deposited on top. Asymmetrical uplift left the eastern side of the Sierras at a higher elevation, with a more gradual decline to the west. Subsequent erosion removed much of the marine sediment, and recent glacial activity carved elegant designs into the landscape such as the world-famous Yosemite Valley.

John Muir, the poet laureate of the Sierras, termed these magnificent mountains “the range of light”. In evangelical exuberance, which Muir used without hesitation in his description of wilderness, he described a view of Yosemite in the heart of the Sierras:

“It is easier to feel than to realize, or in any way explain, Yosemite grandeur. The magnitudes of the rocks and trees and streams are so delicately harmonized they are mostly hidden. Sheer precipices three thousand feet high are fringed with tall trees growing close like grass on the brow of a lowland hill …. Waterfalls, five hundred to one or two thousand feet high, are so subordinated to the mighty cliffs over which they pour that they seem like wisps of smoke, gentle as floating clouds, though their voices fill the valley and make the rocks tremble. … The mountains, too, along the eastern sky, and the domes in front of them, and the succession of smooth rounded waves between, swelling higher, higher, with dark woods in their hollows, serene in massive exuberant bulk and beauty, tend yet more to hide the grandeur of the Yosemite temple and make it appear as a subdued subordinate feature of the vast harmonious landscape. Thus every attempt to appreciate any one feature is beaten down by the overwhelming influence of all the others.” (2).

Just before the turn of the new year this winter, we took an adventure north to south down the eastern side of these magnificent mountains. We crossed the Cascades east of Eugene and once over the crest of the range, traveled from that point forward in high country on our trip to southern California. Passing through the Cascade Range in central Oregon, I was amazed once again by the dramatic shift in vegetation on either side of the divide. Dense coniferous forests with lush green understories dominate the western slopes of the Cascades, but the forests quickly change to drier, shorter and more open canopies vegetated by pines to the east. The change in forest type is, of course, driven by differences in precipitation on the eastern and western slopes. Storm clouds moving inland from the Pacific run into the mountains and dump most of their captive water before reaching the high country.

On this trip, it snowed briefly in southern Oregon near Chemult, but the skies lightened as we moved further south towards the Oregon/California border. In Modoc County (NE California), we entered the Great Basin floristic province. Here the vegetation became desert scrub peppered with juniper trees, the largest plants on the landscape. Small patches of snow remained on the ground. Our first significant stop was Lava Beds National Monument. The short winter day was drawing to a close but we explored two of the lava caves. They were cold wide shafts filled with rubble of very bland grey and pale colors; the caves relatively gradually descended downward into the earth. We saw no bats or other wildlife in the caves, but located some small ice sculptures adhering to the rocks below. The little sculptures were shaped like hemispherical ice cream scoops, having accumulated when water dripped from the cave ceiling above and apparently froze quickly as it flowed down the mound.

Visitors in a cave at Lava Beds National Monument

The next day, further south, the highway took us near Susanville and into Nevada for a time before crossing backing into California. We arranged for a stay in the small town of Bridgeport back on the California side of the border.

On day three we learned from a highway sign that several of the roads that traverse the Sierras that are typically closed to traffic during the snowy winter months were still open at this late season. This exciting news led to a quick decision to make a detour into the eastern end of Yosemite National Park. Access to Yosemite high country by car at this time of year was a real treat since National Park records indicate that Tioga Pass had not been open this late in the winter for at least the last 31 years! (3) Already at about 7000 ft elevation in the Mono Lake area, we made it up the pass to nearly 10000 ft towing our small rented trailer. Tioga Pass is a lightly vegetated gorge of granite and snow with strong winds that move down the canyon. On the less sun-exposed places to the south and deep in the canyon, ice froze in place to form suspended white and turquoise waterfalls.

Tioga Pass

At the top of the canyon, we encountered our first alpine lake (Ellery Lake), locked frozen into the mountains at 9538 ft. Further west into the park, we explored Lembert Dome, Tuolumne Meadows and Tenaya Lake. Near Lembert Dome, we took a hike through coniferous forest to Dog Lake. Like the other alpine lakes, this one too was frozen. We walked and shoe skated over the whitish-grey ice.

Dog Lake

In the afternoon we left Yosemite, heading back down Tioga Pass onto the east side of the Sierras in time for a sunset that painted clouds and mountainsides various colors. On day four we moved further south into the Owens Valley and started to encounter classic southern California desert habitat. Tufts of dried tumbleweeds were interspersed semi-regularly on sands and rubble on the grey landscape. Perhaps their phobia for neighbors was created by intense competition underground for the sparse water available in the desert. Here the landscape was open. Expansive smooth valleys were rimmed with tall mountains. The majestic granitic Sierras, light with snow cover rose, abruptly to the west from the valley floor. 

The Sierras from Owens Valley (Mt. Whitney is in there somewhere...)

The last day of our journey took us to Death Valley National Park and further south to the metropolitan expanse of southern California. Coming up towards the park, we saw Joshua tree sentinels on the landscape. We did not proceed deep into the park, but did drive through the Panamint Valley, an utterly barren swath of land set between the Argus Mountains to the west and the Panamint Range to the east. Though not hot on that late December day, one could easily imagine the searing heat of the landscape during the death days of summer.

Notes:

1. A concise history of Sierra geology.

2. Muir, J. 1911. My First Summer in the Sierra.

3. The road was finally closed on 17 Jan 2012. See the NPS data here.