Minor Outbursts

Day 299: Like most Pacific Northwesterners, when temperatures start edging into the upper 80s and lower 90s, our glacial streams and rivers get a little cranky. Tahoma Creek has a notoriously short temper in this regard, and over the last several days, made its displeasure with the weather known in a set of at least two minor outbursts. When Joe and I drove over the bridge on Wednesday en route to a Team Biota survey, it remained muddy and high despite having had close to 24 hours to calm after its most recent tantrum. It had gone down another two feet by the time we returned to take photos, and new deposits of mud and rock were visible in its bed. It was still pounding hard on the buttresses at either end of the bridge, a reminder that once not too long ago in a major fit of anger, it joined with the larger Nisqually to destroy Sunshine Point Campground. Outburst floods like these two most recent surges may have a number of different initiating factors, including pooled glacial meltwater being released when an ice dam collapses. Tahoma Creek has experienced several outbursts of this nature.