Out And About

Day 205: For the first time in at least a year, I got out and about this morning with my botany partners. It wasn't much of an outing as outings go: just a quick trip up to Longmire to look at the Calypso Orchids and a brief stop to remove illegally-planted materials installed by a repeat offender at a "memorial" site. It was a bit on the nippy side, nighttime temps still hovering close to the freezing mark, but my winter-weary lungs appreciated the bracing mountain air. The Calypsos were less numerous than in years past, although there were some lovely clusters, even some including the white variation. The view of the Mountain from Kautz Creek showed how thin the snowpack has become as glaciers recede and lose mass due to global warming. Snow depth at Paradise is at 129", 81 percent of normal.

Kautz Creek Keyhole Tree

Day 336: From USGS's website: "The October 2-3, 1947 Kautz Creek was the site of the most voluminous debris-flow event of historical time; it covered the road with 28 feet of mud, rocks, and tree debris. Very heavy rainfall started early on October 1, and the first debris flow occurred October 2 between 10 and 11 p.m. A succession of debris flows moved down valley during the night ending at 8 a.m. October 3. An estimated 40 million m³ (52 million yd³) of debris was deposited in a fan along the Nisqually River that extended up Kautz Creek valley northward across the highway."

Although eyewitness Assistant Superintendent Harthon Bill reported "logs were striking the abutments and flying right over the bridge," some trees were left standing, doomed to suffocate in the mud. Their silver snags can be seen as you hike the first mile of trail from parking. Near the edge of a channel carved by another flooding event stands an old friend I call the Keyhole Tree, waist-deep in the historic mud which cut its life short. I cannot tell you why it branched to form a curl. Nor can I tell you its species. I just know it as a landmark, part of the songline which takes me through an area seemingly scant of vegetation, but looking to the ground, I see recovery at work. A long process, to be sure, but the lichens and mosses and pioneer forbs are hard at work here, rebuilding a forest into which one day the Keyhole Tree will be reabsorbed.

Kautz Crossing

Day 334: For the way the rest of the week has gone, it comes as no surprise that I was stung by something big, black and bad-tempered while I was out looking for mushrooms this morning. I didn't ask for its ID, but since I wasn't dead by the time I got back to the car, it wasn't a bee. I knew it wasn't a bee anyway, because I saw it as I swatted it off the back of my hand. Nor was it a deer-fly, because I am having a typical "wasp" reaction: my hand has swelled up to the size of a basketball and hurts clear up to my ears. Slight exaggeration there, yes, but swollen and painful nonetheless. I almost aborted the second part of the day's plan...the part (forgive me, Kevin, for not sticking to the prospectus) formulated while I was looking for 'shrooms. I've been telling myself I wanted to walk up Kautz for the last couple of weeks, but the thought of hordes of visitors on the trail was a strong deterrent. Today was cloudy and cool, and I covered the mile to and from the creek crossing without seeing a soul once I'd gone past the viewpoint near parking. The joy of being alone in the woods even seemed to take the "sting" out of my poor hand as long as I was in motion. It wasn't much of a hike: mostly flat, only a mile (one way), nothing scenic, although the area has a unique charm due to having been scoured by a glacial outburst event back in 1947. Three-quarters of a century later, not much grows there except slide alder, lichen and moss. But did I find mushrooms? Nothing edible, no. It's been a rough week. Maybe I should get up on the other side of the bed tomorrow morning. Or not at all.

Point, Laugh

Day 121: Here's a little Crow humour to start your morning off right...another one of those "things found in unattended cameras" from last week. Yesterday's contribution was a profile of George Washington at Mount Rushmore as viewed on a computer screen.

Earlier in the day, Kevin had suggested to me that we might stop by Kautz Creek for a short hike in pursuit of a specific lichen where Red Alder is abundant. I had declined, saying, "You'd be bored to tears with me stopping every five feet to spend ten minutes looking at tree bark," but the crestfallen look on his face haunted me for the remainder of the day. As we were preparing to leave the office, I reopened the proposal and he quickly agreed, saying that we should at least check the trees closest to the boardwalk. The end result was a 45-minute exploration of approximately half an acre of new-growth alder interspersed heavily with Doug fir. We did not find Graphis scripta, although we discovered several other species of interest.

At one point in our adventure, I had gone to examine a long-dead standing trunk some 15' in height and about 5" in diameter. As I rested the camera against the tree to photograph a developing slime mold, it snapped off eight inches from ground level and went crashing down. Behind a stump and therefore unable to see me, Kevin called out, "Are you all right? What happened?" I paused for effect, and replied, "Termites?" Indeed, the base of the tree was riddled with holes in the core. With the trunk on the ground, the slime mold was much easier to photograph, Kevin holding his cell phone to light it while I took the picture (bottom left).

Having a field day (literally) with a like-minded friend is not something I do often, and sometimes I forget how enjoyable it can be. Two sets of eyes are always better than one when searching for the unusual or rare, and the delight in discovery is exhilarating regardless of who makes the find. Perhaps there is no Graphis scripta in the Kautz Creek drainage. We won't know until we've surveyed every tree. We're weird and we know it, out there with our magnifiers studying bark with infinite curiosity, but at least we're in good company.

Stereocaulon Paschale, Easter Lichen

Day 145: Before you ask, I do not know why Stereocaulon paschale is called "Easter Lichen." It is one of approximately half a dozen "foam" lichens which can be found in the Pacific Northwest, and most of the others have the word "foam" in their common names: Woolly Foam, Rock Foam, Snow Foam. Easter Lichen isn't quite as "foamy" as the others, so perhaps that's why the word was omitted from its nomenclature. The woody, tough stalks of Stereocaulon paschale are often only sparsely covered by the fuzzy tomentum which is a primary characteristic of the family of Stereocaulons, and when this lichen colonizes on soil or mossy rocks, it does so abundantly. This specimen was found on the Kautz Creek trail.

High Water

Day 43: I have certainly seen the Nisqually running higher and faster than it was today, but it is still flooding low-lying areas and bringing a lot of debris downstream. November and February are typically our wettest months, and what brings the rivers up most dramatically is rain on top of an early snow-pack, as is the case in this event. Earlier this week, Paradise saw its first major accumulation of the year, enough that the Park brought out the plows and visitors were beginning looking forward to the snow-play season. A change to rain sent much of it coursing down the Nisqually while other areas (notably the Carbon River and Puyallup drainages) are also experiencing flood conditions. The Park was closed today when debris backed up behind a culvert, sending Kautz Creek over the road. While major flooding  is not expected, even minor events like this one can be inconvenient to Park personnel as well as to the visitors who come out in all sorts of weather.

Bird's Nest Fungus, Nidula Niveotomentosa

Day 76: I had gone out intending only to make a short hike around the nature trail at Longmire (Mt. Rainier National Park), but when that was done, I didn't feel I had a photo which would qualify for today's post, so I pulled off at the Kautz Creek parking area and put on my gaiters. A mile would get me to the creek crossing and surely I'd find something there, if not on the way.

I had gone only a hundred yards or so down the trail when I encountered the first of many large deadfalls, victims of last week's violent windstorm. Navigating through them or around them in thick, young forest was not easy and I nearly gave the project up as more trouble than it was worth. In a tenth of a mile or so, I'd worked through it and had a clear path almost to the creek crossing. There, I climbed over one last fallen tree, still no satisfactory image in the camera. Over the slick log bridges I went, hoping for an interesting ice formation, but nothing caught my eye. After climbing partway up the hill on the far side, I decided I'd have to find something closer to home.

As I was ascending through the snow-covered boulders lining the deeply entrenched stream channel, I spotted this teeny-tiny Bird's Nest Fungus at eye level, growing on the side of a long-dead log. At the end of the log was a cluster of five or six more, not yet open. Bird's Nest resembles pencil-eraser sized puffballs before the "lids" burst to reveal the "eggs" inside. What you see here is a fully mature specimen with its cargo of peridioles which in turn hold the spores of the species. If you look closely at the log beside the nest, you can see an egg. This fungus relies on rain to wash the "eggs" out of the cup. In this species, the eggs are attached to the cup by a thread of tissue (below).

And to think I might have turned around at the first sign of deadfall obstructing the trail! Such a tiny treasure, this, and well worth a walk in knee-deep snow.