Rusavskia Elegans At Panorama Point

Day 6: I recently decided to re-read Terry Pratchett's "Hogfather" and discovered that I'd previously gone right over a gem of botanical humour without it registering. I present it here, aptly, to accompany Rusavskia elegans, formerly known as Xanthoria elegans.

Says Ponder Stibbons of bananas, "...Botanically, its a type of fish, sir. According to my theory it's cladistically associaed with the Krullian pipefish, sir, which of course is also yellow and goes around in bunches or shoals."

Ah, yes, the logic of taxonomy! For generations, that was exactly how it worked. This plant has five petals, the ovary is superior, the leaf has such-and-so shape and is semi-succulent, the growth habit is trailing, therefore it has to be a Nasturtium. Okay, it was a little more complicated than that, but you get the idea. Many things (not only vascular plants and lichens, but animals as well) were dumped into genera based on obvious morphological features. With the advent of and growing accessibility to DNA analysis, we're discovering that even some species which look almost identical are in fact members of different genera than we thought. In-depth knowledge of their genetic structure sometimes necessitates the creation of a new genus as was the case with Rusavskia. It looks like a Xanthoria (duck), quacks like a Xanthoria (duck), swims like a Xanthoria (duck), but it is not a Xanthoria. It's still duck-like, but Rusavskia is a goose.

And there was a whole flock of Rusavskia "geese" bright against the dark rock and skies above Panorama Point's historic resroom, more than I have ever seen in one place. I couldn't get close to the main population of rosettes without climbing on the roof (prohibited), but the rock face looked as if someone had come along with a can of orange spray paint and laid on a streak six inches wide by three feet long. In just a few weeks, they'll be buried in snow, remaining hidden for the next six months or so, to survive the cruelty of the prolonged alpine winter.

Counterpoint

Day 5: Panorama Point is aptly named. On a clear day, you can see three major mountains and possibly catch a glimpse of a fourth if you walk around until you hit the right spot. Most distant and hardest to see is Jefferson in Oregon. Hood is more obvious. Washington's Mount Adams has a similar profile to Mount Rainier and dominates the skyline to the southeast, and of course the great crater of Mt. St. Helens is the most significant feature to the southwest. That said, the nearest horizon is built from a chain of lesser peaks known as the Tatoosh Range. For their part, the Tatooshes draw the line for the sawtoothed southern boundary of the Park from Longmire eastward: Eagle, Chutla, Wahpenayo, Lane, Plummer, Pinnacle, Castle, Unicorn, Boundary and Stevens. Of the Tatoosh Peaks, Unicorn is the highest at 6817'. You might think you were at an elevation below its summit, but in fact at Panorama Point, you are 300' higher.

On Tuesday, I could see Adams and Hood in the distance, although St. Helens was lost in cloud. Lenticular clouds were forming near Adams and one, dark and foreboding, seemed to have been snagged by Unicorn's black horn. In truth, it was well to the south, following the white one already trapped in Mt. Adams' grasp. The counterpoint of light and dark captured my eye despite its visual fiction.

Panorama Point

Crow and the Tatooshes

Day 4: I'm going to play the "little old lady" card here and tell you how it was in the Good Old Days. Thirty or forty years ago, you could go up to Paradise on a summer weekday, park your car in the upper lot and head off hiking a confusing network of dusty trails. By the time you'd reached your destination, you might have passed a few other hikers, but if you'd left early enough (like say at 8 o'clock), you might not have encountered anyone until you started back. Weekends were different, of course, because everybody and their dog (no, not in the Good Old Days...let's say "everybody" instead and leave the dog at home)...everybody came out on the weekends, especially if the weather was nice. There would be so many people on the weekend that you might have to park in the lower lot if you didn't get there before 1O AM. You could still find pockets of solitude once you were on the trail because everyone dispersed as soon as they hit trail intersections, but yes, the trails were more populated on pleasant weekend days. As population figures rose, so did visitation. More social trails developed through the lovely wildflower meadows: paths to rocks and overlooks which in truth were not all that much different than the established by-paths only a few feet away. The Park found it necessary to take steps to protect the meadows, so they paved some of the lower trails to try to keep people from venturing off on their own.

I don't recall exactly when the paving began because I largely avoided Paradise, preferring to hike in places where I was less likely to encounter another human. In fact, I usually only used a trail to get to a jumping-off point, departing from it to enter designated wilderness where foot traffic was regulated by your ability to navigate with map and compass. The next time I returned to Paradise (an event occasioned by duty), the amount of asphalt laid on the Mountain's shoulder appalled me. Paradise is being "loved to death" by thousands of visitors, hundreds each day, many of whom ignore the regulations to traipse across fragile alpine meadows, often with their dog in the lead. When someone asks me where they should go in the Park, I tell them, "Not Paradise. They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot," recalling Joni Mitchell's song, "Big Yellow Taxi."

Historic Panorama Point restroom

If your goal is to get somewhere specific from Paradise (as opposed to taking a wildflower walk), your best option is to go in the shoulder seasons of spring or fall. In the first instance, you'll need snowshoes or skis; in the second, solitude can still be had if you're willing to brave the weather. When a new virtual geocache was allowed to be established at Panorama Point's historic restroom, it gave me a reason for an autumn hike. Some snow had already fallen at Paradise and the forecast was for more this weekend, so I went up on Tuesday, the leading edge of the front building a stack of lenticular cloud pancakes on the summits of the Mountain and Mount Adams in the distance. The distance to Pan Point is 1.7 miles. The elevation gain is 1700'. Do the math. One thousand feet per mile is considered "steep" by most hikers, and the steepest portion of the Skyline Trail is that first asphalted three-quarters of a mile straight out of the parking lot. Above the Dance Floor, it rolls back a bit and the ascent becomes a series of rock stairs interspersed with short stretches of sandy soil, but at no point does it offer relief from lifting your body with each progressive step.

At Pan Point (as we lovingly call it), you are afforded a full view of the Tatoosh Range to the south and, if you're lucky, you may be able to spot Mount Hood and/or Jefferson as well as Adams and St. Helens. In my case, Adams and Hood were out, but St. Helens was hidden by cloud. Wind, pushed by the front, whipped across the ridge and added an additional 15 degrees of chill to the nip one would expect at 7100' on a cold autumn day. I abandoned plans to continue up to Pebble Creek or to loop through Golden Gate, retreating the way I had come and making...yes, even under threatening skies...making 44 visitor contacts before I got down.

Classic Mountain Goat Photo

Day 3: My first thought was, "Oh, Joe is going to be so jealous!" My botany partner has been searching for goats all summer, and even as I was climbing past Handsome Billy en route to Panorama Point, Joe was off on his own "last hike of autumn" to Pinnacle Peak saddle. Billy was lying down when I first spotted him above the junction to Pebble Creek, roughly 100 feet from me. Having had a few goat experiences during my career, I wasn't going to try to get closer. I'd rather have to deal with a bear in the backcountry than a goat. You can reason with a bear if you gently explain that you need to reach your destination and don't try to force it to give ground. A territorial goat is another matter entirely, particularly a male. I edged a few feet up the Pebble Creek trail for a view clear or foreground rocks, but even that slight encroachment made Billy turn his attention toward me. Nope, deeming it not worth the risk to get closer, I retreated. Further along the trail, I looked back. Billy was on his feet now, backed by grey rocks in a classic mountain goat pose. As I zoomed in for the shot, I thought again of Joe, somewhere over there in the goatless Tatoosh, but I knew he'd be getting some spectacular photos of his own.

But enough of me. You're here because you want to know something about mountain goats, right? Ever wonder how they get out on some of those ledges, or more to the point, why they don't fall off? It's the hooves. A goat's hoof is cloven into two "toes," and each portion consists of a hard outer shell of keratin, the same stuff (goat version) which makes up your fingernails. Draw a teardrop-shape in your mind. That's the exterior of each toe. The center portion of the teardrop contains a rough-surfaced but soft pad not too unlike the pads on your dog or cat's feet. That soft portion functions like a suction cup when the goat steps onto a slick rock. To give even better traction, a goat's toes are somewhat flexible, spreading apart as weight is put on the hoof. This isn't saying that goats never make fatal judgment errors, but it happens rarely enough that you're almost as likely to find rock-climber bones at the base of a cliff as you are goat remains. Almost.