Lewis And Clark

Day 299: A voice came through the brush, its owner rendered invisible by a screen of blackberry vines: "We're going to call this the 'Lewis and Clark' hike after this." Nisqually Land Trust Steward Charly Kearns had been scouting ahead for a route as the remaining seven of us edged along the muddy rim of a beaver dam. Charly was wishing for a machete. One of the team members passed a trekking pole forward and I took to whacking thorny stems as thick as a man's thumb. The "kudzu of the north" is one of the plants we strive to remove from our properties, but in this case, we were forging through timber company lands where invasives grow unchecked. I knew that there was an easier and much shorter way into Boxcar Canyon and suspected that Charly had designed this hike to be an "experience" in land management. It's not an easy job.

In spring or fall when leaves wouldn't have obscured the view, you might have gotten a glimpse of the canyon walls which confine the Mashel River here, but on this day, we pushed through approximately two and a half miles before arriving at a popular (and prohibited) swimming hole beneath an old railroad bridge where we could look directly up the gorge. The water was dark and deep where it cut through the rocks, and inevitably, litter lined the shore. The Mashel is part of the greater Nisqually River watershed, and thus falls within the definition of habitat the Land Trust strives to protect. Future acquisitions may allow us to restore the historic salmon run here, but for now, portions of it are still owned by timber companies and the Town of Eatonville.

The "Lewis and Clark hike" wound down as we strolled the last half-mile back toward Eatonville, munching blackberries as we walked along a disused access road. The sound of traffic on the highway brought us back into the modern world, perhaps a little wiser for the journey.