Thanksgiving/Seattle

I had an absolutely incredible time this weekend in Seattle with my friend Luke... we went to go see a show at the Tractor, a small venue in Ballard. The band we saw was a folky bluegrass group from Duluth, Minnesota called Trampled by Turtles, and they tore it up. It was super high energy, dancin' all night music, and lucky for us they came out for two encores. Below is a song by them called Empire.

There's a guitar, bass, mandolin, banjo, and fiddle.



I also got to walk around the Fremont Sunday market, have a hamburger from Dick's, go to Capital Hill and up the water tower (the view there rivals the Space Needle's, or so I hear, and is free), visit the REI flagship store, and kick it with some really nice people. All in all it was an outstanding weekend in the city.

I also was treated last week to a slew a presents from most notably my Mom and Mom-Mom. (Thanks guys!) I even got a tree in the mail, how cool is that? And do you notice the new stocking? Complete with bear...

Too bad I can't touch anything until later in December...

...well... maybe just the one...

And so these are pictures from Thanksgiving at Kylan's place. That's his Mom's house in the background.

His landlord's place.

And Kylan's place.

They've got a great view of the mountains. On Thanksgiving it was a gorgeous day, and so was the next, so we went on with our plans to fish. We didn't fare too well, partly because we lost our weights halfway through our trip, and if you've ever tried to fish in a river without weights, its very frustrating.

Here's a bald eagle. They are everywhere, and are so much more impressive when not seen in a zoo.

We wanted to toss a line in this salmon hatchery, but those darned fences got in our way. That and the law.

I did catch this sucker though. A nice rainbow trout about 14 inches long (with the head... sorry about the gruesome picture now that I think about it) and a couple of pounds. Good enough to keep.

This was the view outside my apartment balcony... pretty sweet, eh?

And just to let you know, I think this will be the last post until the new year. It's too cold outside and I need a break. This is hard work keeping this up, you know. I'll be coming back strong when I get back from home after the holidays, though. Cleveland here we come!!

Shi Shi Beach

Happy Thanksgiving!! I hope everybody had a wonderful time with family and friends and stuffed their faces full of food, I know I did. However, this was my first Thanksgiving sans family, but I still had a great time at Kylan's place. They were so nice to invite me, and I surely got my share of the feast. Fitting for a farm experience they put me right to work peeling apples and making the cranberry sauce.

I also brought along some homemade Bailey's Irish Cream, and it was a big hit. All night people were asking me how I made it, so I'll extend the recipe here:

1 3/4 c. Irish whiskey
1 can Eagle condensed milk
1 c. whipping cream
4 beaten eggs
2 tbsp. chocolate syrup
2 tbsp. instant coffee
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. almond extract

And of course, you have to double everything to make twice as much!! You get the satisfaction of making it yourself and save about 30 bucks in the process (assuming you already have the almond and vanilla extract because holy crap those cost a lot).

Anyway, I'll have some pictures of that up next week... I'm still waiting on the pics that Kylan's mom took.

In the meantime, I went on a day hike with my buddy Luke this weekend to Shi Shi Beach, a true wilderness coast.

Shi Shi was one of the last additions to Olympic National Park, being annexed in 1976. Up until the late 90s the trail granting access to the coast was closed because of land disputes with developers and abutting land owners. Finally a settlement was reached and things got spruced up a bit.

Just north of the park is the Makah reservation, on which the natives (in a very loose sense) developed a very well constructed trail that includes cedar-planked boardwalks and bridges that lead to the coast.

Along the way is a forest of Sitka spruces that are constantly nurtured by the dampness of rain and fog. The day we went there was a light drizzle and a temp hovering around 45... not too shabby for a walk to the beach around here.

Somebody is very excited about the new law that takes effect in February of 2010. It repeals the Reagan-era restrictions of firearms in national parks. You still can't hunt, though.

Stumbling down the steep path to the coast you come upon this incredible seaside campground, complete with firepit.

Ah the salty air! Right as we hit the sand the rain let up and it just hit low tide.

There are kelp forests just off the coast that lie in the depths of the cold, nutrient-rich water. Sea otters lover to play around in them... this isn't the season for seeing them, though, I don't think.

Water runs from up in the forest down to little estuaries entering the Pacific. It looks really neat because the water erodes the wet sand and forms a miniature river gully.

Our destination was 2 miles down, the Point of Arches... a mile-long cavalcade of sea stacks and natural arches. You really wouldn't want to get stuck out here during high tide, unless you enjoy huddling in a cave with freezing sea waves beating into you.

I caught this thing scurrying around... have no idea what it is.

Me...

...and Luke.

And this is what I have to come back to...

Off to the Sol Duc

This week my crew and I are off to the Sol Duc river valley. The Sol Duc River is one of the few in the area that isn't dammed. For any type of environmentalist that's a plus, and for salmon it's a lifeline. We're renovating a "comfort station" at the campground all the way up the road in to the park, something like 12 miles deep.

Halfway up we decided to stop and wonder at the Salmon Cascades, a series of small waterfalls where the quintessential salmon pose takes place... of a fish jumping out of the water with all its might in order to spawn in the quiet pools miles above where it was born, and where it will die.

The pictures don't really do it justice, considering that spawning is over and there aren't any fish to see, not to mention I couldn't get a decent wide angle shot of the water body's entirety. In the same vein, the rapids don't look all that peculiar. But when seen in contrast to the stately evergreens sitting ashore, its a remarkable atmosphere.

Even still, I tried to capture the force, relentlessness, and length of the rapids, as well as some of the lush corridor that surrounds them. At least it sounds good, right? I'm still an amateur you know...

We've had a couple intense wind storms during the last week that wreaked havoc in the interior of the park. The shell of a once dominating tree reveals the brutality of it all.

Often the entire tree is uprooted, leaving what's called a "rootwad". Ya see, there is so much precipitation around here, especially on the west side of the park, that the ground becomes incredibly saturated. The trees, under their own weight, begin to sway back and forth in the mushy ground, and its only a matter of time before they're headed for the dirt.

It's something like... say... when at the beach, near the shore, you dig your legs into some damp sand... try as you may to completely surround them with sand (because we all enjoy the snugness), each slight back and forth motion creates the tiniest of crevices on each side, that grow bigger the more you move. That's kind of what its like for the tree and the base of its trunk... it craves the hug of the soil, but that sucker's comin' down.

Another blurry shot, agck! Anyway, I was trying to give you an idea of just how full of plant life the forest is. There is moss or lichens or ferns covering everything. An ecologist might say that the biomass is extremely great. Eh? Eh?

So here's something else that an ecologist might say about this place by just looking at the picture above: the biodiversity in this river would probably be very high. The reason? It is a commonly accepted ecological theory that there is a positive, and significant, relationship between environmental complexity and species diversity.

Examining the picture above, there is an incredible amount of complexity: the log sticking out into the current... the rapids... the rocks along the shore... the boulder sitting smack dab in the middle of the stream... the carpet of moss to the right...

Every one of these unique situations creates a specific biological niche that could be the bee's knees to one species, but slummin' it for others.

These are pictures of the campground we are working at. It's very nice, and situates you right next to the river.

On a side note, I'll be spending Thanksgiving with my friend Kylan's family. They live on a farm about 20 minutes outside of PA. I'll crash at his place, and we plan on waking up the next morning to go fishing... apparently there are straggler salmon runs afoot!!