Indigo Lake and Pika

The other day Mark and I went to Indigo Lake, in the Willamette Forest on the slopes of the Cascade Mountains. It’s about an hour to the turn-off, and then another hour along a windy road to the trail head.

We saw what we thought was a hawk or other raptor flying ahead of us on the road, but after about a quarter of a mile of it flying above the road, when it alighted on a branch we saw that it was a raven. It was a sign, I’m sure.

We also had a deer moment on the road where we were reminded that deer always travel in pairs.

The weather was at turns sunny and overcast. This was fine with me because just as one would start to feel chilly from the wind or a little overheated from the uphill hike in the sun, the weather would change.

Mostly we walked through pine trees. On the steeper areas, the base of the tree trunks curved downhill; this is where the snow, melting downhill, has repeatedly bent the trees over successive Winters and Springs.

The trail to the lake ran along a stream; we were able to cross over without getting wet because the stream bed was dry. Further on, we did see sluggish water held back by rocky formations, and even further the stream widened into a marshy, open meadow.

Indigo Lake was not indigo when we visited it. It was green, to Mark’s disappointment. When we first encountered the lake, at its northern end, the wind blowing on it gave it a voice of a thousand lapping tongues. The only competing sound was the swelling rush of the wind through the pines, which sounded like something produced by Wendy Carlos in a mid-seventies recording studio. (“Psithurism” is the name of my next Mediaeval Synth Band). Overhead, clouds raced by Sawtooth Mountain.

We followed the lake’s shore to the mountain’s talus. I located a Chrysler-sized rock slab (one of many) for us to lounge upon and Mark broke out the blue cheese, almonds, walnuts, and crackers. I broke out the Ceylon OP.

And we listened. And waited. For pika.

They came. We heard their cheeping first.

One came close enough for me to be able to get a photo of Mark peering at it through a small monocular.

Mark was enchanted by its small, round, black ears and its whiskers. Unfortunately, there was no gift shop near, as the closest Ranger Station was about thirty miles away; so I could not purchase a plush pika for Mark to be a companion to the plush baby orca I purchased for him a couple weeks ago at Port Townsend.

I broke out some pens and pencils and sketched the rubble pile the pika was hiding behind.

Even though it was a secret, unspoken desire that I was silently talking myself out of, Mark had a psychic moment and forbade me from hiking through the talus to see if I could locate a surfboard-sized one to slide down the slope on.

Then it was time to head back home and Rescue the Dog from Ennui.

We managed to miss the rain while we were in the mountains, only encountering it on the drive back to Eugene.

Trestle Creek Falls

Saturday, Mark and I ditched The Child and The Dog, and took a Valentine's Hike to Trestle Creek Falls.  The falls are located in the foothills of the Cascades Mountain range about an hour's drive away.  

Although the parking lot, shadowed in a river valley, was shivery, the day was pleasant, but unseasonably warm and dry.   The trail wasn't thronged, but we did see lots of folks (and their dogs).  The heavy snow in December and January had battered the woods.  We met a four-year-old and seven-year-old and their (presumably) father on the trail twice; this was amazing, as I can think of a handful of adult friends and family who would have been challenged by scrabbly bits where one had to hop over winter-storm-downed trees, or navigate the edges of where root balls had pulled away.

We saw mostly firs, with some vine maple, big-leaf maple, cedar, and madrone trees mixed in.  Ferns and Oregon Grape formed the underbrush.  There were cliffs that looked like they were basalt; other placed I'm not sure what the geology was -- we saw some pale green rocks that I'm guessing had copper in them (or maybe they were greenschist; I don't know).

We overdressed slightly.  

The fall itself is two-tiered: about halfway the spill from the top of the ridge hits the basalt cliff and cascades the rest of the way into a narrow gorge.  We managed to visit when the sun was shining on the upper fall, which resulted in a rainbow in the cascade.  

On the return loop, something prompted me to touch some of the larger tree trunks along the path.  I usually don't do this, but I felt a connection -- being-to-being -- doing so.  Getting out into the forest rejuvenated both of us.

We descended from the warm sunlit ridge trail into the shaded valley and came to where Trestle Creek meets Brice Creek.  There's a rock in the confluence that looks like a person turned into a stone animal or troll and forced to drink Trestle Creek's overflow.  I think there's an obligatory love triangle story here.

Brice Creek was clear with a pale green color, sort of a mix between copper and jade.  Our cameras compensated for the low lighting by making everything much bluer than it was in reality... except for the moss.   The river valley was nice to visit, but I think the darkness during the winter months would make it a difficult place to visit.    

Mark went looking for interesting pebbles in Brice Creek and managed to freeze his hand, so I had to hold it for a minute or two to warm it.  

Breitenbush River Hike

The other weekend, we went with some friends and hiked along the Breitenbush River, near the Breitenbush Hot Springs.  The Hot Springs were closed, and we would have needed reservations to get in, so we didn't visit them.

We'd done the hike once a few years ago, and I'm remembering the river being lower and the air being hotter, so I'm thinking we went in late July or August (I'm not finding an entries in the blog about the hike).

This time around parking was a little challenging -- everyone had been chaffing under the COVID-19 lockdown, and the usual pull-over at the trailhead had been commandeered by a bunch of folks for camping (?and dog training?).

The hike is a little challenging in places, as one has to go single-file over fallen trees which have been repurposed as bridges.   For the most part, though, the trail meanders alongside the river, alternately winding between evergreen trees and brushing up to embankments.

Eventually, we had to turn around because a flood had taken out a bridge over a major tributary to the Breitenbush River.

The wildflowers we saw were mostly finished, I'm thinking if we'd come the first week of May we would have seen more blooms.  The only ones I recognized were trillium, (I want to say) larkspur, and columbine.  There was a lot of Oregon grape.

Another semi-washed-out trail led to an overlook above a deeply carved gorge.  There was a kind of ladder, really a downed log with some notches carved out of it as anti-skid holds for one's feet, but they were slippery.  Just as I finished saying, "Well, this isn't so bad; now watch me fall on my butt," I slipped and nearly landed on my camera.

The view was cool, though; it was the sort of place you'd expect a re-enactment of "Das Rheingold."   It was also the sort of place that you wouldn't want to fall into.


Along the way back, I took a ton of photos of the shadows of trees, and flowers, and mushrooms, and leaves.  I only got a little behind everyone, no more than a minute or two.  Or maybe five.

Indigo Springs Hike

 Sunday, Mark and I ditched The Child -- or was that the other way around? -- and took a hike to Indigo Springs, which is part of the headwaters of the Middle Fork of the Willamette River.

The spring isn't the single source of the river, which I'm guessing is a little ways up-stream, but is one of several springs and sources.

Mark followed the directions from a Bill Sullivan guide book, and about ninety minutes later we were pulling into a cute little campsite at Indigo Springs.

There's a very short loop around the springs.  The top is a five foot long bridge over a stream bed which was dry when we were there, but I expect is a major drainage during the rainy season.  Right underneath the bridge, water seeps up from the ground.  A little further downstream, more water gushes out from between fir roots.

The whole place wove a sylvan enchantment.  Being there reminded me of the public ritual Starhawk led about sixteen years ago, where the god was called as the Willamette River.  The springs rejuvenated Mark, which was a pleasure to be present for.

We attempted to follow an old wagon trial, but it soon became lost in the underbrush, so we opted to take a more robust trail along the Middle Fork's current.

We crossed the road and struck the trail along the river.  Every so often we'd cross a contributing brook splashing down from a convert, or the seeping flow from of a bank-side spring.  We were looking for Chuckle Spring, but we were unsure which tributary it was.

We saw ground squirrels, and some very small birds, and a slug.  All the other animals remained unseen.  Other than one or two folks sitting at various camp sites, we saw no other humans.

 The north(?) side of the river we hiked along was verdant.  We saw lots of Oregon grape; firs, cedars, vine maples, and the occasional oak.  Moss coated the basalt rocks, roots, and fallen trees.  We found something that Mark called an orchid, and every now and then we encountered a leafy lichen growth.

Along the other side the blackened trunks of cedars showed where previous years' fires had burnt the forest.

Along the way back, we stopped at Boulder Creek to take a closer look at what Mark called a fire tanker refill station.  It looked like a pipe which had been sunk into the creek farther upstream, but I couldn't see the actual water collection site.   There was a valve which was tempting to pull, but the whole construction looked old -- like a forgotten piece from a "Thomas the Tank Engine" set -- and I didn't want to risk having it get stuck on and inundating the road.

On the way home, we took selfies of ourselves eating ice cream and sent them to The Child (we had attempted to bribe him onto the hike earlier, but he declined).

Hiking Bribe Sandwich

For the last few days, Mark has been wanting to go up Spencer's Butte or Mt. Pisgah, but hasn't had enough umph to do so.  This was sad because being in the woods and hiking rejuvenates Mark.   I decided that if The Family went, Mark would be more likely to go.  I enlisted the help of The Child.  This required some negotiation.

Me:  "Mark's been wanting to hike, and I think if we all go, he'll be more likely to."

The Child:  "Oh... Kay..."

Me:  "So Saturday, we should all get up first thing in the morning and climb up Spencer's Butte."

TC:  "Uh -- but what about videos?"

Me:  "We'll start early so we get back early and you can still Saturday binge watch your regular allotment."

TC:  "Can't you go without me?"

Me:  "Bud, Mark's been kind of bummed about not hiking, and I could use your support helping him.

TC: "..."

Me:  "I'll pack a breakfast."

TC (eyes lighting up):  "We can stop at McDonald's and get a McMuffin?"

Me (trying not to roll my eyes or make hacking noises):  "Ugh.  No.  Um.  I'll make you a McMuffin at home and we can eat it up on top."

TC: "You'll make it with 'Merican cheese?"

Me:  "Yes."

TC:  "And those sausage links."

Me:  "I can get some sausages."

TC:  "No, they need to be those little sausage things they put on the side."

Me:  "How about I chop up the bacon and put it into the eggs?  With cream cheese.

TC: "Bacon?  (clearly tempted)  Maybe I could do a bait-and-switch.  You could say, 'Come on Mark, we're going,' and I could get into the car, and then I could slip out the back and into the house and you guys could go without me."

Me:  "If you don't go on the hike, there's no McMuffin.  Come on, bud, this is to get Mark into the woods.

TC (resigned):  "Okay."

* * *

Saturday morning I roused myself from bed, started the water for Mark's coffee (and my tea), and fired up the stove top.  The crescent moon shone about twenty degrees away from Saturn (alas, their conjunction the day before was clouded over).  

Luckily, we live near a meat market, so I had some Canadian Bacon slices and some American Cheese.  It wasn't the original bacon plan, but I vaguely remember ham or something being layered in the original breakfast sandwich, and -- more importantly -- the folks at the meat market had suggested Canadian Bacon when I told them I was making a Hiking Bribe Sandwich.  I tried pouring the scrambled egg-and-cream-cheese into a round cookie cutter to make a kind egg patty, but the the egg either seeped out of the bottom or adhered to cutter, so I just scrambled the eggs as best as I could and kept things as thick as possible.  Once everything was cooked, I assembled the sandwiches and wrapped them up in waxed paper for that cheap-fast-food presentation.

I packed sandwiches, fruit, beverages, and my camera, and -- amid accusations of being an autocrat -- got everyone into the car.   I want to say we got to the parking lot at 8.  It was mostly empty, which was nice, as on pleasant Saturdays Spencer Butte is a popular destination (editor's note: borne out by a friend later).   Someone chose the Steep Route up the west side of the butte, and we got a round of cardio in climbing up to the top.  

At first, The Child ranged in front of us, but we overtook him about two-thirds of the way up.  The ferns on the lower slope were still flattened by last month's foot of snow.  Farther along, uprooted Douglas firs and ponderosa pines lay fallen on the ground or smashed against still standing trees.  Chainsawed segments had been rolled off of the path.   I'd worked up a sweat climbing the shaded side of the butte, and as my head popped up out of the shade, I discovered we'd been climbing in the lee of the butte, too.

Low clouds loomed in the distance surrounding the northern part of the valley, and trees in the meadows between Spencer Butte and Mt. Pisgah cast long shadows through the fog.  Mt. Jefferson poked up through the haze, and the Three Sisters huddled together in the gauze on the horizon.  Saturn and the stars were gone, but the crescent moon sailed the southern sky.

The brisk wind helped unfurl the ground cover, and we needed to anchor the leading edge to keep it from bunching up.  The Child foraged through the insulated bag and ripped into a sandwich.  I poured myself some tea.  Mark bit into a marshmallow-chocolate-chip-mint treat I'd bought, laughed, and said it tasted like the mint toothpaste he hates.  The Child gave the sandwich a rating of 10.  I passed out cloth napkins with a sense of smug accomplishment.  It wasn't exactly a Martha Stewart picnic, but as I sipped my tea, in my head I heard peppy, make-over show music playing.

Larison Creek Hike

Over the weekend we went to Larison Creek to hunt for mushrooms.  There weren't so many this time; either we were too late for them, or the weather had been too dry or too cold.  The creek bed is part of a large reservoir, and the slopes above the creek's banks are terraced by previous higher levels.










The most obvious mushrooms were the shelf mushrooms growing on the sides of trees.  Slightly less obvious, but ubiquitous once you started to look for them were some teeny-tiny ones growing out of moss-covered logs. 

At the parking lot there was a dead dear carcass.  Something about the empty eye sockets made it look oracular from its position between the worlds.  If we had been in a Grimm fairytale, we would have nailed the head to a gate and asked it questions--but it was old and gross and the rest of the family wouldn't entertain the thought of dead deer bits in the car.








The more coral-like ones remind me of Sheri S Tepper's novel, Raising the Stones. 

 These were growing about eight feet up on a tree.

Near our turn-around point, we came upon a kind of cascade of mushrooms.












This was my first mushroom hike with the new camera, and I'm still running into situations where the focal length and the zoom confuse the auto-focus of the images.  The flip-screen does make it easier to get at difficult angles without having to lie in mud or damp forest litter.

  

Elowah Falls

Sore and tired today.

We went on a hike to the Bonneville Dam area.

Elowah falls.

 Wild columbine.

Rusted out pipe with something slimy falling through a spider's web.

Coastal Hike

Last Sunday we went to the Three Rocks / Lincoln City area for a hike with N.H. and G.H. (their teen-age boys did not come with them).  We started off at a parking lot with a name I'd thought I'd remember (a single, two-syllable word like "Wizard Park" or something like that).  It was off of the Salmon River.

The skunk cabbage was beginning to bloom, and it wafted over the parking lot.  It doesn't really smell like skunks, but it does have a pungent aroma.

When The Child went to visit the boat landing there, I thought it looked vaguely familiar.  Later, as we climbed and I looked across the river at the little cove, I realized I was looking at Camp Westwind.  

I thought we were going to the beach, but I should have realized it would be more of a hike since we were meeting N and G.  I typically get cold at the beach, and I didn't exactly trust the temperature forecast, since a cloud and the wind can make the coast feel ten degrees colder than expected.  So, I ended up wearing jean,  a white turtleneck, and a long-sleeved purple cowboy shirt.  (Mark accuses me--rightly--of always being underdressed on these ventures, and I probably over-compensated.)  N commented that I was very well dressed for a hike.  I noticed that all the Oregonians were dressed in tank-tops and shorts.

We hiked through a nature conservancy area.  At first we were in the shade of trees and followed a little stream.  The setting reminded me of the upper Reed College canyon.  It was a little warm, even in the shade, and whenever we happened upon a tributary stream, we appreciated the cooler air surrounding it.  I took off the purple shirt I wore as an outer layer.

We broke out of the trees and followed the path through swaying, calf-high grasses.  Several small birds, possibly falcons (they had cross-bow shaped wingspans and square tails) flew overhead, along with vultures and some bald eagles.  The wind cresting over the south side of the slope made me with for a hang-glider.

After about an hour or so of hiking, resting, and climbing, we made it to the geological marker near the top.  At this point I discovered that both the batteries in my camera and in its case were dead.  So no pictures of this hike.

After a light lunch of sandwiches, cheese and crackers, and chocolate.  We hiked back down.  I had a nice conversation with N about writing, kids, and learning styles.

Then we drove to a beach near Lincoln City's lighthouse court.  It also has a cute name that I can't remember.

The Child ran to the surf.  When it lapped over my bare feet I thought my feet were going to freeze off.

I spent some time talking with G, and then went to strand with my beach compass to make geometrical figures in the sand.  After a while, I looked at my arms.  There was a sharp tan line just above my elbows; below it my arms were getting sunburnt, above it, my triceps were pasty white.  It looked like I was wearing very long red gloves.

Monday morning I woke up a little sore and tired.

These Are Not the Mushrooms You're Searching For...

Yesterday we went on a hike east of Oakridge to search for mushrooms.  The sky was clear and the sun was out, although it felt like it set early in the valley we were in.  Sunlight liberated steam from the saturated ground.  Usually mushrooms are all over the place, but this time we only saw them in ones and twos.  Mark was very happy when we found a purple mushroom, which he took a picture of.

The Child could only speak about Sith and Jedi the entire three hours we hiked.  I attempted to have him listen to the trees and the stream in crane stance because 1) it's good practice for his Kung Fu class, 2) to get him to be quiet for two seconds, and 3) to try to get him to actually focus on self-betterment and other positive benefits of focusing on The Force besides Force-chokes, Force-pushes, and Force-lightning.  (Mark and I have taken to shouting "Force-smooch!" and "Force-hug!" as an antidote to all the violence... and I think I may have to change my name to "Darth Enchanté.")