What a Trip! 2018 Edition (Part Two)

Our trusty vehicle got a flat, apparently on the rugged and rocky road on the way into the sunstone area (Incidentally, location here), so Gary ended up spending an hour or more getting that monster changed. The sun was already low, and getting ourselves set up was the first order of business. I didn't end up spending much time looking for the namesake mineral in the area, which is a specific type of labradorite feldspar. I did find a few, but the camping area has been improved quite a bit, which means more people near the vault toilet, which in turn means this central area is pretty thoroughly picked over. There are picnic benches with shade shelters. I don't think I've ever been here in real summer weather, but those shelters must be very nice in the heat. Also, there's a nice pad associated with each shelter, for tents.

Looking roughly south, toward the Rabbit Hills, with our table and shelter on the right. Given that we were *not* going to continue the trip without a functional spare, our first order of business on Wednesday was an unplanned detour into Lakeview to get the flat repaired. However, my goal for this trip was to get a nice sample of the basalt that hosts, then ultimately weathers to yield the sunstones- sunstones in situ, if you will. If you head south from the toilet, there's a bit of a dry wash, where mostly fresh basalt can be found easily. Below, looking north, you can see the toilet in the upper right, and some samples (I think I only kept one) on the lower left.

After the quick gallop down the gully, we packed up the last of our things, drove an hour and some to Lakeview and the local Les Schwab. If you buy your tires from that company, they do repairs for free. Then we drove an hour and some *back* to Warner Valley, and up Hart Mountain.

I've stopped at the switchback about 1/3 to 1/2 the way up the mountain a number of times; there's a great view of the shoreline from the pluvial lake that filled Warner Valley during the Pleistocene. (Location here.)

There's a new-to-me interpretive trail, with a nice little parking area at the site. I didn't learn much from it, but I've stopped at this location quite a number times, and pretty well already understood what I was seeing. It's a fairly easy (though rocky) trail, and recommended for folks who are new to the area. Here's Hollie looking out over the pluvial lake remnants, stabilized dunes, and pluvial shorelines on the opposite side of the valley. (The latter shorelines were easily visible to the eye, but the hazy smoke is apparently less penetrable to the camera.)

The water body closest to the viewer here is Upper Campbell Lake. The one farther out is Flagstaff Lake, which, according to National Geographic, is the farthest one can get from Interstate Freeways in the Continental US. It's a *very* remote area.

Another new-to-me feature at Hart Mountain is a spiffy wall around the Hart Mountain Hot Spring. My first assumption was that it's for privacy- whatever the actual rules may be, this is a de facto "clothing optional" spot. However, it may serve primarily as a windbreak. It can get very windy up on the mountain top. (Location)

The spring itself is quite pretty, but not terribly hot, more like a comfortably warm bath. It's also not terribly big; I figure after about 6-8 people, it would start to feel pretty crowded.

Looking roughly southwest from the hot spring, there's an area of patchy sinter, and some "warm puddles," suggesting there's an underlying fault controlling the groundwater flow.

From the spring, we headed back down the mountain, through Plush, then south to Adel, where we turned east on Rte 140. Within 30 minutes or so, we were cruising across Guano Valley, admiring the daunting Doherty Grade, where 140 turns sharply south, and climbs diagonally up the side of a cliff. It's kinda scary the first time, but the road is well-engineered, and wider than it feels. I think it's the lack of guard rails that feels so unsettling. In the following photo, the road is visible as a dim gray line against the dark mafic volcanic rock. (Photo taken August 19, 2011) Approximate location

Partway up the grade, there's a good pullout on the left (east, against the cliff face- location). At that spot, there's some terrific platy jointing, with dendrites all over the plates, and vesicular basalt. (There's a hammer for scale at the bottom of the first photo.)

I certainly don't need any more vesicular basalt, but I've never seen platy jointing like this elsewhere, so I added three or four more examples (I have a few from previous trips).

I think I'll wind it up here, for now. As a cliffhanger of sorts, I'll point out that we're only 15 minutes or so from crossing the OR-NV border at this location.

What a Trip! 2018 Edition (Part One)

I did two geology trips in 2018. The first was with a couple of non-geology friends, in mid-June, up to Quartzville. They had a great time, but I kinda feel as if I've beaten Quartzville to death, and I didn't take any photos (though I did, of course, come home with more rocks), so rather than belaboring it beyond saying we basically followed this guide, that's all I have to say about that.

On the second trip, from September 4 through 9, we hightailed across the Cascades at Willamette Pass (Route 58, from roughly Eugene to Crescent), and made a quick stop at Salt Creek Falls. That waterfall is the second tallest in Oregon, after Multnomah Falls.

I also pointed out the glacial striations on the columnar basalt near the top of the falls.

These two photos weren't from this trip, but from August 8, 2011. The memory chip in my camera was nervously close to full, and the card reader in my laptop stopped working, so I had no way to make more space on it (as far as I knew at the time). As a result, I was more miserly about photos than I might normally have been.

Our first real excursion, after coming down the east side, taking the Crescent Cutoff from Rte 58 to Crescent, then north on Rte 97 to La Pine, then southeast on Rte 31 to Fort Rock Road, and east to Christmas Valley, was at Crack in the Ground. Location here, cross hairs over the parking area.

As you can see in this shot, there's a decent path, with a lot of ups and downs over piles of breakdown. Here, I'm at the top of a "hill." looking down into a "valley" with Hollie and Gary. Crack in the Ground is a weird feature, and unique as far as I know. When I was an undergrad, it was thought that asymmetric subsidence associated with the emptying of the magma chamber that fed the Four Cones Volcanic Field had localized flexure at this location, essentially "hinging" along this line, with the east side down, and the west side remaining at its former elevation. Evidence has popped up (I don't have the source available at this moment) that there is a pre-existing fault under the younger lava flows, so that fault may have provided a weak area that helped localize the flexure more narrowly to this location. The total length of the walk, from the car to the crack, through the most popular segment, and back to the car again, is probably about a mile and a half. The crack totals about six miles long, but much of it is prohibitively rugged for me, with enormous piles of large boulders tumbled one atop the other. This segment, though it has a lot of up-and-down clambering, is pretty easy.

The crack has its own microclimate, cooler and moister than the surrounding arid scrub. I was quite started the first time I encountered stinging nettle there (and a little bit itchy and sore), but I've learned to expect and point it out to others. Also, being cooler, and largely shaded, it can hold winter snow quite a way into summer. There are stories of pre-refrigeration locals coming out here to have ice cream parties into July- a month that would make ice cream an especially welcome treat for a sweltering summer.

Looking up to a juniper on the rim.

And back out again! Looking north from the south end of the easy segment of the crack.

We walked back to the car along the west side of the crack. Looking northeast, you can see that this surface is higher than the ground over there. What you *can't* see is that there's a ~60 foot drop just past that line of sage in the foreground.

From Crack in the Ground, we drove back to Christmas Valley, then followed the Christmas Valley Highway east to Rte 395, where we turned south. Just before that road descends toward Abert Rim, there's a well-maintained gravel road, "The Hogback," that trends southeast into the Warner Valley and the foot of Hart Mountain. As we approached the tiny little town of Plush, we turned north to the BLM Sunstone area, where we spent the night, awed by the utterly perfect skies for star watching.

I've just decided to do this as a series. Given the progress today, I'm doubtful I'm going to get the whole trip written up before Interzone closes on New Year's Eve. Better to publish in dribs and drabs than to having almost nothing for 2018. It'll get finished when it gets finished, but having it incomplete will perhaps motivate me to get it done a bit sooner.

Upper McKenzie River/McKenzie Pass Guide

I promised a friend I would write up a self-guided tour of the area described in the title before this weekend, and if I'm going to get it done, it needs to be now. I don't have mileages, but I can post links that have lat/lon details embedded, and satellite imagery. Oh, and photos, of course. Oh, and links to old posts (maybe).

Before starting: Advice

• Gas up before you leave Sweet Home (probably cheapest here or out at I-5). There's no gas for most of the trip until near the end.
• Take food. There's a mom and pop burger joint at Clear Lake Resort, but it may be seasonal; I'm not certain it's open at this point.
• Take layers and a windbreaker. It'll be a lot chillier at Pass levels, and it's often quite windy, so even if you don't need it, be ready to warm up.
• I just checked: McKenzie Pass appears to still be open, which I expected, but for future reference, it's often closed at this point. It generally doesn't reopen until sometime in July.

Let's start with the Rte 34 crossing over I-5 as a beginning. Continue east through Lebanon, where 34 is rejoined by Rte 20, then on through Sweet Home. Stay on 20 until you come to McKenzie Junction. From I-5, I'm guessing this is a bit more than an hour, maybe 1:15 or thereabout. At the Junction with 126, there's a good pullout just after the turn. (Crosshairs on pullout here.) Walk back up the grade, west, along 20- there's a wide berm, and a great view of Three Fingered Jack.

Also, at this time of year, the vine maples are flaming red. Very evocative on the recent lava flow.

Speaking of lava flows, this is the first of many recent ones you'll see today. On the drive up from Sweet Home, you've been traveling through Western Cascades Volcanic rocks, which range in age from about 35 million to 5 million years old. Coming down this hill, you crossed from Western Cascades to High Cascades volcanics, which started about 5 million years ago, and continue to present. If I recall correctly, this flow is one of several from the Sand Mountain chain of cinder cones, at about 3000 years ago. More info here.

Head south on 126 to the Fish Lake parking area. Most of the year, this location is a meadow, but during late winter and spring melt and runoff, it fills with water and a native trout that resides in the creek most of the time occupies the lake. As it dries during the summer, they return to the creek. An interpretive sign describes their situation: apparently, they're reproductively isolated, and seem to be in the process of speciation- though that's my inference, and not explicitly stated on the sign.

Continue south, watching for signs to the Clear Lake Resort- it's a turn to the left, and always comes sooner than I expect.

A different lava flow than we saw at the junction blocked the McKenzie River about 3000 years ago. Most of the time, except for occasionally during peak melt-off, the lake is entirely spring fed, with no surface streams running into it. Nevertheless, the McKenzie River drains out of it, full-blown. There's a river's worth of springs under this lake! Also, you can see the trunks of trees drowned when they were inundated 3000 years ago!

Also, weird illusions... is this boat *in* the lake, or floating a few feet above it?

There are something like 18 lakes with the same name in Oregon, but to my mind, there's only one "Clear Lake." Note the drive in and out of the resort is south to north, so you passed the exit getting here, and you'll pass the entrance again once you leave. You have my permission to drive back through again. I mean, who could blame you? Continue south, and turn off (right) in a couple miles to Sahalie Falls.

According to the person who did her doctoral dissertation on the hydrology of this area, little or no water is added to the flow between here and Clear Lake, so this is a dramatic demonstration of just how much spring water flows into the lake.

Continue a few miles south to the Koosah Falls turn off, then drive in a ways to park. This is a frustratingly difficult waterfall to get a good view of, but there is a view area along the southern loop of the footpath.

You can also see the brink from a viewpoint there, but you can't really see the falls themselves. The really interesting thing is all the springs coming out of the walls in the lower gorge.

Continue south on 126 to the junction with McKenzie Highway, 242, and turn east (left). This looks like it's about 14 or 15 miles from Koosah Falls. Head east on 242 to Proxy falls, and park in the pullout on the left. There's a nice ~1 mile loop trail to Lower and upper Proxy Falls. The lower falls are quite spectacular.

The upper falls aren't as grand, but they *do* offer a nice analogy for all the weird water goings-on in this area: They originate as springs above the cliff, fall over it, and the plunge pool sinks right back into the ground. I don't think this "stream" even has a name; it's only a few hundred feet long. Incidentally, this lava flow is from Collier Cone, up near the North Sister, and at only 1600 years old, is the youngest lava flow you'll see today.

Continue the loop back to your vehicle, then continue driving east. You're heading up a glacial valley that was incised into the High Cascades during the last ice age, and the road switches back and forth to climb up the headwall of that valley's cirque. It gets... hairy. Take it slow and easy- the road's in good shape, it's just kinda scary. You can see why they don't maintain it for winter travel, though.

When you come out on top of the plateau, the road straightens out, the trees are much more sparse, and the views open up. This is from the edge of the first lava flow you encounter on the roadside after you're up on the plateau.

It may not look like anything special, but this young volcanic landscape is why there are so many springs: hundreds of inches of snow fall up here every winter. When that snow melts, all the water just runs into the ground, then re-emerges as springs along the Upper McKenzie River. The almost entirely spring-fed nature of that section is also why the water quality is so stunningly high. Continue east toward McKenzie Pass. There are several pull-outs on the right, with nice views of the Sisters.

Then comes McKenzie Pass and the Dee Wright Observatory. This spot is an Oregon Gem, but I'm always surprised how few know of it.

The lower story is enclosed, and each of the windows faces toward a particular volcano. The labels under the windows aren't easy to read in some cases. But the upper story is open, and has a compass rose point out many visible peaks. If you have time and interest the trail out onto the flow has quite a few informative signs.

This is more or less the end, but you have a couple of choices here. First, continue east to Sisters, then Head back to Corvallis over 20 and Santiam Pass- more scenic, but longer. Second, you can turn around and head back on 242 to 126, then follow 126 to Eugene/Springfield, then take I-5 back north to 34. Shorter and quicker, but less scenic. Hope this was fun! Below, geologists in their preferred habitat.

Well, Hello Again, and Quake Preparedness

I make no apologies. This summer has been brutally hot. I don't cope well with heat, and thinking is one of my most impaired abilities. But we had our first rain in 89 days over the weekend, and it's been somewhat cooler since Saturday. So time to get back on the blog.

One of the big stories over the summer, if you missed it, was from Kathryn Schulz in New Yorker Magazine, on the coming Great Cascadia Quake. One of the political blogs I follow had a post from earlier today, after catching the article a month later. Below is the email I've spent much of the afternoon composing, which I just sent the author.
_________________________________________________________________________________

You're more than a month behind on finding this, but no matter. I'm glad it's catching eyes outside the PNW, where I live, and the geological community, of which I am a part. Most of us felt the article was more or less accurate, but overwrought, sensationalist, and most of all, fatalistic. The fact is, running through some simple calculations, the estimated chance of dying in such an event is about 1 in 1000. The chance of injury is about 3 in 1000. So the vast majority of us will ride it out unscathed- in fact the numbers are dis-proportionally higher for the coast, and lower for those of us in the Willamette Valley, the latter being where most of Oregon's population lives, works, and goes to school.

Given that, I was disappointed, first, by Schultz' lack of discussion of basic preparation measures, most of which are cheap and easy, and could be largely addressed in an afternoon's shopping trip. Namely, water, food that doesn't require preparation other than a can-opener, pet supplies if applicable, radio, flashlight, batteries, first aid kit, and so on. These are non-disaster specific, and can be useful during any sort of disruption, of any duration. The problem here is that our utilities and other infrastructure are likely to be unusable for months after a great quake, with full recovery taking years to a decade or more, so I describe the situation as "being ready for a 2-4 week no-frills camp-out,with no warning." (Following that relatively short period, presuming we don't have another GWB as president, emergency response will take off a lot of the self-reliance pressure) Put like that, it's easy to imaging how to prepare. But seeing it as "Everything west of I-5 will be toast," well, Christ, how do you prepare for that!? As I indicated above, fatalism is perhaps the biggest danger we face in this situation.

Second, there are a few structural measures that most homeowners in the region seem to be largely unaware of. The easiest is to firmly strap down the water heater. Assuming the house survives, this will assure a relatively large reservoir of potable water, one of the most important components of riding this beast out. Another, likely the most expensive, is to bolt wood-framed houses to the foundation, to make sure they don't fall off it. My understanding is that this is the most important measure, but it costs a few thousand dollars. However, given house prices, this is typically around 1 to 1 1/2 percent of their value, and while not a guarantee, most likely assures a house will ride out a quake and remain habitable. Which, not incidentally, would make the "camp-out" a lot easier to endure. I've also seen friends' posts about cross-bracing structural members in the attic and walls, which is supposed to dampen the oscillations. However, I'm a geologist, not a carpenter or engineer, so I don't really know. Securing large objects (e.g. book cases, refrigerators and so on) to walls can prevent injuries inside, as otherwise, they're likely to fall over.

Third, Schultz' portrayal of States' and smaller government agencies' preparation and response plans is terribly lopsided. The magnitude of expenditures needed is certainly in the hundreds of billion dollars range, and may reach trillions. There simply no way to retrofit all the things that need it in less than decades- which we likely have before the next great quake. However, slowly but surely, it is happening. I spend most of my waking life just off the Oregon State University Campus, and at any given time, there are one or two buildings closed for a couple of years for seismic refits. All new construction (and there is a lot of it right now) is required to meet strict seismic codes. K-12 schools across the state are a high priority, but again, costs make that slow. Nevertheless, that too is happening, though you'd never know it from the article. Public facilities such as hospitals, police and fire stations, and government offices, at least here in Benton County, have been retrofitted to be occupiable- that is, usable- following a quake, so they can serve as shelters, organization and command centers, aid stations, and so on. (An easier seismic target is "survivable," which means the building is unlikely to collapse or otherwise kill/injure occupants, but is less likely to be safely used or occupied afterwards. This is often the target for education infrastructure.)

The last parenthetical reminds me of a common joke among geology-types: "Earthquakes don't kill people. Buildings kill people." The upshot is, we can fix the buildings so they don't, or are much less likely to.

So the short version is that Schultz' piece is accurate, except in terms of omission. She left out an awful lot of important information which, instead of panicking PNW residents, could have spurred thoughtful reflection on their part of what they could do now to be better prepared in the aftermath. Initially, I was quite irritated by the article, but over the last month or so, I've seen a ramp-up in awareness and people asking questions, in a way I haven't since the Tohoku quake in March of 2011. In addition, I understand she has written a follow-up article in the same magazine, where she does cover much of the above discussion. I haven't read that one yet, but I'm looking forward to it. I was quite upset by Willamette Valley folks asking about life rafts and jackets to survive the coming tsunami. (Here, we're at about 240 feet elevation. Even in Portland, where there's still tidal influence in the rivers, very little effect is expected from the tsunami. Shaking, is, of course, a very different matter.)

Thanks for slogging through my verbosity, but this is a set of information I've been wildly pushing to get out since the article was published. Please feel free to pass along any portion or all of this letter, as you choose. I didn't see any way to leave a comment, especially one of this length, so chose to e-mail instead.

Best wishes,

Lockwood DeWitt

Geo 1095: May 30, Day 880: Spring Surprises

Here's a final shot from the Upper McKenzie drainage, for now, another from "Lost Springs," as I informally named it in the previous post. The best story that Anne told us about her dissertation work up here was that in the first few years of the 2000s, someone had done a project similar to hers, working out the volumes and characterizing springs forming the headwaters of the Metolius River in central Oregon. One aspect of that work was comparing the annual rate/volume of water flow, from the springs, out of the presumed hydrological basin, extending from those springs to the Cascade crest, to the modeled annual volume of water equivalent precipitation. When all was said and done, the conclusion was that there was an excess of spring flow amounting to 12 cubic meters per second! In other words, 12 cubic meters (~424 cubic feet, a bit short of 3200 gallons) of water per second more than could be explained by precipitation was flowing out of the east side springs. Needless to say, over the course of a year, some 31.5 million seconds, that's quite a bit of water.

Now I don't know how that scientist, or the committee, reacted to that result. I would have been frantically puzzled, wondering where I'd messed up, or where the incorrect assumption(s) was/were, or whether the precipitation model was anything approaching realistic. I would have not been a happy camper, because that really is an awful lot of unexplained water.

Then Anne did her dissertation work in the latter part of the same decade, and did a similar estimate of precipitation input versus spring output. The result? The west side springs appeared to have a 12 cubic meters per second deficit with respect to the amount of water equivalent precipitation it receives.

Those balancing numbers delight me. What it suggests is that the Cascade hydrological divide in the central portion of Oregon is, at least in some areas, well to the west of the topographic divide. Given the extensive covering of this portion of the High Cascades by young lava flows, cinder cones, and other tephra, that's certainly plausible. And I'm not going to fault the east side for hijacking "our" water. They need it much more than we do.

Photo unmodified. October 9, 2014. FlashEarth location.

Geo 1095: May 29, Day 879: Lost Springs

I don't know if this system of springs has a name, but the outflow drains down Lost Creek to the McKenzie River, so it seems reasonable to call it "Lost Springs." They're easy to find, but from the road, there's no clue to what most people sail past on their way to or from the pass. So perhaps a better name would be "Missed Springs." In person you can see fish- I'd guess trout; I'm not a fish person, so that is a guess- swimming languidly in the crystal-clear water, but they're not easy to pick out in these photos. I think I'm seeing a few over the lighter sand, and under the long pole across the middle of this shot:

Dana got some video of the fish swimming, but I don't know if she ever posted it.

Photo unmodified. October 9, 2014. FlashEarth location.

Geo 1095: May 28, Day 878: Where the Water Goes

As we left Proxy Falls during our July 2013 (my first) visit, I asked Anne if she knew where the water came back out. She grinned and nodded "yes." I don't know if she had intended to stop at this spot or not, but it's gorgeous, and I'm awfully glad we did. This is merely the edge of a vast area where water reemerges as springs and pools, so it's not just where the water from Proxy Falls comes back to the surface, but likely the main set of springs for this entire drainage, up onto the western portion of the High Cascades Platform. To find it (It's maybe 6 or 7 miles down the road from the Proxy parking area.), look for a large field on the north side of the road, with a large Douglas fir standing out from the rest of the forest toward the back. There's a dirt road across that field, which circles the tree. The path to the springs is pretty much directly opposite the tree from the highway, and it's a very short and easy walk from the field to the pools. The FlashEarth view should make it pretty clear, and drag the view to the WNW to get a sense of the extent of these springs.

Photo unmodified. October 9, 2014. FlashEarth location.

Geo 1095: May 27, Day 877: Simple Contact, or Channel?

Down in those vine maples, you can see the contact between the edge of the Collier Cone Lava Flow (right) and the older, glacially carved, volcanic rock of the valley floor (left). The question is, has this contact been modified by rare to occasional burst floods from above the valley? It seems clear to me that there has been no such activity recently; the thick-bedded moss would not be so consistent. Likewise, there's some down logs in pretty advanced states of decay near the center of the photo. Any recent (past decade or so) would have left both of those features more chewed up. The contact seems rounded, which might indicate erosional modification... but look at all that living and dead plant material! Surely that might be the explanation for the apparent rounding.

In the end, as is so often the case, the answer is, "I don't know; I need more information." I'm okay with that. It means I have a reason to go look again.

Photo unmodified. October 9, 2014. FlashEarth location.

Geo 1095: May 26, Day 876: Upper Proxy Notch

Looking back down the path from Upper Proxy Falls (i.e., the falls are behind us in this view), The Collier Flow is on the right, and the southern edge of the valley is on the left. Has this notch been reworked by running water? It's not clear, but it seems possible. It would certainly fit with the idea of burst floods contributing soil components (clastic sediment and plant debris) to the surface of the lava flow, and fostering an environment for rapid recolonization and reforestation. I have a few more photos of this notch, and I'll post at least one more, but looking over them, I see nothing convincing either way. Next time I get back here, I should see if I can spot rounded gravel farther down the notch- it drops quickly just past that saddle.

Photo unmodified. October 9, 2014. FlashEarth location.

Geo 1095: May 25, Day 875: Collier Flow Berm

My camera's flash has a tendency to go off at times I think it's unnecessary, but it can lead to some interesting shots, such as this one. One has to clamber over the root system of this Doug fir to get at the rubbly hillside- the south edge of the Collier Cone Lava Flow- where you can see Anne and Chris in the upper left corner. It might be interesting to come up here with a couple bottles of food coloring to see if you can actually find the area(s) where the water is leaving the pool. It's shallow, and the volume is fairly small compared to the rate of flow from Upper Proxy Falls into it, so I'd bet the residence time of water in this pool is in the range of ten minutes or less.

Photo unmodified. July 6, 2013. FlashEarth location.

Geo 1095: May 24, Day 874: Upper Proxy Runout

Sitting up on the berm of the Collier Cone Lava Flow, looking down to the runout of Upper Proxy Falls is a peaceful experience. I love the little Doug fir that has managed to get established on a tiny island in the pool... I think I'll call it The Little Prince. As I mentioned in the previous post, this pool has no outlet. However, looking at the shape of the gap between this little cove and the lower valley, where the trail leads to this spot, I'm pretty confident this stream does overflow its basin from time to time. This may be related to the burst floods that (rarely) make it into channels up on the flow behind us here.

Photo unmodified. July 6, 2013. FlashEarth location.

Geo 1095: May 23, Day 873: Upper Proxy Plunge Pool

This is far from an ideal panorama; the left photo has too much motion blur, the center one is fine, and the right photo is overexposed in comparison to the other two. Nevertheless, it's the best I have to capture the "rather unique twist" I mentioned in yesterday's post. That photo was facing toward the falls; this one is taken standing a bit to the west, looking back toward the base of the falls. You can see the run-out coming in from the right side, flowing into the pool at the base. Given the amount of talus and downed logs at the bottom of the falls, this isn't technically a "plunge pool," but for the title, I liked the alliteration. The trees and their roots on the left pretty well obscure the fact that the slope there is the southern margin of the Collier Cone Lava Flow. Can you spot what's missing?

There's no outlet to this pool. This stream emerges from springs at the top of the glacially-carved valley, tumbles off the edge as a hanging valley waterfall, then promptly goes right back underground, into the side of the lava flow. Neato!

Photo stitched in HugIn, otherwise unmodified. July 6, 2013. FlashEarth location.

Geo 1095: May 22, Day 872: Upper Proxy Falls

Upper Proxy Falls is smaller than Lower Proxy (shown in yesterday's post), both in terms of height, about a hundred feet shorter, and flow rate. This one appears to be two streams converging in a waterfall, while the other appears to be a single stream splitting in a fall; in that sense, they're kind of opposites of each other. This one, though, has a rather unique twist to it, which I'll get to tomorrow.

Photo stitched in HugIn, otherwise unmodified. October 9, 2014. FlashEarth location.

Geo 1095: May 21, Day 871: Lower Proxy Falls

This is actually a single photo, which I don't think is as good as the very similar-looking panorama I posted shortly after our visit last October. Comparing the two, I think the higher top of this one includes brighter light, and it looks as if that has caused the entire photo to have poorer saturation than the panorama. However, for the sake of completeness during this segment, I'm including another shot of Lower Proxy Falls, which, on our trip with Anne the previous summer, we skipped. It probably wasn't really necessary to skip it; this waterfall is no more than a hundred yards from the junction, so to this viewpoint, it's an easy walk. Dana and B. walked down to near the base, but as is often the case with me in recent years, I didn't want to earn "back uphill" points. I just sat here until they came back up the hill, dazed by the beauty of this spot.

Photo unmodified. October 9, 2014. FlashEarth location.

Geo 1095: May 20, Day 870: Hard Evidence

Can you spot the hard (pardon the pun) evidence of running water in this photo? And we're not talking about a minor trickle, but a fairly competent flow. If not, take a look at the crop below. The Douglas fir cones scattered around are typically 2-3 inches long, for a sense of scale.

Look how rounded that gravel is! This is very clearly not simply a lava gutter, though it may have started out as one. I don't know if water has ever been actually witnessed flowing through this channel, but clearly it has at some point. Eyeballing the woody debris, and its generally not-too-decomposed state, I'd bet it hasn't been very long, maybe in the range of a decade or so. During the winter season, the road to this trail is closed. People do visit during the winter season, but it's a fair trek in from the gate (~7 miles round trip), so the number is limited. Take into account that the kind of weather that I'd guess is responsible for burst floods that might behave like this is heavy warm rain on a heavy snow pack, it seems likely that even those venturous folk might hesitate to visit on days when this might happen.

Photo unmodified. October 9, 2014. FlashEarth location.

Geo 1095: May 19, Day 869: Channel Conveyor?

If Anne hadn't pointed these channels on our trip the previous summer, I would've either not noticed them, or I would've assumed they were probably lava gutters (here are a couple of examples of lava gutters). However, these may actually be water carved channels, or possibly water-modified lava gutters. I'm relying on a short discussion a couple of years ago, and I'm not sure how clearly I remember it. But look at how verdant the vegetation is here! There are rhododendrons in the upper left, a young cedar on the center left, and another in the lower right. This does not look at all like an extremely young lava flow; it looks more like a late-stage second growth conifer forest. The general idea, as I understand it, is that rare burst floods from the slopes above this glacially carved valley may be responsible for carving or modifying channels like this one, and provide a potential explanation for how portions of the Collier Cone Flow in this area have been so rapidly reforested. Such floods may have provided sediment and plant debris, allowing a jump start to soil formation. Otherwise, the slow breakdown and colonization of fresh lava would taken several times as long. Similar flows with similar climatic and environmental conditions nearby are nowhere near as heavily vegetated.  As I pointed out in the previous post, the distribution of heavily tree covered areas on this flow is patchy. Here, close to this channel, we're in lush, mature forest.

Photo unmodified. October 9, 2014. FlashEarth location.

Geo 1095: May 18, Day 868: Pretty Pathway

The geology here is redundant and relatively trivial with respect to the High Cascades: blocky basaltic andesite. But I really like this photo. It's pretty, and just screams "PNW autumn!" If you look at the FlashEarth link, you can see that the tree cover is highly variable on this flow. The outline of the lava lobe ir easy to pick out, but the tree distribution is very uneven. It's pretty clear that some areas are more hospitable to colonization than others.

Photo unmodified. October 9, 2014. FlashEarth location.

Geo 1095: May 17, Day 867: Big Doug(s)

I think, but I'm not sure, that these two shots are of the same Douglas fir, at a nice viewpoint along the Proxy Falls trail. A couple years ago, I posted a panorama to show the glacial aspects of the north side of the valley the day after we visited the area. Those shots were taken in between these two, so I had moved to a different perspective between, and Chris and Anne got into the frame for scale in the second.

One of the features that can help accelerate the colonization of barren rock is abundant organic material. You can see there's plenty of it on the ground here, but I suspect most of what we're seeing has fallen off the big tree(s) in the photos. Vegetable debris, such as fallen leaves, needles, and slowly rotting woody material, are very effective at retaining moisture and providing nutrients. These are two of the most lacking environmental conditions on newly repaved volcanic landscapes. However, what we're seeing here likely can't be used to explain how this ground was colonized so quickly, as it post-dates the establishment of the trees we're seeing.

However, unexpected additions of organic matter may provide at least a partial solution to the problem I described in yesterday's post.

Photos unmodified. July 6, 2013. FlashEarth location.