ecology – EEC Forest Stewardship

In early May, a dark overcast sky held the earth in shadow. These doldrums are great for working outside, but sometimes have that seasonal affect on the psyche. Any Western Washington inhabitant of several years takes the need for occasional sun and some serious D3 supplement in winter. There are clever ways to find sun in our area, and one of the easiest for me is driving about an hour up. The climb is a joy, heading along the valley river, then the first great step up at the rim of an ice age lake. The great Snoqualmie Falls plummets over a horseshoe drop carved out by tumults of melting ice water from glaciers as the atmosphere warmed. Above this precipice, I catch my first glimpse of the tectonic uplift of The Central Cascades. This is the ridgeline I love ascending to, dipping just over the back side, where peaks and lakes form a legacy of dynamic landscape full of biodiversity and adventure.

On this particular journey into the wilds, I had an intention to get above the clouds for some brought sunshine and an attempt to walk to the edge of the snow line. Without proper snow gear, I was not excited to summit anything or boldly go up steep incline. A few scenic back roads and switchbacks carried me up the steep terrain divided by alpine lakes and plantation forest plunder. Always a reminder to a point, the tree farm grants incredible private access, but remains an ecological waste land across most of its breadth. I’m a consumer of paper products, and I’ve seen recent new build on incredible scale with laminated timbers in tribal buildings near by in The Snoqualmie Casino. Wood products are much more ecologically sound- composting back to soil, or so the industry wants you to think. What about all the chemicals pumped into wood products? Oriented Strand Board (OSB) does not safely decompose into organic soil folks, and there are countless products of this stuff, common in most modern building.

That’s why the trees are cut, and will keep being harvested in these plantations. There are some beautiful stream buffer corridors along this part of the drive, but I really prefer not to get too attached, because major cuttings continue along all these groves. Still, in my lifetime I will have the chance to see some of these replanted section grow to sizable trees- or perhaps not. Wildfire could sweep through too. Such impermanence, even in forests. I can still drive on a little bit further, folding back into the evergreen patchwork to yet another forest, a place that has limited protections on it, no commercial cutting any more, but that legacy persists, and the promise of letting this place return fully to wilderness cannot be promised, for DNR land, though labeled “public” remains a place where logging operations can continue. In many places, they do. Hopefully, this elevation, combined with the fact that there’s not much timber feet of usable product available. This alpine habitat stunts the growth of many trees, and the older girth Douglas firs have their tops broken off by wind and ice, so the industry keeps their hands off, for now.

I’d like to say my hikes into these wild places are without a care in the world. A chance to escape the goings on down below in the valley. As all the landscapes are deeply connected together, so too are the thoughts and wonder that traverse the temples of my mind. I’ve got to take up meditation. And so this exploration allows a bit of focus, steps leading towards more quiet wilderness, the hum of insects, trickling beads of melting ice, crunching snow underfoot. I take my first steps into the snow line, it’s only another half a mile in, along the north side of a peak I’ve crested in the past, enough shadow remains to protect the frozen layers for just a few more weeks. Drifts build here, sheltered in a growth of native forest and rocky scree. The seeps hold sediment, washed down from the rocks and trees above. Plant life takes on the hillside with gusto. I’ve never seen some of these flowers before, spring is so fleeting in the highlands. I celibate the flowering saxifrage, slider alder and willow catkins, and fleeting tracks, melting away at the edges of the trail.

This place can calm the soul, even as I witness less snow pack and greater fire risk all around. My mind has to compartmentalize, keep the good vibes flowing along these mountain springs, which feed blue lakes below. Winter’s grip broke a few weeks ago, and all the lush life of this alpine wilderness awakens, all at once. I am awed by the warm light, and take off my jacket, stripping down to a t-shit, the weather will soon melt off the last of this snow, and I can again swim in the lakes in my wet suit. There are Pacific salamanders here, and all kinds of other magical amphibians. Delicate indicators that say the water is still safe to swim in, at this elevation. I begin post holing in the snow, coming to the far end of the three lakes, I turn and head back, my socks soaked, melting snow wicking down into my thin leather shoes. The tread is getting thin, not a place to scamper around on wet rocks in old souls.

As Valley and I enjoyed the last of winter sport, we came across some of the usual suspects on spring snow melt- fleas. No, not the kind you and your dog need to worry about- these are snow fleas, and boy are they fun to observe. These active little critters are a source of food for many animals. A naturalist in Vermont once taught me that black bears coming out of hibernation survived off the little fleas if the plants weren’t leafing out yet. I’ve sampled a few, and they taste peppery. I think I could spend a few hours gorging on these tiny treats if I was starving like a bear, but today, they were not on the menu, so I pressed on back towards the trail head, feeling the wet socks beginning to soak in. Wet feet in the snow is not ideal, and even after I was through the drifts, I still had a lot of wetlands to cross through before getting back to dry trail. My mind was partially on personal safety, I would have many hours of daylight left, but I had not packed an extra pair of dry socks in the truck, so my feet would be waterlogged for a bit longer on the drive home.

Self-care is a great place to let your mind wander when you’re in the back country. It’s another way to take your mind off the regular grind of life. I say grind because we’re all carrying more environmental stress than ever. How we let it burden us should be a personal choice, but grinding takes its toll. I’m feeling my eyes getting tired as I type on this screen, but I’ll power on through to finish my thoughts on this day hike and the nature I encountered. It’s important for me to log my experience, and share the real time rhythms of the wilderness we’re all just on the edge of, even if it’s only the wilderness of our minds. Perhaps that’s where we go when me meditate- I’ll use that as a questing tool. Questing for meditation, someone laughed at that. Maybe I’m laughing at myself. Always taking the world so seriously. More time slipping on the melting snow up here in the peaks might loosen me up a bit more. Would it be like Nero fiddling while Roam burned? At least I’m not riding an e-bike.

In early October, 2025, a couple of friends and I took an adventure day in the area of Mt. Pilchuck. Earlier last spring, I had climbed most of bəlalgʷəʔ before encountering snow. On the way up, I’d seen down into one of the steep draws and seen a small lake. My friend, hiking with me, commented that it was Lake Heather, and that she had made that hike with her family many years ago. The trip is about 6 miles in total, with 1,200′ of elevation gain on generally gradual terrain. I read up on the description on Washington Trail Association, and noted the warning of primitive trial through some large root systems and cascading hillside seeps. There were old growth trees a few miles up the trail, with second growth forests, and water features along the way. The trail would then circle around the lake, allowing 360 views of the mountain and ridges above. I looked forward to viewing the hike to the peak above, after viewing down to the lake where I would soon be. Perspectives like this give a glimpse of scale, and I appreciate the vast wilderness still available no more than a few hours from my front door.

As we began from the generous parking area, complete with state park facilities (compost toilets). A well marked trailhead, located across the street, held the common advisory board, including trail map and any hazard warnings. Things looked good, and we began our trek on a well graveled, recently upgraded first mile of the hike, enjoying new gradual steps on steep rises along the mountainside. The new gravel led us into a false sense of security, making the road easy and neat as we ascended. Then, quite suddenly, the trail maintenance ended, and an epic climb truly began. It’s not that dramatic, just suprising to be in a scoured landscape, where a canopy of forest remained, but the ground was mostly gravel, roots, and some active water moving down the slope.

It’s hard to fully capture what the trail eventually devolved into, but we managed to follow it, and, short of a few 3 foot lifts to get from one level of a drop to another, we had a relatively pleasant climb into beautiful intact groves of forest that were truly enchanting. There was a stark difference between the lower part of the trail and the upper. Some areas seemed scoured, and the group hypothesized about what might be going on. There were endless exposed roots all over the hillside on one part of the climb, far beyond what you might see on an overused trail needing repair. The restoration of well loved trails is a continuing process, with higher elevations becoming primitive in some places through continual use and nature’s entropy. One theory we all enjoyed was a flood of water from the lake out-pour. Water could easily create this scouring effect down the hillside. You’ll see some moss, but with all the ambient light, plants should take hold, but the lack of soil prevent rooting. The trees have taken desperate hold in areas once clearcut. Further up the trail we would encounter a much more lush environment where soils remained and more level terrain allowed topsoil to establish, even with frequent flooding.

In the picture below, a second growth cedar lays down hill on a slope where scouring has occurred. Roots lay bare, branched from windfall scatter the ground in seemingly arranged piles all facing the same direction. Following the downhill flow of flooding, the ground cover sweeps in the flow that still trickled down the peak, creating cascades of small waterfalls and flowing lines, directed by solid rock foundations of a long extinct volcanic magma chamber. Millions of years cultivated an old growth forest, ranging from temperate rainforest at the base, to sub-alpine spruce stands along the alpine lake, skirting scree piles laid down by uplift, fault shifts, and the dynamic landscape of The Pacific Northwest.

The shift from slope to generally even ground signaled the formation of wetlands. The lake’s outflow was a vast delta of forest, willow edges, and transition from cedar to spruce. The older trees were not so large, having to navigate high winds coming up the slope, or pressing down off the peaks in a northern gale. Fallen giants lay as testament to the storms that form off the towering ridge lines above. The weather that day had foretasted breezes, and that means gusts of 30mph or more, which would be adventuresome on this trail, in this ecology. We had entertained canceling the hike, but the forecast shifted to milder calm transition, so we went for it and lucked out with mostly dry hiking and only one brief downpour. The sun managed to flash a few times, and clouds held off long enough for us to get a few photos of the towering ridge lines supporting bəlalgʷəʔ ‘s out of sight peak, several thousand feet above.

The trail loops around the lake, on a well constructed boardwalk in stretches that cross the wetlands. The south side of the lake hosts some impressive boulders, craggy enough to have fallen from above in the last few thousand years. Glacial erratics will usually have obvious rounding in places from the ice that carried them along and shaped the whole region of Puget Sound. River rock around here was still impacted by ice about 10,000 years ago. That’s when the last ice sheets from the north retreated. bəlalgʷəʔ was already formed by tectonic uplift, and millions of years before that, it was an active volcano in a shallow sea archipelago, or so one theory goes. I love picturing all this change as I walk through, understanding why the layers of rock are here, how they were shaped, why there is a wetland, and how continued flooding has scoured the current slope down from the lake and valley above. This drainage basin gets clogged by flooding down steep slopes of rock, the lake’s wetlands sponge up as much as they can, but the running rivulets spill over the confines of the shallow plateau. Mountain torrents are not uncommon, and to see the evidence of this erosion chaos on the mountainside signaled the dangerous potential for hikers ill-informed about the mountain’s conditions.

On our way around the lake, we also found some nice mushrooms. I’m always on the lookout for some edible delights in the mountains during The Mushroom Spring. Our group hunted passively, but still managed to spot enough boletes to fill a couple of zip locks. That’s some good eating to take home. Spruce forests yield boletes, specifically porcine on this hike. It was a pleasure to group find and then send one runner (me) over to harvest. They were prominent around the established camping areas, through at this time of year, no tents were present. The mushrooms added a little extra flavor to our hike, and there were some https://lnt.org/good observations about a number of other fungal friends we encountered along the way. We were harvesting near the trail, which is important to remember when you are in a high impact area. Please try not to go far into the un-tread areas of the woods if there is a clear trail, especially in more remote areas with established ground cover or wetlands. Your tracks into the deeper wilds will soon lead others, until there is a new established trail cutting open the last habitat structures for our beloved wilderness. Trails and access is planned, constructed, and well marked to keep us off the sensitive terrain, and to allow wildlife some space. It’s another reason leashes are encouraged, so our pets don’t stress wildlife or disrupt habitat with scent, which deters wildlife. We are guests in nature, and when we are good guests, nature remains intact and enjoyable to visit, when we are bad guests, trash collects, latrine abuse abounds, and trails sometimes close all together.

Our original plan had been to hike to Lake 22, next-door to Heather Lake, in the neighboring plateau, but it was closed for maintenance through the week, and we had to change destinations. I’m glad there is funding and labor to fix these trails. There had been massive reconstruction of the lower part of our trail earlier in the summer, and that hard work was evident in the smooth hiking for about a mile at the start. This mountain is becoming a very popular daytime destination for folks living in the greater North Seattle area. As development continues to boom in the surrounding towns, the nearby ecology will have to bare this influx of outdoor enthusiasts hoping to get a little R&R in their backyard wilderness. That’s why I live in Western Washington, just close enough to Seattle for the airport and economic boon, but also far enough away to be within an hour of most local hiking and wilderness adventure spots- enough to keep me busy in nature connection and learning most of the year. To continue that enjoyment, and the access, we all have to do our part in being good guests in the landscape, and mindful of how and when we recreate to avoid overtaxing the precious natural world we wish to explore and be in.

Gratitude for the opportunities to share outdoor adventures with friends. To the weather that day being agreeable, trail approachable, and our safe accent and decent. Thanks to the nature all around us, the beauty of a growing and ever changing world, and our place in it. Joy in finding wild food, mushroom abundance, and friends to share it with. The Northwest continues to be home, teacher, adventure, and cultivated community, what a life!

Tag: ecology

Above It All

Lake Heather Adventure