junebug55

So my job is pretty cool. I basically spend 4 to 6 hours any given day on a stretch of river, dissecting it and analyzing the depths, substrate, macro-invertebrates, riparian vegetation and general types of in stream habitat, ie. pools, riffle, turbulent, side pools, etc.. These then get corallated with fish presence and absence and density. Its pretty neat stuff to begin with, and then you factor in that a lot of the spots where we work are in beautiful, remote and wild country, you really cant beat it. When Im not doing the habitat work I get to snorkel and actually identify, count and estimate the sizes of the fish in the reach. This is really the coolest part of my job.
You cant really even imagine what its like to snorkel in a river counting trout and salmon unless youve done it. Mention the word snorkel and it conjures tropical images of coral reefs and bikinis and chartreuse fish, even for me. Our snorkeling is a bit different. Take last Thursday for example,
The alarm went off at 0616, and I turned in my sleeping bag from my side, onto my back. I saw that it was raining, and it looked dreary. Turning the alarm clock off I noticed that some water had gotten into the cab of my truck, dripping off the canopy door, down onto my hiking boots, soaking the box I keep my toiletries in, my grocery bags, part of the duffle with my clothes in it, and then my sleeping bag. I rolled back over and closed my eyes.
Its late August on the east side of the Cascades in Washington. Its not supposed to rain, never mind for four days in a row. My onezie,(pronounced won-zie, fleece unitard) was still wet from snorkeling yesterday. My motivation level to get out of bed was pretty low.
About ten minutes later I unzip my sleeping bag , dig around for some semi-dry socks, my trunks and my stocking cap. I walk over to the mess table in my damp shoes. Its where we cook. Its a mess. Pumping the coleman stove I notice the fresh mouse poop everywhere, soaked and bleeding into the puddles on the table. Theyve even gotten into the plastic bag of cayenne pepper. I grab my coffee pot and make my way down the steep bank of Chiwaukum Creek to fill it up.
After drinking our coffees and mats and eating a slim breakfast we load up all of our gear. Weve got to be on the road by seven thirty to get to the trailhead on time. The site for the day is up the Chiwawa River, in the Glacier Peaks Wilderness. Its about a 35 mile drive, mostly on dirt roads, and then a mile and a half hike to some orange flagging on the trail that says, down to WM06677A. We then head off trail down the valley to the river. The Chiwawa river is maybe the most scenically beautiful, and cleanest river I have ever been on. As we drive, the rain has stopped, but Eric slams straight into the many large mud puddles in the road, splashing Jeremy through his window several times before he rolls it up. Just downstream of the trailhead the water in the river is a milky, glacial blue. Were worried about the clarity and visibility in the river for our snorkel counts.
We park in the lot at the Trinity camp, where the trail leaves and climbs up into the wilderness. Its a major access point for hikers, but on this fourth day of rain, the parking lot is mostly empty. John opens the rear door to the car, and our stuffed in gear spills out onto the muddy ground. I take my last sip of my mat as the Forest Service crew pulls in, just a couple of minutes late. They pull in next to us and we get our gear together, and pack our packs. The Forest Service crew is all packed and ready to go, and they sit around and watch us as we cram shit into our packs, feeling the pressure to get on the trail and be at the site and ready to go by 1000. I cram in my pack; felt wading boots, neoprene socks, gloves and hood, my fleece onesie and my dry suit, mask and snorkel, two water bottles, a lighter, write in the rain notebook, extra pencils, my snorkeling cuff, sunblock, a can of sardines and some rye crackers, and a 5 meter block net which will be used to block the river at the top and bottom of the site so no fish can enter or leave the reach. I put my rain gear on, and we all head down the trail.
Todays work is part of a variability study to not only count and identify the fish in the reach, but to compare different crews ability to count the fish. There will be 3 snorkel runs, and all counts kept secret and compared later. Today we are to snorkel the reach first, then the forest service crew goes, then us again, in different lanes.
The hike is easy, not very steep with goliath old trees and jagged peaks around, and remnant snow patches watering and coloring the downstream water. As we slosh through the mud, the trail is a fresh slate, having had no new hikers on it since the newest heavy rains. Squirrel, deer, and mink tracks dot the ground, and I keep my eye out for bigger, scarier tracks. I see none, but there are two Bobcat scats in the mile and a half of trail before the site. The birds are mostly quiet, except for some very vocal, but distant Clarkes Nutcrackers.
I walk slower than John and Eric, and probably Jeremy, but he holds back with me, knowing that its pointless to rush to keep up with the other guys. The Canadian guy on the forest service crew hustles and keeps up with them, and the two young women on the crew fall behind. Theyre both college students and pretty green on the whole field work scene, but seem capable enough. There was a little je ne sais quoi in the air, as the day before, the forest service crew had really dropped the ball and missed one of their snorkel runs and forced us to work until 7 PM. Not really all that cool, so we werent really sure what to expect today.
At a fork in the trail, Jeremy and I wait for the girls, so they dont go the wrong way. Weve been to the site before and know the way. The Olympics are on, and we joke about being out of the running for a medal, being so far behind the other guys. Wanting to walk alone, I leave Jeremy behind and head out. Ive taken my rain gear off due to overheating, and the drizzle has now soaked my clothes. I have nothing dry. About 300 meters down the trail I recognize a small creek that runs into the Chiwawa and start looking for the flagging. I see it up ahead, and when I get there I notice that the guys tracks continue on past. Theyve missed it and kept walking, fucking butheads!! I go down off the trail and stash my pack, and as Im heading back up I meet Jeremy and the girls, (Id refer to them by their names, but maybe they dont want to be in this storey, and Id refer to them as women, but really that word is for females over 30, I dont know, dont hate). Meeting Jeremy I tell him whats up, and slap him a high five, looks like we took Gold and Silver after all! They continue down to the site, and I head off in a jog to fetch the boys.
Hooting every once in a while, I cruise down the trail light without the burden of my pack. After about five minutes I hear a response and stop, figuring that theyve figured it out. A couple of minutes later, they round the bend, and I bust their balls pretty good. It was funny, but wheres the forest service guy?? They say hes right behind them, so we walk back to the site with a bit of zest in our steps, were in a hurry now, and probably late regardless. I send them down, and wait for the Canuck, ( a term of pride for people from B.C., not an insult). I yell a couple of koo-loo-koo-koo-koo-koo-koo-koos
and finally, maybe 10 minutes later he strolls in, like hes at a flea market and browsing the wares from table to table. Were pretty damn late now, and we still have to set up the nets. I dont know him, so I dont give him any shit, but try and be appropriately curt with my responses when he talks.
We get down to the site, and Jeremys already in the water with one of the nets, and heading down to the beginning of the site to set it up. Luckily the water is quite clear, but with the rain, it is up and raging. The gradient of the site is almost 4%, which means for every 100 meters in length it loses 4 in altitude. It doesnt seem like much, but along with copius large boulders in the channel, it makes for a class 3 or higher rapid at times, with some waterfalls thrown in. Its totally questionable whether or not we can even do it, but weve got to at least try, so we throw our gear on in the now steady drizzle. I take my sweat soaked t-shirt off, before throwing on my fleece under garment, and try and keep my pack and stuff dry, but theres no cover. Theres no way around it, were going to be really cold, all day.
Finally, were all geared up, and we head down to help Jeremy. At the beginning of the reach, the water is really flowing, and the netting, which is designed to stop the smallest of fish has a lot of drag, I mean a lot. The force pulling the net is so strong, that with all of it in the water, unattached, it is all four grown men can do, just to hold it in place. We get both ends attached, and really taught, and there is so much strain that were worried about the lines breaking. Luckily there are large boulders which help is anchor it in mid-channel. Jeremy heads up with the forest service crew to net off the top of the site, which is a little easier. It takes us maybe 45 minutes to get the net as good as we can, with fifty plus pound boulders thrown in the bottom of the net to keep it down, and lines heading upstream to keep the top of the net up. The force of the flow still wants to roll these massive rocks right out of the bottom, but we get enough in, and hope for the best.
Now its time to go. We take turbidity measurements, and temperature. The water is 8 degrees centigrade, 46 american degrees, damn cold. It wouldnt be so bad, but our faces are submerged for one and a half hours straight. Im on the far left, as we head upstream, the bank on this side is a moss covered bedrock cliff, anywhere from 20 feet to one hundred feet high at times. We only need 3 people for the snorkel, due to the good visibility, so Jeremy sits out, as he has seniority, I guess. The way the snorkeling works, is we all head up at the same pace, forming a line laterally across the channel of the tributary. Each person looks to their left, and only counts the fish that pass them on that side, except the guy on the farthest right side, or what we call the left bank, like skiers left. This person counts both the fish between them and that bank, and between them and the next person. By maintaining constant visual contact with the person next to you, you should be able to count the fish that you see fairly accurately. We wear PVC cuffs on our wrists held on by surgical tubing on which we record all the fish we see and their sizes.
After about 50 feet the channel splits and there is a side channel on my side. I head up it alone. I havent seen a fish yet. The water spills over and around boulders, oxygen bubbles cloud the water here and there, so you have to be very active, sticking your head in every little pocket of clarity to see if theres anybody hiding out. The force of the water is like large breaking waves and with feet planted, it still takes all of your strength to pull yourself to the next boulder, still with your head submerged. Your body creates a lot of drag. The scenes that happen under water in cold mountain streams are so incredibally gorgeous, as the water moves the gravel in mini tornados, and swirls around you, and an orange leaf floats by, and stops and does a couple of loops, and speeds away. It is large, not just the experience, but through the mask, everything is magnified, so pools that are really only a foot deep seem vast and dark, and even eerie at times. When you see a fish, they are huge, and one needs to calibrate the size with nearby objects, measured against the written ruler penciled on our cuffs.
Im heading up the side channel, weaving around to not miss a single piece of the water. We count everything. Climbing and clamoring over rocks, and slithering from side to side, I come to a plunge pool, falling about 4 feet over a log jam which dams the entire channel. The way that water spills from pools, often between two boulders in this type of stream creates a perfect little entry in which to slide into the pool. Since this is where all of the water is flowing though, its usually a really powerful spot, and a difficult thing to do. Fish are spooky , and when they see you, they often skidaddle, as far as they can, depending on how confined they are in the pool, and what kind of things there are to hide in. What we do is get a hand hold, and then kind of sneak our head into the water, which is kind of like gently placing your head out of a car going about 150 mph, or one of those stereo commercials where the guys face is blasted back from the force. The view from this vantage is my favorite part of snorkeling, and the sensation is pretty crazy. I get my body braced, and ease my face into the icy cold pool, and low and behold theres a bull trout, just sitting in the bottom of the pool, in what seems like some really fast current, but there it is, at ease. Bull Trout are an endangered species which inhabit mountain streams, and coastal rivers from Northern California to Alaska. They were once persecuted because their diet consists largely of other fish and their eggs. Now they are an indicator of a healthy system, and a cherished member of the community. They are beautiful, and since they are really a char, and not really a trout, they have colorful spots all over on a dark background, as opposed to black spots on a silver body.
So this guy is sitting there, and he looks big, but I know better and measure a nearby cobble thats the same size, 13 cm. Its only about 4 inches long! He finally gets a little wary of my presence as I pull my whole body into the pool, and jets into the white, churning, oxygenated water at the head of the pool. I scour the rest of the pool and fail to see another fish, or relocate the bull, they are really good at hiding, and often dont get seen at all. I mark him down on my cuff, and continue up the channel.
I meet up with Eric and John where the side channel splits, and we are back together as a team of three. Soon we come to a large pool, and oh my fucking god, I see a huge shadow under a van sized boulder, and the white flashes on the fin suggest that it might be another Bull Trout. The force is now too much on my side, and the visibility good enough that we can see the whole pool, so we all get together and get a little closer. The fish swims up to us, not really out of curiosity, but it looked like it had another agenda, and just didnt care that we were there. This fish didnt just look big, it was a veritable lunker, probably 24 inches long and 5 or 6 pounds. So cool. We creep up on the boulder together, and I see in the shadows 3 large fins, more Bull Trout, about the same size. This is the equivalent of seeing a family of Spotted Owls, or a Black Rhino, or something, way up there on the cool things to see in life scale. Needless to say, we are all really hyped at this point, and push a little deeper into the pool. Up against the boulder, we grab on and pull ourselves down, under the boulder to see if anything else is there, and to our astonishment is a 38 inch, 25 pound Chinook Salmon. Holy Shit! So we are 28 miles up the Chiwawa River, on the opposite end of Fish Lake which flows into the Wenatchee River, which contains Tumwater Canyon, a section of water so steep, nasty and turbulent, that I wouldnt send a doll down in a kayak, afraid to see the carnage. The Wenatchee River then flows into the mighty Columbia River, the most hydrologically developed river in the world. Between the sea and the Wenatchee are 7 dams, count them, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, and about 450 river miles. So this giant salmon, having been born probably very close to where we are in the Chiwawa River, left when it was just 13 cm. long and journeyed all the way out to sea, passing all of those aforementioned barriers, where it lived and fed for 3-10 years, and then made its way all the way back, swimming through the seven fish ladders and the many obstacles, arriving at this pool, with ragged dorsal fins, and scuff marks all over its body to wait under a van sized boulder and hope that some female is strong enough to do the same and want to build a redd together where she will place her eggs as he fertilizes them and with their tails push them into the cracks of the gravel. In this manner, this moment has come to be. Its really almost too much.
In the pool, we count 5 large Bull Trout and the lone Chinook and move on. After the pool, the river gets steeper, and very hard to navigate. The situation was a bit squirrelly, and the potential for injury, or other bad circumstances was increasing. As we continued up we met the forest service crew, and communicated that in no way should they put themselves in a situation in which they werent comfortable, trying to give them an out, if they were scared. We mustve been a little on edge ourselves, but we pushed on, from pool to cranny to rapid, etc.. There were a couple of Mountain White Fish, a few more giant Chinooks, and a dozen or so more bull trout in various sizes and models along the way. The underwater scenery was astounding, and so worth the fight that it was just to go upstream in this section of water. Every once in a while Id stick my head in a little section of water, and a huge tail would be right there, a giant Chinook nearly filling the small pools, and literally scaring the begeezus out of me as they bolted away, or right at me, not knowing what I am, or what kind of a threat I represent.
About two thirds of the way through, I came upon a baffling sight. Two tiny yellow feet upside down and moving to and froe with the current. The distended cloaca pointing up toward the sky, and a small, feathered head wedged between two baseball sized balls of gravel. Its feathers were only about a third of the way grown out, but by body shape and bill, I identified it as a young American Dipper. The American Dipper is an incredibally cool bird, which lives in clean mountain streams and catches most of its meals in and around rushing water. Often the bird gets in the water in the most unlikely places, and there, with its special feet and unbelievable strength,(to scale) it navigates this water, both walking along the bottom, and flying with its wings under water to catch stoneflies and other tasty little treats. Using the streams and rivers in this way is akin to Leopards learning to fly so they can eat bats at dusk. So late in the season, I wonder what has happened to this poor little bird. Maybe it was the second brood, maybe just another failed attempt in a year unlikely to produce an offspring for an unlucky pair of parents. They build little moss houses, like brick pizza ovens on vertical cliff walls, often within the spray zone of waterfalls so the moss stays alive, and helps to camouflage the nest. What a complex way to earn a living, and what a sad end to something that couldve been so cool, and yet there was this little bird, and as I found it waving around in the flow, and a Cutthroat Trout darting by, it was still pretty damn cool, but maybe not for the bird.
It took us about an hour and a half to snorkel the whole reach, and once we reached the top, our hands and feet had gone completely numb, and we had trouble unzipping each others dry suits so we could all take a piss. We walked back to our stuff and the other guys. After all, it ended up being doable, if a little sketchy at times, and the forest service crew was ready to give it a go. John and I stayed down below to watch how they navigated the nasty water, and Eric and Jeremy went into the woods to get out of the elements and warm up. I was totally impressed with the verve and vigor in which the two women of the crew attacked the situation. The youngest and greenest, found a way to scale the rocks past the first Bull Trout pool on the side that I had gone around and back, having dismissed it as a little dangerous. Two points for the forest service females. We were on the verge of hypothermia, and still had to do another run after the forest service went, so we got out of the rain and joined Jeremy and Eric in the woods. I have to admit not being all that excited to eat another god damned can of sardines with crackers for lunch, maybe the 30th of the year, but with my dietary restrictions and camping for so long, its just what comes easy. They went down, and pound for pound its a damn good way to recharge and get some protein, and stay low on the trophic scale. Sardines, its whats for lunch.
In the end, we got it done, and about 500 meters in to the hike back we had all warmed up, and our feet started tingling as the feeling crept back into our extremities. Its good to push yourself, especially when you know that its pretty unlikely that any real harm is going to come to you. On the way back, new mushrooms had begun to pop up that werent there on the way in, and I heard a bird that might have been a Huttons Vireo, which would be a bit out of place on this side of the mountains, but I never got a look.
We finally got to the car, said our goodbyes, and piled into the cars, wet and weary. I hope that the Forest Service crew felt as empowered as we did, or more so after having such a rad day. They certainly jumped up a notch in my book, I wish the leadership in the agency was as worthy as their underpaid technicians. The agency really is an embarrassement for our country, and what I believe to be a totally calculated gutting by the republicans, who through their quest for less government and more privatization have succeeded, an idea completely contrary and at odds with the beliefs of the first and real conservatives. Dont get me going on these corporate socialists that call themselves conservatives, Ill be likely to really get going and bring Leiberman into the mix, then itll get ugly. Anyway, another 12 hour day of doing really cool and inspiring shit, and seeing places and things that very few people get to experience. It almost makes me forget about all of the bullshit associated with the job, which will likely be the subject of a future rant. But for now, Im just super stoked to have last Thursday in my cerebral library of experiences. Life is good.