1st Crater Lake hike of the season

I'm off to Crater Lake for two days of hiking and checking out current conditions. Tonight at 8pm (at the Community House at the rim) Charlie Bacon is giving a talk. He is a USGS geologist with lots of experience at the park. My camera body is up in Portland being fixed, so, I'm hoping to have it back in a few more days.

Yesterday, I hiked the two southern trails at the William L. Finley Nationald Wildlife Refuge. These were the Beaver Pond and Cattail Pond Trails and the Cheadle March Trail. This included visits to the Pigeon Butte Natural Resource Area (NRA). Adjoing it is the Maple Knoll NRA, however, I did not see a trail to it.

Oregon Public Television (OPB) has a nice video (about 10 minutes) on Finley. Very enlightening.

William Finley NWR and a Failed Camera

Well, it had to happen sooner or later...the shutter failed on my Canon 10D body while I was out in the field yesterday. Every camera is rated for how long the shutter will last (the 10D is about 50,000 exposures) and mine was about due. It has been repaired once before and I will probably have this shutter replaced, but, I will most likely move "up" to a new Canon camera soon....I hope!

I did get some photos, however, and after the shutter failed I hiked several of the trails on Finley NWR (the Mill Hill trail, Woodpecker Trail, the Inter-tie Trail, the new Homer Campbell Memorial Trail). I will get a scan of the trails brochure online.

The William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge is a wonderful refuge with it's combination of historical and natural uniqueness. The Finley is one of the very few remaining Williamette Valley upland Prairie ecosystems and wetland prairie ecosystems. Even these, however, have been grazed in the past, by cattle and sheep. And, the history of the refuge is very interesting the previous families who owned land there and the historic structures that remain. I will provide more details in later blogs. Here are some preliminary photos:

Willamette Valley wetland prairie

Just in case you can not read the plaque.

Grasses dominate the weltand prairie habitat.

This forest of Oregon Ash, Big-leaf maple and some alder is seasonally flooded, Muddy Creek riparian area, Homer Campbell Memorial Trail

Andrews Forest Admin. History - A Good Read Almost Finished

This morning, I completed chapter 5 of Necessary Work: Discovering Old Forests, New Outlooks, and Community on the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest, 1948-2000, by Max G. Geier, March 2007. Basically, it is a administrative history of the "Andrews", how it's research focus has changed over time. It's great background material if you want to photograph the Lookout Creek Trail or anywhere else on the "Andrews". It's also well written and not as dry as some administrative histories I'v read. You can find a free copy at the Andrews administrative office, where I picked my copy up.

I would recommend this book. I'll give a more detailed review once I'v finished reading it. Another wonderful book to read on the Andrews, is Jon R. Luoma's book, The Hidden Forest, but, that is another blog.

My First Explorations of Lookout Creek Trail

The last few days have been a wonderful exploration of the Lookout Creek Trail on the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest. This is one of the few Pacific Northwest trails that travels through an unbroken old-growth forest. This trail and the surrounding forest will be one of the primary photo locations I concentrate on over the next few seasons. It will take several more photo trips until I feel comfortable having fairly deep photo coverage. Like the ecosystem studies being conducted on the forest, you could quite easily spend the remainder of your lifetime exploring all the ins-and-outs of this incredibly complex ecosystem.

"nurse log" along Lookout Creek Trail

Banana Slug (Ariolimax columbianus)

Trillium flower (Trillium ovatum)

Lookout Creek