Multnomah Wahkeenah loop is open - Feel the Burn

Feel The Burn

It has been a little over a year since the big fireworks-started fire on the Oregon side of the Columbia Gorge burned up huge tracks of prime forest and hiking trails. This fire was started (accidentally) by a teenager playing with smoke bombs along the Eagle Creek trail. That started a fire in that deep hard to reach canyon that quickly spread throughout the area and finally burned itself out just as it got past the Multnomah falls area. Parts of the trail, like sections of Eagle Creek, may be lost for a generation. Some other more lightly hit sections were re-opened last month.

My partner and I have re-started our semi-weekly jaunt to do the trail starting at the Multnomah Falls parking lot and  looping around Wahkeenah Falls and Multnomah Falls. This 5 mile loop is blessed with huge and wonderful water features and many huge trees and rocky precipices. We usually like to climb up the gorge at Wahkeenah and come back down at Multnomah (the next valley over), mainly because the Wahkeenah side is often muddy and slippery and easier to go up than down.

The connector trail

Note lack of large undergrowth. Everything you see is 1 year old or less

The fire impact can be seen from the parking lot (which is in between the lanes of I-84 right at the falls). The steep cliffs immediately East of the Multnomah Falls Lodge have been cleared of many trees and those trees still standing are all marked with black burn marks going 30 feet up the trunks.  Since we are doing a counter-clockwise loop, we starting hiking away from these obvious scars along the little connector trail that goes from Multnomah to Wahkeenah.

The first thing you notice is how visible everything is. With all of the bushy growth and low hanging branches burned away, there isn't anything (except the burned tree trunks) blocking your view. You can see a long way and geographic features that had been invisible a few years ago are now exposed and prominent. This means more views of the cliff face walls, falling rock, and the Columbia river. Then you start to notice the specifics of the undergrowth that have been burned away. All of the bushy stuff is gone, but so is most of the ubiquitous sword fern. The sword fern in many places is burned down to little black stumps. Some are trying to grow again, but others appear to be just dead.

Burned Sword Fern Stumps

The burned off undergrowth does appear to be being exploited by some species. There is a lot of thimble berry growing all around. It must grow quickly and is taking over everyplace it can find sunlight (which is a lot of places with the small broadleaf trees all burned out). There were also many new shoots of Mahonia (Oregon Grape) growing. Many of these shoots were coming up right in the trail. This is because Mahonia spreads through root growth. Because of this I believe the plant was more able to "hide" from the fire and then come back with a vengeance when some of its competition had been burned out.

Mahonia in the trail

One thing I was keeping an eye out for was Poison Oak. I was sort of hoping that plant was less successful against fire and had been wiped out. Hard to say. I didn't see any Poison Oak plants with leaves on them and it was certainly true that a couple of remembered Poison Oak infestation areas seemed to be burned clean. But this time of year it isn't completely unreasonable for the plants to be dormant, so maybe they are somewhat reduced but still present in the area. Dang.

 

We climbed up the Wahkeenah creek basin. The other thing the fire did was set the area up for a lot of rock slides and flash floods. Lots of evidence of that. Some parts of the trail look to have been completely rebuilt over top of a new slide. There was a new foot bridge across the river right at this place where the Wahkeenah cuts through a close sided ravine. As we arrived there were several people standing on the bridge and looking around. They were all wearing hard hats. Turns out they were the designer of the bridge and the people that built it. I guess just checking it out. It is a good bridge with strong stacked rock footings and steal crossbeams.

The new Bridge. My Partner. Bridge Creators.

Above Fairy Falls is a split in the trail where you can either head further up the Wahkeena creek to Wahkeenah Springs (where the Wahkeenah creek comes pouring out of the mountain rock) or you can go up to a "View Point". I have looked for this so called viewpoint many a time in the past and never found or saw anything. But with the undergrowth burned away, my partner thought it might be worth a look see. So we went that away.

Two Singed Giants

The Author being Artsy

 

 

The New View

And she was right. Instead of being surrounded by close-in green, we now were afforded a view of the river and of the gorge that was new to us. It was stark and visible. And with this view came something else, a bitter cold wind blowing unfettered down the gorge and into our faces. We weren't expecting that. We had to quickly don a couple more layers and then huff it away from the view and off to a more sheltered spot.

There is this place that I call the Multnomah Wahkeenah Crossroads (it is now a facebook place. Make sure to checkin if you are there). There are a few trails that end up there (including the trails to Devil's Rest, Multnomah River, Viewpoint, and Wahkeenah Trail). I like to eat my lunch there. Today it was cold and that area was also more exposed to the wind with the undergrowth gone. So we didn't rest long. You can see way up the mountain from there.

This is a good picture of how high the fire must have burned through this area.

After the crossroads you hike along the ridge for a bit. I always like that part of the hike. I think it is because you have to do a lot of work to get up there (so you feel a bit virtuous) and now you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor and sort of coast along the top for awhile. It is also very pretty up there. One of my favorite spots, however, where the trail winds through a relative wide flat area amongst a relatively young stand of Douglas Fir, was really hit hard by the fire. The smaller Doug Firs may have burned too much to survive and they are missing all of their needles and appear to be dead. That isn't a good thing. That entire part of the forest will have to fall down. Probably to be replaced by the quick growing Alder until another generation of the fir giants can take hold.

Not Dead

Probably Dead

Never could see the river from here before.

Going down into the Multnomah river gorge you see a lot more burnt trees and a lot more evidence of rock slides and flooding. I included pictures. But this area, though burned and battered, appears to have survived. Things will grow back and in another 30 years it will look like it did 50 years ago.

This makes me think about that Viewpoint I was talking about earlier. Strange to have a trail that is called viewpoint that doesn't have one. But now, after the burn, there is a great view. I am supposing that the trail was built and named not long after some previous burn had opened up the understory and provided that wonderful view of the Columbia. So... therein lies hope.

Multnomah River Valley

 

Note: This fire marks are much higher here.

Old and new Trail Signs for Larch Mountain Trail

How often do you have to make these signs?

Slide

The last part of the hike is a paved switch back trail down the gorge wall to the Multnomah Lodge and the parking lot. This area of the loop was also badly hit by the fire. Down at one of the big falls view areas (about a quarter of the way up the cliff wall) most of the big trees had been cut down and left where they fell, and the area is just bald. Not sure what happened here. The trees in the area don't appear to be any worse burned than they are other places, so why are they all cut down? I am thinking that they were sacrificed in order to slow the fire down so that the firefighters could protect/save the historic lodge and bridge that are at the base of the falls.  There are a LOT of tourists that visit those falls every year. Can't have the lodge burn down, that is where the bathrooms are!!

Falls Viewpoint above the Lodge.

Why the Tourists Come.

After the loop and partner and I were cold and a bit tired. The wind had been very cold up there. During the summer, we have a tradition of rewarding ourselves for making this hike with an ice-cream cone from the little snack bar at the old lodge. We like to say, "Do the Loop, Get a Scoop". But it was a little cold for that. So I took her into the lodge itself for some lunch. They have a nice sized restaurant inside the stone building. High sweeping ceilings and big stone hearth with a fire. And a pretty good menu too. Our new motto is "Hike the Loop, Have some Soup".

Hike the Loop. Have Some Soup.

Kayaking the Yamhill

Ten Thousand Years ago

 The glaciers creeping down from Canada had formed a huge ice dam in Missoula Montana. As the ice receded at the end of the ice age, the dam catastrophically ruptured and a great lake worth of water and rock poured out of ancient lake Missoula, scoured the scab lands of Eastern Washington, Gouge out the gorge or the Columbia river, and then backed up into the Willamette and Tualatin valleys to a depth of some 200 feet. At the Height of the flood waters, the Tualatin valley topped out and water came plunging down the Yamhill valley to meet the rising flood from the Willamette. Washboard plains and deposited gravel beds can be found in the area to attest to this.

150 years ago

By Unknown - Salem, Oregon Public Library digital collection image 5834, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5204859

Steamboats supplied all of the freight transportation in the Willamette River Valley. The Yamhill river  was navigable up to Wilsonville and included a dam and locks for keeping the river navigable during dry months. The kayak put in at Dayton is also called "Dayton Landing" and is pictured in that old library shot that I linked in.  There are still many remains of the Steamboat era. You can see them as you paddle down the river. Be on the look out for old Docks, Piers, Ferry Crossings, and wing dams. Some of these things are occasional boating hazards for kayakers as they may be either just submerged enough to hide from you or may occasion dangerous currents and eddies.

Last Week

The Kayak Portland Meetup did a down river paddle down the Yamhill river from Dayton to Newberg (via the Willamette river).  Since this is a one way paddle (down river) we did a shuttle over to the take out at Rogers Landing public park.

The Yamhil is about 50 feet wide, deeper than my paddle, and really sluggish this time of year. So sluggish that you can see any current at all running through the frequent tree stumps and snags. This meant that our paddle was also very sluggish. But that was fine, the 20 of us were just out enjoying a fine sunny Saturday (perhaps our last one of the season) and a viewing of the fall colors and the lovely reflections off of the water.

We did not see much wildlife out on the river. It could be because we were a rather large and noisy group. We did have a king fisher fly through with his usual laughing call, and a Great Blue Heron did her usual thing of flying a couple hundred yards further down the river every time we got close enough to take a good picture.

We were doing some talking about safety and such and what to do if you fell out of your boat (those kayaks can be tippy. One person (and experienced paddler) said that they would just swim to shore (presumably with their boat). Not sure I would recommend that. Lots of stuff in the water to get hung on, and then once you got to the shore, not sure what you would do. The shore is very steep to on both sides, Unclear that you could stand up close to shore and it would be very hard to try and get out. Would be pretty easy to impale yourself on something, however. No, I think you would be better off having someone to a T-rescue on you. Of course, if you were by yourself you might not have much of a choice. That may be a good reason not to paddle alone.

I have seen some examples on You Tube of people putting electric pumps in their boats that they can activate should they flip over. Then they can do a wet roll with their paddle float and just wait for the boat to pump itself out. I have tried to make one of those before, it worked pretty good but I never got quite the nerve up to drill the through hole in my boat that you would really need to do the thing right.

We stopped right at the confluence of the Willamette to eat our lunch. There was a little rock bank there that gave us a landing spot. But we were on the south side of the river and the steep bank behind us meant we were in the shade. Not ideal for this fall day, especially when we could see all of that sunshine right there out on the river.



It turns out that the thing to do is paddle out of the Yamhill and turn right and got a little bit up the Willamette. There you will find some nice sunny rocks to sit on and eat your lunch (next time).

Now we are paddling down the Willamette, so we finally have a little bit of current assist. Not much, however, since we are just getting to the wide slow moving part of the river that many paddlers refer to as the Newberg Pool. Newberg is the little town in this area.

But this stretch does give us a good view of some nice fall colors and we had a Bald Eagle make an appearance.

We made a turn off of the main channel at Ash Island. We had to negotiate the wing dams that are set up there. Here is a piece of Steam Boat era engineering. The Corp of Engineers would erect these rows of wood pylons that would form dams against the current. The idea was to keep the majority of the river current moving through the main channel and so keep that channel deep and navigable for the steamboat traffic.  The Corp was also responsible for other river maintenance, like removing snags and keeping the locks working.

There was a old and large landing or wharf back on the back side of the island. Not sure what that used to be, though it may have been tied in with the mill that is a bit more down river. We were approaching our take out now and we started to paddle over some large mossy objects. I thought they were pylons close to the surface and covered in moss, but I pushed my paddle down into one and found that it was mossy all the way down. So this was some sort of plant that was growing up all by itself. I have not seen anything like it in the river before.  See the pictures. (I looked around the net bout couldn't find a match).

And so our paddle ended. The small boat take out at Rodgers landing is just down river from the motor boat launch and an easy walk up hill to our cars.

Sailing Zodiac 2018

Sailing Zodiac 2018

6 years ago I did a lifetime challenge and did a 4 day tall sailing adventure aboard the 100 year old 130 foot schooner Zodiac, out of Bellingham Washington. Since then I have met and married my life partner, pretty much finished up my professional career, and taken on Kayaking as a major sport. Still and all, I remembered that time as a great adventure and have been wanting to take my Partner along with me to see how she might like it.

Read about my last trip if you want details on sailing Zodiac.  Seems like I got the details just fine in that telling. However, what happened this time..

Zodiac at her Home Port.

These are river  Otters. Stealing Crab Bait.

Being aboard the Zodiac on a blowing rainy morning is a bit different that one might desire. It is cold and wet up on deck. The blowing gray is refreshing and has a stark beauty, but doesn't induce you to long hours sitting on the deck lockers and enjoying nature. Perhaps a few minutes of soggy beauty and then you are driven back below. And as chilly as it is on deck, below deck is warm and dry. So first you loose a few layers, put your coat up to dry, and then you can conduct some rainy morning indoor activity. Some people are reading, or perhaps studying about the area from books in the ship library. Others are making idle conversation in the kitchen or playing cribbage in the parlor. An unsettling number are playing electronic games on handheld devices. Some are even attempting to blog on their little portable electronics (Hey, I brought a keyboard).

No Mainsail on this day.

So, down in the cabin is warm and there are casual ways to occupy yourself, but up on deck is the cold windy adventure that you payed good money for. So what to do?

The Bow Corridor

Speaking of which, a trip topside finds us sailing across the top of the American San Juan islands on a broad reach under foresail, staysail and jib. We didn't raise the main today, a little too much wind (or perhaps too much rain) and the skipper thinks we are making great time to our destination (Roche Harbor) under just the smaller fore sails. We are leaning a bit with the wind. Not quite enough to knock over your deck of cards sitting on the table during the cribbage game, but enough that you can feel it. Enough that you can tell that you are sailing. The Zodiac is big enough, and perhaps the San Juans are small enough, that there isn't a lot of boat movement in the seas we have seen. So no one is feeling queasy or anything even when you are below decks. In fact, when we left dock I was below and I couldn't even tell that we had started moving. We were a few hundred yards off of the dock before I happened to go on deck and notice. The scenery topside changes slowly on a sailboat, so if you go up on deck every half hour or so you can still see how things are going.

Some people, or course, are actively sailing the ship and that is the part that I like. I would love to have my hands on the wheel when we have wind like this. I had my turn yesterday, when we were crossing the shipping channels, It was good fun, and we did have the mainsail up, but we didn't have near the wind that we are having today.

I am amazed by all of the fancy woodwork that one  finds all over the Schooner. Certainly not the kind of thing that she must have been equipped with if she really started her life as a Fishing boat in the Gloucester fleet. Today there is teak and fine carving work at every turn. Both above deck and below. (Ok, History check here. It turns out that though the Zodiac is based on the Gloucester shipping fleet vessels, she started her life as a rich families pleasure yacht. She originally was built for and belonged to the Johnsons, of the Johnson and Johnson family. They used to sail and race her up and down the East coast and even did at least one transatlantic crossing with her.)

Galley, stairs to chart house

Galley seating area

Our State Room. There is a sink in there too

Scroll work above the rooms

In  the Salon, there is a find inlaid wood table bolted to the deck in the center. Bolted down the long  side are heavy wood benches that have backs that are swivel attached such that you can swing backs over to front or back allowing people to sit either facing the table or facing the room. Down the  sides of the salon are the common passage bunks, there are 4 on each side, 2 high. There used to be 3 sets of bunks, but the ones furthest forward have been enclosed with walls to effectively make them into small 2 person cabins. The common passage bunks are actually big enough for two people (if you really like each other) so when used for one (as they solely are) you have room to put your stuff. This means you sleep in the bunk up with your duffle bag. Also in the bunk is a little reading light. There isn't a hell of a lot of head clearance but enough to turn over or read your book. And the little curtain provides just enough privacy such that you can pretend you are alone if you need some personal time.  I had actually thought, from my first trip,  that having all of the passengers (well, except for that one rich couple) in the same "old times" bunks was sort of cool and good for camaraderie amongst passengers. However, that is the main thing that has changed about the boat since the last time I sailed 6 or so years ago. Back  then, the forward part of the  boat (in front of the galley) was for crew only. The passengers were all housed in the  bunks that opened up to the parlor. There were the 3 sets of 2 high  bunks on each side (so 12 bunks) and then 2 cabins  for couples (and perhaps a child). So a total of 16 adult passengers. Today, there are a number of additional 2 passenger cabins up in the bow and on the trip we are doing today, there are 22 passengers. This means that there are, perforce, fewer crew.

Passenger Salon

Aft Deck entry to Salon

Library in Salon. Note water tight door

Yummy Lunch

coffe cups on the overhead over the coffee

Your Cup has Your bunk number on it.

One of the other features in the  Parlor is a glass and wood cabinet in the forward part of the compartment. This has a TV and DVD setup (presumably for dark wet afternoons) but also a collection of games, sailing reference books, and a couple of complete sets of the works of Patrick O'Brien (he of the Aubrey Maturin Novels). Curiously enough,  I had  brought on of these  sailing novels from my home and am currently working my way through "The Letter of Marque".

Other interesting wood furnishings. Someone has done some intricate filigree work that is now all around the ceiling in the all the quarters areas. Fine carvings of nautical themes. I believe this is also a recent addition and it is very nicely done. I mentioned that some of the common passenger berths had been walled in to make small cabins, these were done with teak walls. I didn't get to take a peek inside, but it looks like there would be just enough room to stank and put on your pants and probably would not have the addition of the sink like we did in our stateroom.

Up on deck there is also room for some nice woodwork. There is a skylight (I am sure there is a nautical word for this? that is a varnished wooden box with brass and glass cover. These extend down through the deck and provide light and ventilation into the Salon, the galley, and the forward quarters. They are all the same size and configuration. I will put a picture. You have to work around these when you are reefing the sails. It is tempting to stand on them to get up to the boom for furling the mainsail, but, though they are strong enough for that, if you slip off of the metal, you are going to put your foot through the glass, and that will not be good. Better to pull yourself up onto the boom from the salon exit hatch (that is what I did)

What are these called? They let light and air into the belowdecks

That one is over the galley.

Reefing The Main. That is me in the red hat.

The other beautiful piece of woodwork is the wheel. Zodiac has a large magnificent helm. I once got to steer a Navy Minesweeper that my dad was commanding (I was 9) and though it was a much larger ship than Zodiac (She was called the USS Direct, MSO-430) her wheel, though wood, was Tiny. Smaller than a car steering wheel.  Or course, on the Zodiac, you need the large wheel to provide additional mechanical advantage as your are controlling the rudder using straight Human power. They had a model of the steering mechanism on display in the salon. I think the model was 3D printed. It turns out to be a couple of large threaded screws that screw into opposing plates as the wheel turns. as these plates are pulled around, they move the rudder.  This mechanism is housed in the wooden box just aft of the wheel. You have to turn the wheel a lot to completely turn the rudder, this gives you the mechanical advantage you need to such that one person can steer the ship even when it is being pushed upon by the heavy forces of the moving sea and wind.

The Wheel, with the steering mechanism under that green tarp

Though all of the sailing is done by human power on a normal trip, this isn't completely necessary. They can also raise the sails using the electric winch (windlass) that is in the bow of the boat. This is the same engine that is used to raise the anchor. The anchor mechanism is a couple of capstans that are horizontal to the deck. The anchor is secured to the bow of the vessel. When it is time to anchor, the captain brings the ship to a halt and then slowly starts to back. The crew manning the anchor have released the capstan brake lock and various anchor safeties. They can then ease the capstan brake and let the anchor and accompanying chain fall in the sea. The chain is released in units of "shots".  A shot of chain is 15 fathoms (90 feet) and each shot of chain is joined to the rest of the chain by a colored and removable link. As the chain runs out (and it runs out fast) you can count the shot by seeing stripes painted on the chain. 1 stripe 1 shot. 2 stripes is 2 shots. Etc. The captain calls for the amount of chain he wants let out according to the depth of the water (and probably the weather). Where we anchored they would typically let out 2 to 3 shots of chain.  You usually want something like 4 times the water depth of chain. So in our case, 2 shots would be around 180 feet. That would make the water depth around 40 feet. That probably makes sense. I should say that that 4:1 for chain to depth is for smaller boats that use mainly rope to anchor. When the Zodiac has 180 feet of chain out, that is a lot of weight in chain, and that weight is doing a lot to keep the boat in place. As you might imagine, trying to raise up a few hundred feet of heavy (2 inch? 3 inch?) chain would not be something that passengers would enjoy doing. We did enjoy drinking our coffee and sitting on the deck lockers and watching the  electric windlass haul in the chain, however. It is sort of cool, there is this specially toothed mechanism on the winch that fits into every other chain link and so securely pulls the chain up onto deck and then down into the room that is the chain locker. There is a crew member down in the chain locker when this is happening making sure that it comes in and stacks correctly. Not sure that sounds like a fun job either. Other people are making sure that the chain is washed off as it comes in, because you are bringing up a chain that has been laying in the mud on the bottom of the ocean all night. Not sure if they do anything to try and prevent rust. Perhaps that would just be silly.

A bad picture of the windlass raising the anchor chain.
Well, you can sort of see the chain

So. How do you use a capstan/winch/windlass on the bow of the boat to raise sails on back amidships? You have pulleys that attach to various places and guide the main halyards horizontally along the deck to the capstan. You still have to have a person that tails at the capstan to keep the halyards moving at the right speed.

There is another mechanism for raising sail if you don't have a bunch of paying customers to pull on the halyards. There is a  lever and racket mechanism mounted to the main mast that can be used to (very slowly) raise the main. Man, that would take a long time.

The Forsail Sheet running out to the right. Center is the ratchet system that with a long lever (pole) could be used
to raise the main (if you were really desperate)

Though we stopped every night and anchored in a state park bay, during the afternoon of the second day we made a stop at a quaint little ex-mining town of Roche Harbor. This place got its start as a lumber and lime kiln factory town. But now it is a sort of boarding house for multi-billionaires super expensive boats. I mean, these boats are larger than your house. Hell, these boats have support vessels that are larger than your house. The biggest boat, that was out on the farthest dock, had a heliport with a helicopter sitting on it that seats 7 people. Holy Shit. This particular boat was owned by the founder of Bayliner. I wonder how long all of those expensive boats have been out there. I get this feeling that the rich are getting richer faster and faster and so their showing of their wealth, like in expensive yachts and such, is getting more and more visible. Taking up more and more of the space that us poor dweebs used to sail through in our little tiny 130 foot schooners.

That Helicopter seats 7

Those are the historic homes for the Original Lime Kiln workers.

There isn't much at Roche harbor. There are more super-yachts then there are buildings. There are a few places to stay or to eat, and the historic lime kiln workers sheds are still there and can be rented. But not a lot of shopping or tourism, as such. I mean, the super rich must just fly in (a lot of float-plane traffic and small planes at the little airport) get on their yachts and... I don' know, travel the 2 miles over to the nice big anchorage at Stuart Island? Sail around the San Juans? We were there on a beautiful Saturday Afternoon and I didn't see ANYONE on the expensive yachts. You think you would see people sitting out back having cocktails or something.

 There is this strange sculpture garden that you can walk to, just up the road by the little airport. This place is a couple of acres of pond and blackberry patch that has been mowed down and implanted with all sort of different sculptures and such by various artists. I think all of it is for sale. Wandering through this art display is a poetry path featuring the poetry of some guy. I suspect it is the guy that built and owns the sculpture garden.

Serious Art

The big Field-O-Art

One piece of art I sort of liked was this 30 foot in diameter sort of stone henge made out of logs. The logs had all been brutally defaced with graffiti. At least I thought it was defacing until my partner pointed out the mailbox with the electric cord coming out of it. Attached to the electric cord was a tool for engraving your own message in the wood sculpture. It was Graffiti art.

The other thing I liked was the Losers Circle. I think it had a french name that translated as "Losers Circle". In it was all of the sculptures that had been deemed Not good enough to go in the real garden.

Did I mention that our trip ashore was facilitated by a ride in one of the inflatable boats that the Zodiac tows along for just this sort of thing (well, and man overboard drills). Funny, they can't call the boats Zodiacs because, you know, the schooner is called the Zodiac. So they call them "fast attack" and "shark attack". Passengers must wear Class A life vests while using the small boats.

A ride back to the Zodiac in Shark Attack.
That is the Zodiac behind the blue hat of the anonymous passenger

And that is my story.

Not a lot of good sailing on this trip. Wind is always a hit or miss sort of thing and on this trip the only wind we had was well mixed with rain and I think it would have been a bit dicey to have the passengers raising the big sail in the slippery rain.

I plan to spend some time this winter doing some volunteer maintenance work on the Zodiac. I am pretty sure I can remember which side of the sandpaper goes toward the boat.  People that do volunteer work get to build up Volunteer hours which can be used to be Crew on the boat during regular sails. A possible new adventure...