Floating the Nisqually

       Paradise started here on Saturday morning. This is the put-in point for the six rafts that carried nearly fifty of us down a remote 13-mile stretch of the Nisqually River. Thanks to the work of the Nisqually Land Trust and its conservation partners, the photograph above captures just one of the many variations of river, trees, rock, and sky that greeted us with every gentle meander. From the Nisqually-Mashel State Park near Eatonville to Wilcox Farm near McKenna, there were no signs of development or human habitation.

   Oh, but there was actually one sign--a home we might have missed had a young girl not waved and shouted hello from her back deck. We waved back and the Meriwether-wannabees in our boat shouted a hearty "Which way to Puget Sound?" and "What county are we in?" She responded with a befuddled "Huh?" We left it at that.
     I'm glad she didn't answer. Though we had good maps of the territory, I was happy just being on the Nisqually, floating, meandering, feeling its course, riding its riffles, lingering in its pools, imagining the whole river from the its source to its mouth, and being there in the middle of it for a wonderful while.

      The Nisqually River is 78 miles long. It begins 5,300 feet above sea level at the toe of the Nisqually Glacier in Mt. Rainer National Park and ends in the newly restored Nisqually Delta, where it meets Puget Sound in the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. The headwaters and the mouth are protected. Some 3,400 acres of the Nisqually Watershed is protected by the Nisqually Land Trust. Great care is being taken to protect this river, its forests, floodplains, and wildlife. You can feel this care and protection. You can feel the joy when someone in your boat points out an osprey nest, a water ouzel, a western tanager, an especially regal Douglas-fir, or tells of previous sightings of bald eagles and river otters.    
   Over thirteen miles of any river, you would expect to see a fishing camp or two, a derelict shack, a picnic table, a pile of rusty appliances, a new tent, an old mattress, a cigarette butt. I looked hard, but saw nothing that shouted or even whispered "careless."  

   Though I wished for a blue-sky day for our float trip, I found the spitting rain, mist, and spongey gray clouds relaxing. The light was soft, the wet green foliage gave off its own rich light, the water didn't sparkle as much as it glowed. No one was squinting or turning pink. 

   After a leisurely catered lunch on a wide gravel bar, the clouds (perhaps sensing I was falling in love with the river) put on a show that was, well, distracting. I was a bit irritated at having to juggle my camera and my paddle, but I figured out that I could do both if I only took photographs in the calm pools after we had successfully navigated the raging Class .5 whitewater. 

  And here are the clouds that, for a long while before anyone can remember, have been blowing in from the Pacific Ocean, moving eastward across the lowland, rising up the flanks of the mountains, becoming rain and snow, and then, under its own frozen weight, glaciers that carve a paradise drop by drop.      

  
Everyone should learn more about the float trips, conservation work, and volunteer opportunities of the Nisqually Land Trust . 
Everyone should see the toe of the Nisqually Glacier on the easy 1.2-mile "Nisqually Vista" loop walk at Mt. Rainier National Park.
Everyone should visit the Nisqually Delta on the new boardwalk at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge.   

Everyone should fall in love with this river.

Murrelets in the Mountains

It’s about sixty miles from my home in Olympia to the town of Ashford, in the foothills of Mt. Rainier. It’s an easy trip for motorists, a challenge for cyclists, and unthinkable journey for a chubby little seabird flying non-stop from Puget Sound or the Pacific Coast. But the marbled murrelet makes this long journey from salt water to the forest to its unlikely nesting site—a wide branch high in an old-growth tree. Though most of Washington’s population of murrelets nests closer to the coast, biologists have detected murrelets in an 80-acre patch of old-growth forest, known as the “Ashford 80.”

These eighty acres are part of the Nisqually Land Trust’s recent acquisition of 600 acres between Gifford Pinchot National Forest and Elbe Hills State Forest. This purchase, from Hancock Forest Management, brings a total of 1940 acres of timberland into protection for the federally threatened marbled murrelet and northern spotted owl as well as nine other species of concern. The Mt. Rainier Gateway Reserve, as the property is officially called, was purchased by the Land Trust through a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a donation from the Nisqually Indian Tribe; the Washington Department of Natural Resources will hold a conservation easement on the property.

On a recent foggy July morning, I was part of an expedition to celebrate the Reserve and the marbled murrelet at the Copper Creek Hut, a cozy gathering place that is part of the Mount Tahoma Trail Association’s hut-to-hut ski-trail system. An extensive stretch of the trail system is now part of the Reserve property. The low, grey clouds accompanied us through Yelm, along the Nisqually River, and past Lake Alder, but as we began the climb up toward Ashford, blue skies greeted us as did the promise of a view of the mountain. From Ashford, we bumped along a rugged road in a four-wheel drive for a good 20 minutes, imagining how very different this would be on cross-country skis or snowshoes—and on top of ten feet of snow.

The sun-drenched hut was a welcoming sight as was the new Mount Rainer Gateway Reserve sign and the view of Mt. Rainier. This close-up view of the mountain’s west side was capital-S Scenery. It was so breathtaking that I couldn’t take in with my eyes alone so I found myself taking deeper and deeper breaths to better and more fully absorb its magnificence and beauty. I had never really thought about it before, but breathing really deeply must be a physical response to breathtaking sights.

The view of the “Ashford 80” kept my breathing deep, almost to the point of hyperventilating. There, maybe a quarter mile below the ridge where I was standing, was a dark, green and angular patch of trees rising above the recently logged hillside. This was murrelet nesting habitat—eighty acres, sixty miles from the water. It was mind boggling. There, somewhere in that dense wood, were wide, moss-covered branches where a pair of murrelets could lay a single egg and raise a chick. There, in the shade of the towering evergreens, was the summer home of a seabird with a hellish daily commute to saltwater. There, each morning around sunrise, an adult murrelet would land with a whole, small fish for its chick. There, for a month, a murrelet chick would sit, still and silent, waiting for the moment when it’s flight feathers would carry it to the sea. There, in that piece of forest, was a future for the murrelet.

I have lived within sight of Mt. Rainier for just over three years now. I look for it when I am out driving or biking. Even a brief glimpse of it, peeking briefly out of the clouds, will make my day. As will a walk around the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge, or a crossing of a Nisqually River bridge, knowing that the murrelets may follow this river to the mountain. And now, with a view of the Ashford 80 emblazoned in my mind, I see the mountain not as a destination for hikers, day-trippers, skiers, or snow-shoers, but as a home for the murrelet, a gateway for hope.

NOTE: Access to Copper Creek Hut is winter-only and restricted to members of the Mount Tahoma Trail Association. For information on joining, go to http://www.skimtta.com/. For information on the Nisqually Land Trust properties, projects, and upcoming events, go to http://www.nisquallylandtrust.org/