Skagit Valley – Fir Island – 2019

We made a recent mid-winter visit to Fir Island in the Skagit Valley, one of our favorite ecological sites, for a variety of reasons. It’s about an hour north of Seattle; and we’ve been there before. You can see that visit here.  This time we focused on the area within Fir Island. Here’s a map to give the general layout.

The “island” is man-made. It encompasses most of the delta of the Skagit River, a large, flat, triangular area between the north and south forks of the river, that edges Skagit Bay. A smaller portion of the delta still exists along the southern edge; but the bulk of it has been diked (area within the light outline) and developed as very productive farmland.

One of the ironies of this man-made intervention is that farmland requires diking along the saltwater edge of the bay as well, which essentially converts the island into a large basin. The catch of course is that all of this relies on “mother” to be calm and cooperative; and occasionally she decides to act up. In one instance, storms can drive waves from the bay into the dikes and wash salt water into the farm land. In another, high water from the river can over-top the inner dikes, essentially filling the basin. As a result, an elaborate system of one-way sluice-valves has been incorporated into the dikes to ensure that water can flow out but not come in. In extreme conditions, high water can breech the dikes – a major disaster.

We pulled off the freeway at Conway and stopped briefly to check out the Trumpeter Swans near that small town.

We’ve observed that each year there are fewer snow geese and more swans. The swans spread out more and are not nearly so noisy.

Since Fir Island is diked along the river, major infrastructure, such as the I-5 Freeway and the Burlington Northern railroad have to travel outside the diked area.

We crossed over the railroad and dike and then spent most of our time in a relatively new conservation area along the south fork of the Skagit River – see map above.

As is obvious from the photo, this is a “back to nature” area in which tidal salt water can once again flow, fresh water plants and trees are dying off, and new tidal marsh plants are springing up. So it’s not yet what you would expect of marsh; but it also has its own spare beauty.

The photo below shows the transition from older to newer plant materials.

In areas where the ground level had been lower, shallow tidal bays have formed.

Tree stumps get to show off their sculptural qualities but will soon be absorbed by water and moss.

Where the process has been under way for a number of years, cattails have showed up (along with redwing blackbirds) along with our king of invasives – African Blackberries – curving through everything else.

In some places the trees have been topped. I’m not sure why that was done.

Heading back to the car, we got a good look at the bay with the incoming tide,

providing shallow water for the local fisherman.

On the way to find some lunch in La Conner, we stopped at one other location closer to the bay that gave a good sense of the sweep of the geography.

A nice way to finish our tour.

Acadia National Park – Loop Drive

Courtesy of Wikipedia, here is a bit of history about the park:

Acadia National Park is a United States national park located in the state of Maine, southwest of Bar Harbor. The park reserves much of Mount Desert Island and associated smaller islands along the Atlantic coast. Initially created as the Sieur de Monts National Monument in 1916, the park was renamed and re-designated Lafayette National Park in 1919, and then renamed once more as Acadia National Park in 1929. Over three million people visited the park in 2016.

The area was originally inhabited by the Wabanaki people – see my post on the ABBE Museum and Wabanaki people here.

While he was sailing down the coast of what is now Maine on 5 September 1604, Samuel de Champlain observed a large inshore island. He wrote:

“That same day we also passed near an island about four or five leagues [19 to 24 km] in length, off which we were almost lost on a little rock, level with the surface of the water, which made a hole in our pinnace close to the keel. The distance from this island to the mainland on the north is not a hundred paces. It is very high and cleft in places, giving it the appearance from the sea of seven or eight mountains one alongside the other. The tops of them are bare of trees, because there is nothing there but rocks. The woods consist only of pines, firs, and birches.”

He named it Mount Desert Island, shown below, with the park area shown in green.

The portion outlined below in red is the most-visited part of the park; and the red line itself represents the drive we took through this part – going clockwise.

The beginning of the loop took us past a small lake, almost domestic in scale.

These views also illustrate clearly that these are rolling mountains of modest elevation and not sharp peaks towering over the landscape.

Within those rolling shapes there has been a lot of granite under pressure.

The forms speak clearly of layers and movement; and plants and trees have to be able to cling to the results in order to thrive.

On the map our route appears to simply wind along the shore; but in fact it winds up and down as well, giving a broader overview and revealing one of the oddities of the area.

The national park does not control all the land on Mount Desert Island; so there are quite a number of locations where private property and the park merge in ways that are hard to discern. The private homes, on the other hand, are pretty easy to discern – especially since they have intentionally been placed in open spots to take advantage of the view.

It’s hard not to have mixed feelings about this, especially since most of these homes are often not used at all for a good part of the year.

At various points, some large, some small, small parking lots and fenced walkways have been built along the road to provide access to the shore.

As we are well aware in the Northwestern states, crowds in popular sites require management, to prevent random trail creation, undue erosion of sensitive soils, and hiking challenges for those unfamiliar with being out in the forest.

The park service is good about giving both an overview of the setting and tips and warnings about both safety and potential for damage to the environment.

The built environment combines a sturdy infrastructure that can stand up to wind and waves and tourists, with a use of simple, natural materials that can weather in concert with the forest and the rocks around them.

Another sign explains the beach where you have landed,

and gives some understanding of the dramatic coastline on which you’ve arrived.

The beach provides easy walking; but exploring here also has very clear limits. Even if you want to try out your parkour skills here, you have to watch out for the incoming tide that can put a quick end to your adventuring.

We backtracked up the path to the road,

Where an opening in the trees revealed a view of Cadillac Mountain,

and finally (this being mid October) a sampling of fall color.

I believe that the way in which the roads open up the tree canopy makes it easier for the deciduous trees to get more sun and also respond more readily to the change of season.

At another stopping point, we decided to see what the excitement of the “blowhole” was all about. The configuration of rocks here has been sculpted by the constant wave action.

In places the rock has been undercut and opened up so that when strong waves come ashore they sweep in under the rock and get ejected up through the openings. As you can see in the photo above, it’s been necessary to build a concrete walkway and steel railings to keep people from being hurt or swept away. Of course on a warm sunny calm day, the picture is somewhat simpler.

No cannonball blasts of salt water for us – but not a bad view from the platform.

Down the road another short distance we came to a bay (and in the distance you can see another private home).

This bay dipped in to a cove with a causeway with arched openings beneath it that drained a nearby lake – located in the “Heart of Acadia”.

This wooded, relatively level part of the park occurs at the bottom of a valley on the west side of Cadillac Mountain

While still rocky here, the landscape has a smaller, more intimate scale. People were picnicking and hiking the relatively flat trail that looped around the lake.

Another lake was attached to the first one. It had similar features.

The information panel below explains a bit about the setting and shows from the air essentially the same view of the photo above.

We didn’t stop at the Jordan Pond House or ride in a carriage, though apparently stopping for tea and a stroll here are popular things to do. We were headed for the top of Cadillac Mountain to take in the view. It turned out to be a different kind of adventure.

Visiting the top of the mountain sits at the top of everyone’s list; so we joined a long, slow line of cars and buses winding its way back and forth up the rocky west side of the mountain. We discovered that there are no facilities at the top (eg, no lodge) and, given the demand, not any too much parking. So on our first pass we looped by the high point and back to the west side where we found a place to drop the car. Luckily, the views from the west side were worth it. Here are a couple:

Mounted on a rock in this area was a centennial plaque honoring the formation of the park by private citizens in 1916.

Everywhere in the park there’s an underlying sense of how man is changing the basic environment and habitats in places like Acadia – through actions in this case that took place initially in the midwest. Note that there are TWO pictures below, the lower one showing how much you can’t see when air pollution from power generation in the midwest makes its way this far north and east and condenses in the cooler air here.

Of course, tourists bring some of it with them (as did we in our car)

Below is a panel showing features of the mountain. The road ends in a big loop with parking strung out along the road. It’s not a horrible situation – just one that can’t keep up with the volume of visitors.

Finally we got to look around at the top – this view to the east.

Here’s a look back at Bar Harbor – note that the most striking elements are the large white cruise ships sitting off shore.

People wandered out into the landscape – it’s hard to resist.

It’s hard to see all the islands when you’re there unless you have a telescope.

Below you can see the cove and causeway we passed on the way around the park.

Here is a view to the west that gives a sense of the islands.

and finally, a presentation of how much life there actually is up here –

and a sense of the struggle to maintain it when tourism season, construction season and fall coincide so precisely.

Next stop – down the Maine coast to Portland

 

 

 

 

Acadia National Park – East

The next leg of our trip took us southwest along the Maine coast towards Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park on Mt. Desert Island.

The “coast” road doesn’t literally run along the coast, so this view was more common than views of the ocean. As can be seen in the map below, the Maine coast doesn’t come close to resembling a straight line; and building roads to follow all these irregularities would be unacceptably costly and expose them too much to the elements.

Mt. Desert Island is the largest island off the coast of Maine with an area of 108 square miles and a year-round population of about 11,000 people. As is obvious from the map above, it anchors an archipelago of smaller islands scattered along the Main coast. We were arriving from the north east and thereby happened, in a totally unplanned way, onto Acadia National Park East, part of the Gouldsboro peninsula across Frenchman Bay from Mt. Desert Island, Bar Harbor, and the central part of the park.

We decided to take a loop around the peninsula and save Bar Harbor for later in the day. The road wound through a peaceful evergreen forest.

and delivered us to a surprise Acadia Park Visitor Center.

Apparently, a private donor felt that this side of Acadia National Park needed its own center and decided to help make that happen. It’s in the good old days log style, but done well and enjoyable to visit.

The model focuses on Frenchman Bay with this park on one side and Bar Harbor across the way on the other shore.

From the visitor center the road took us shortly out to the water and dramatic rocks.

I liked the way that these local rocks had been used for stairs and retaining walls.

There’s no sandy swimming beach in this particular location,

but there’s certainly lots of interesting rock formations, large and small.

It’s impressive how many plants can harbor in among all these rocks,

though enough fresh water must collect to make that possible.

Large amounts of iron show up in the rocks in some areas (but not at all elsewhere),

all of which gets thoroughly clad with seaweed and mollusks along the water.

Up close, it’s impressive how much pressure and movement has affected the formation

of the many layers of the rock, and then in other places how much the action of the

waves has also loosened them up. Running through all this some impressive crevasses

seem to have literally pushed things apart, offering channels for water – and plants.

Higher up on the rocks and away from the waves, the plants have an easier time of it.

Where some soil accrues, plants can spread out; but it’s amazing how they can also manage to survive perched on a ledge.

With this little bouquet we’ll move on to Mount Desert Island and Bar Harbor.