It's all in the perspective.
Lorem ipsum proin pulvinar donec tortor tristique dui eleifend sagittis, curabitur dui imperdiet vehicula proin fringilla consequat velit, eleifend porttitor sit eros suscipit aliquam consectetur venenatis. aliquam phasellus molestie curae vel varius odio convallis blandit, ac nisi accumsan tempus molestie proin fusce, nibh in porta quam fermentum sagittis morbi. Continue reading “Test post 2”
Hello World! is a standardized minimum computer program, intended eg as an example for beginners, or as a comparison of different programming languages, for advanced users. Hello World! is an icon of computer culture, with significance beyond its utility or pedagogy roles.
in C:
#includeint main() { printf("Hello, world!\n"); }
Continue reading “Hello World! the computer-era version of ‘Testing-testing!’“
Continental Divide watersheds of North America center on a dramatic mountain range that parts the West & East watersheds in a sharp north-south line. It is also a formidable physical barrier, or divide. Furthermore, the mountains that form this line rise sharply from the prairie lands that occupy the center of the continent. Approached from the flat prairies during exploration, the mountains looked like a wall on the horizon, so the divide was very conspicuous. Continue reading “Continental Divide of North America determined by watersheds, Divides need not be mountainous“
Cox Valley Trail [ref]For search-purposes: Park, WIC Wilderness Information Center literature may use the term “Cox Valley Primitive Trail”.[/ref] is a short (1.8 mi), deadend path set in the subalpine high-country of north-central Olympic National Park. It is road-accessible, in summer.
The Cox Valley Trailhead is a small, undeveloped pullout located about 0.6 miles down the rudimentary Obstruction Point Road, which begins near the north end of the Hurricane Ridge Recreation Area parking lot. This pullout is on a mild, comfortable stretch along this sometimes hair-raising old mountain road. An enjoyable place to stop, in its own right. Other informal & undesignated pullouts are common along the narrow road. A small sign identifies the trailhead.
Many are aware of this trail, because they see the sign as they motor slowly past it on their way to popular Obstruction Point, but relatively few hike it.
Although an enjoyable walk, first down a steep slope through a closed stand of small subalpine timber, then through small, valley-bottom meadows, the Cox Valley venue lacks marquee features to draw the attention of the casual recreationist, or to tempt the robust mountaineering-type. Still, it does have its claim-to-fame & sources of interest. [ref]Though at high enough elevation to be natural meadow, these are surrounded by healthy forest and have excellent soil: it should be borne in mind that they could be Native Prairie sites … and indeed, early homesteaders did go directly to these nice openings in the woods.[/ref]
Cox Valley was the site of a homestead, in the early years of the 20th C., before roads or even a modern trail-system in the Olympic Mountains. This valley is the headwaters of Morse Creek, which occupies an impressive canyon on the north periphery of the Olympic: today, Hurricane Ridge Road ascends along the left canyon-wall. Though not intrusive, the main road can be seen from the valley below.
The homesteaders built a trail up the creek, the mostly long-gone Morse Creek Abandoned Trail, and our Cox Valley Trail is the far upper-end fragment of it. If one continues on down, past the meadows in the valley and into the forest beyond, parts of the old trail can be found where it is protected under the trees. The first fragments of trail-tread are wide & well-engineered: this is almost certainly not the original tread, and these good-quality artifacts soon themselves come to an end.
The original Morse Creek Trail would not have received much excavation & engineering, and being lightly-made, most of it reverted & disappeared. Over the decades & generations, though, individuals & institutions have kept track of where it once lay … of the pieces & fragments that can still be discerned, which connect-the-dots fashion show where it once was … and where it could be once again, if it were so decided.
It appears that at some point in relatively modern times, a project was indeed begun, to rebuild & upgrade the old Morse Creek Trail, (or to completely replace it on a better route) but that this was discontinued while still at an early stage. The easily-found & followed stretch of wide, nicely-cut trail-base now abandoned in the forest below the meadows could have been constructed in a span of a few days, by a modest crew. They no more than barely got going, and then they stopped.
A very similar piece of needle-carpeted, well-made but short, abandoned trail can be found further down the Morse Creek Canyon. On Hurricane Ridge Road, at the Lookout Rock Viewpoint, stepping into the trees past the parking reveals the identical kind of trail-artifact. Lookout Rock is on the main ridge-crest, which forms a good natural route down into Morse Creek Canyon.
Down the ridge-line a ways from Lookout Rock there is a natural juncture at which a trail can branch; one going upstream into the Canyon, and other down-country toward the deadend trails near the Heart O’ the Hills Entrance … which itself is a fragment of the former trail system which the Cox Valley homesteaders would have used.
If the abandoned Lookout Rock trail was part of the same project as the Cox Valley work (and perhaps another piece at Heart O’ the Hills?), then that would tell us that the project took place after the modern Hurricane Ridge Road was built. These two pieces of short trail-construction do indeed look very much the same.
In winter, Obstruction Point Road is not plowed, and closes for the season. However, both informal and organized cross-country ski and snow-shoe activities are known to use the closed road as a nice subalpine winter travel route. The snow-paths they develop may give ready access to the trailhead … although the trailhead sign will be deeply buried, and Cox Valley Trail will be under yards of snow.
** Though at high enough elevation to be natural meadow, these are surrounded by healthy forest and have excellent soil: it should be borne in mind that they could be Native Prairie sites … and indeed, early homesteaders went straight for these nice openings in the woods.
The Olympic National Park has strips of land along the Pacific coast, separate from the main body of the Park. These coast-strips are quite narrow, mostly just a mile or few wide. But we don’t notice that they’re skinny, since we’re on routes that hug the beaches.
There are only a small number of official, developed locations at which to access this Wilderness Coast. And there are long, isolated runs of coastline, between these few points.
But if you were to claw through the brush away from the water – at virtually any point along the coast – before traveling very far you would find yourself in … logging-country. Timberland. Inland from the Park coast-strips are relatively vast commercial forests. With logging roads, everywhere.
Locals have long gotten to specific wilderness sites on the ocean, by driving out along certain logging roads to parking-spots from which they can follow an informal route or path through the Park-strip, down to the beach. (Some of these routes & sites, will actually predate the Park.) Instead of having to walk all day along the beaches, they drive in on the logging roads and then walk half an hour through the brush – to get to the same place.
Walking through this brush is – cough – easier said than done … if you don’t have a trail. In the absence of an existing path, foreknowledge of the route, and real experience in these coastal jungles, that naive mile through the brush might as well be 100. Fighting just a short ways through this undergrowth & windfall & swamp, can make walking a darn long ways up the beach seem like a strikingly good choice.
The very popular Park trails out to the beach & back on the Ozette Loop include many stretches of picturesque Board Walk, to cope with the muck & swamp. Imagine having to travel parallel to these elevated wooden (plastic) foot-roads.
Still, the fact remains that logging roads cover all the inland forest resource. Generally, no part of the timberland is as much as half a mile from the closest road. Such a road system does get to be quite the maze … but it is a logical & efficient maze. You need the road maps; the roads are all numbered, on the map, but roadside signage is often sparse or absent … so you need a GPS too. Or very good maze-skills. Different government agencies & corporations own different parts of the forest … but nowadays every county has a good online mapserver.
Truthfully, finding a shortcut to a spot on the Park beach to have a picnic or an evening party is pretty far down the list of good reasons to undertake learning the logging roads and how to access the inland side of these coastal Park strips. The narrow band of mostly or near-virgin & oldgrowth forest-habit just inland of the beach is the best goal of this kind of project. Learning the commercial forests will be value #2, but it may gradually mount a credible challenge to #1.
It is much easier to make a modest penetration of these primal Park forsts … and retrace your steps (or use the GPS), than to follow all the way through with completely descending through the fierce thickets that blanket the final slopes down to the shoreline.
And too, plenty of this coastline is bounded by outright sheer cliffs.
Forest agencies & companies commonly offer permits – and privileges – to users such as hunters, fishers, firewood cutters, those seeking to gather forest-byproducts (mushrooms, ferns, et), or simply interested members of the public. By working with these systems, one can learn & stay informed about times & patterns of logging road access.
Convulsion Canyon is now an informal or ‘cultural’ name for a notable stretch or spot along the Elwha River, in the Olympic National Park. It is immediately upstream of the popular Geyser Valley and Humes Ranch day-use areas, and is the bottom end of the Elwha’s Grand Canyon. The steel suspension cable Long Ridge Trail Bridge is strung between the cliffs at this spot, allowing the hiker to look upstream into the gorge, and downstream into the broad Valley, from perhaps 50 feet above the river. People refer to this site as Convulsion Canyon, although it appears to officially be ‘just’ the bottom end of Grand Canyon. Continue reading “Convulsion Canyon, Elwha River, Olympic Nat’l Park dramatic scene & events on the Elwha River“
Rica Canyon is cut by the Elwha River through an elevated bedrock formation between the southwest base of Hurricane Hill on the river’s right bank, and east flank of Mount Fitzhenry on the left bank. It is incised mainly through sandstone and shale. It is crowded hard up against the steep convex base of Hurricane (which can be examined at Elk Overlook), and set away from Fitzhenry where its mild concave skirt meets its neighbor. The raw, vertical portions of the canyon walls are 100 to 200 feet high, with very steep approaches extending up to several hundred feet highter (especially on the Hurricane side). Continue reading “Rica Canyon, Elwha River, Olympic Nat’l Park the Elwha River between Hurricane Hill and Mt Fitzhenry“
Lake Mills was a more popular and better recreational venue than the more readily-accessible lower reservoir on the Elwha River (Lake Aldwell), even though it was farther & slower to get to. And Mills had more regulations and restrictions, because it was within Olympic National Park, while the lower lake & dam were entirely outside the Park, and in legal multi-use (mostly State timber) lands. The settings of both are pretty & evocative (then, as now, with the lakes & dams gone); the abrupt plunging-hillside forested ‘shores’ (rather ‘harsh’; no beaches, only occasional small pull-outs) were comparable in both cases. Continue reading “Lake Mills, Elwha River, Olympic Nat’l Park the upper former Elwha River reservoir“
The spread of Iron Smelting and Blacksmithing during the Iron Age could have led to a much more widespread familiarity with technology among the general population, than had been the case during the preceding Bronze Age. Although mining of ore and production of iron products was often under the purview of powerful business entities and state authorities, iron can also be obtained by small groups and in informal contexts, and there is evidence that this sort & level of activity was present. Continue reading “Iron Age advantage an early case of the viral spread of technology“
Long Ridge Trail takes about 14 miles to ascend Dodger Point, from the Whiskey Bend Trailhead. Dodger hosted the old Forest Service fire lookout, before this country was Olympic National Park. Virtually the entirety of the interior Elwha River valley is in view; along with eastern and southern peaks of the Olympic Mountains, and much of the Bailey Range to the west. Unlike most trails in the Olympics, Long Ridge was purpose-built to commercial & professional pack-horse specifications, which means the grade is steady, even and smooth. With less than 500 feet elevation per mile, this trail is especial fast, coming back downhill. Continue reading “Long Ridge Trail, Olympic Nat’l Park best view in interior Olympic National Park“