We're meeting September 5 in T-31 (Walter Roberts Hall) at Skagit Valley College. Roberts Hall is in the north-central area of the campus. The following shortcut is to a campus map http://www.skagit.edu/images/color_mvCampus.pdf.

The Park Butte Lookout did a good job of weathering through the winter. All of last year's work on the windows and roof looks great.

We are scheduling a Park Butte Lookout Work Party for Saturday and Sunday, August 25 and 26, 2007. This year the focus of the work will be painting the exterior of the Lookout and the railings. Volunteers will be greatly appreciated – join us on both days or for any part of the weekend.

We'll be in the Park Butte Lookout parking lot at 8 am on Saturday morning to meet those who can join the "painting party" and also carry up supplies. If you would like to volunteer to help with this project, please contact us at 360-336-5896 or erbst@cnw.com. Or, if you are headed up to Park Butte before the work party weekend and would like to carry some supplies up there, let us know.

Easy Pass Trail Work - The SAC Club will have their annual trail work party with Dan Rogers on Saturday September 29. So mark your calendars and come join us for some hard work and fun. We will meet at the college at 6:30 AM to carpool, or at the EZ Pass trailhead at 9 AM. Please email Lynn and Sancho at sancho999@comcast.net if you are planning to come or need more info. You will get a FREE forest service pass for your day of trail work. See you there!

Want to do some trail work? No matter where you work, wear long pants, have work gloves, have plenty of fluids to drink, and bring a lunch. Each person working will have to sign a liability release form. Parents or guardians of those under 18 must sign for the minor.

For information call 360-424-0407 anytime up until 8 a.m. the morning of the work party. Tools will be provided--hazel hoes, loppers, McLeods, Pulaskis, chain saws, brush cutters. You may bring your own tools if you wish.

If you can only work until noon, please call ahead to see if the work site will be conducive to your leaving early. Sometimes we will be working behind locked gates or far up logging roads and it would not be convenient for people to leave early.

Meeting place is the Cook Road Park-n-Ride, exit 232 from I-5 north of Burlington. Exit the freeway, turn right and then immediately turn right onto Old Highway 99. We meet across the street from the 76 gas station. Meeting time is 8:15 a.m.

GENERAL TRAIL WORK

2007 Skagit Trail work schedule for April through October

Trail work will be done on the FIRST and THIRD Saturday of each month

September 1 and 15

October 6 and 20

http://picasaweb.google.com/jman1963/2007Jul

Hello to all!

Above is a link to pictures from the last trip to Yellowstone, The Tetons and The Wind River Range in Wyoming. Peggy went with me and we met up in Wyoming with her two nieces Katie and Annie along with Annie’s dog Sequoia. To get there we took Hwy 20 through the North Cascades. It was the first time over the pass for me this year, very little snow to be seen. Once over the mountains we encountered several wild fires and lots of smoke and haze. Near Tonasket the road was blocked by fire crews protecting houses at the base of a hill and water bomber planes were putting on a show. That night we camped in the Selkirks to the sound of loons and some elk practicing their bugling (we think that’s what it was at least). The chipmunks were very active there, I could see them jumping up from the ground into the engine compartment of the van. In the morning when I was checking the oil I found a stash of watermelon seeds on my engine. From there we made our way up to Boundry Dam. My Mom’s cousin worked there years ago and had spoke of it so I had always wanted to see it.

From there we worked our way down to Kettle Falls in the heat of the next day and took a quick swim. Then across Idaho on Hwy 2 to Sandpoint for fuel and the “best” (as Peggy likes to say) sub sandwich. That night we camped
near Thompson falls, swam in the warm river after dark and watched a thunderstorm roll by. The next day continued our way into Yellowstone where we found the campgrounds full and made our way on out the NE entrance to
find an open campground. I generally like to avoid large campgrounds if I can, but near a national park it is hard to do. A Dutch family on holiday camped next to us. I had a chance once again to butcher the Dutch language; I think they were impressed or at least polite. The next couple of days were spent in the park. There is an amazing amount of wildlife. I think we saw the whole show… Grizzlies, Black bear, Moose, Elk, Wolves, Pronghorn, Goats, Buffalo, Deer, Coyotes….. even smelled skunk at one point, but I can’t remember if that was in the park. One night we were
driving back to camp on a moonlit night with a lightning storm in the distance, when a small tree crashed down along the side of the road crossing not far into our path. Up on the bank I caught a glimpse of a Buffalo butt making its way up the bank. He was only a few feet off the road and if not for the tree I would have missed him all together. Makes me wonder how much other wildlife I missed. They are very sneaky about blending in. But other times they wander out in the road with the traffic. One time there was a large bison ambling down the road in front of us as we crept along. He stayed in our lane for some time passing a pull out on the right were there was a man getting something out of his trunk. The man looked up to see this beast pass a few feet away and made the classic statement “I wasn’t
expecting that”.

After taking pictures of every geyser I saw in Yellowstone we made our way south to the Tetons. Did some swimming and hiking there. Ran into a Black Bear while hiking with a rough, half shed, almost blond coat. He was a good bear and wondered off the trail. From there we continued South to the Wind Rivers Range (WWR) area. In Pinedale we took much needed showers and met up with Peggy’s nieces, Annie and Katie, a few miles outside of town. That evening on the way to finding a camp spot Peggy spotted something alongside the road. It turned out to be a handheld GPS and it even had new batteries. My guess is that someone had left it on the roof of their car to track
satellites, drove off and forgot it. We met a number of vehicles on our way in, waved at all of them but only one or two waved back. Secretly I hoped that who ever lost the GPS was one of the ones that didn’t wave.

Peggy and I both noticed that people had a different way of approach here. They seemed pretty distant and cold for about the first minute of a conversation and then warmed up fast and were very friendly. Pinedale seemed like a fairly depressed area that probably was influenced by the boom and bust of energy prices over the years. The hotels, motels and campgrounds were full of workers from the oil and gas fields. The lodging operators were leery of the lack of room for tourists because that seemed to be their long term steady bread and butter. One operator told me she had to run off some of the energy workers because she was afraid that if there was no room for tourists they would not come back. The nickname for the new hotel in town was the “Haliburton Hilton”. It didn’t affect us at all
because we were camping out and in that area there is a lot of “out” to camp in.

We entered the Wind Rivers Range at the Big Sandy trail head. The weather was still warm and there was a ton of cars in the parking area. Surprisingly we met very few people on the trail. It’s a big area with a lot of places to go. We loaded ourselves down with food preparing for a 7 day backpack. From the trailhead the views kept getting better and better until we reached some of the best at the Cirque of the Towers on the 2nd day in. There the weather turned on us, we stayed another day but the rain and thunderstorms continued. We made a choice to come back out and head back up to Yellowstone in search of better weather. It turned out to be a good idea, the storms were still coming though at Yellowstone but there was a lot we could do there between downpours. After a couple of days of that we headed back into the WWR and got in a three day hike that covered 10 to 12 miles a day. We started at New Fork Lake and completed a loop passing Lozier, Clark, Summit, Cutthroat, Palmer and Rainbow lakes for those of you with your maps out. A very good hike!

The new light weight tarp tent I made worked great for the rain. The bug net was effective but really increased the hassle factor. Not sure if I’m going to stick with it for the PCT hike in Oregon in September. The light
weight alcohol stove I made worked great too. I didn’t weigh my pack, but estimate it was about 17 lbs with out food or water. I’d like to get down to 13 on the PCT.

After this we took in a very cool museum in Pinedale and headed West towards home. At Soda Springs we said good bye to Katie, Annie and Sequoia (Annie’s dog). On the way though the Snake River Planes in Idaho out in the middle
of nowhere is Idaho National Laboratory where they did and still do a lot of nuclear research. We stopped in and toured the first nuclear reactor to produce usable electrical energy. Also on display were two prototype nuclear airplane engines that actually ran at one time. Here is a link with more info: http://www.atomictourist.com/ebr.htm

Yellowstone renewed my interest in geology. It was interesting to note that the tectonic plate that has been sliding over the Yellow hotspot for millions of years has a bow wave pattern of mountains and earthquakes stretching southwest from Yellowstone. The relatively calm area behind the wave is the Snake River Planes in Idaho where they do the nuclear research. I bought a really cool book on geology at Old Faithful and will be reading up on this incredible place. All in all it was a great trip!
John

If you had an outing you would like to describe or embellish, whether the trip was with other SAC members or not, please contact the webmaster and the newsletter editor. Contact information is listed at the end of the newsletter.

Dear Friends, Family & Colleagues,

I have accepted a teaching position with Spokane Community College. It’s a one year appointment with the Environmental Sciences Department. Classes begin in mid September, so Hilary and I will be moving to the
Spokane area as soon as we can locate a house. Hilary is teaching Ecology 300 again at Washington State
University for the Fall semester and finishing her last year of PhD research.

We have enjoyed our year in Pullman, but the 3.5 hour commute to Nespelem has become impractical for us. We've learned over the past 12 months, innumerable hotel room nights, and campground stays that we simply enjoy living in the same town too much for me to continue my Soil Scientist job with the Colville Tribe.

Our current phone number (509-332-0481) will be in use likely for another two weeks or so. Our emails (hcruicks@wsu.edu and northisle@yahoo.com) will continue to work as usual. We will update you all with new contact info when we get settled in Spokane.

September Newsletter