1859 Sept | Oct 2012_opt

Seven Hours and
Ten Miles Later
Every few hundred feet of elevation we drop, everything
changes. Tall thin conifers used to being snow
laden most of the year, give way to broad-leafed maples.
Bright orange mushrooms sprout from rotting logs and
beaver chew-sticks swirl in eddies. We have pushed at
full throttle all day in drenching rains, finally reaching
our stopping point where the river meets the Van Duzer
corridor. We have covered ten rugged miles of river and
lost more than 2,000 feet in elevation. I ask Evens, a buff
former river guide, how his legs are holding up. The picture
below says it all. Tomorrow is another day.
Ten Feet of Rain
Ever stop to think what would happen if
our annual rainfall happened Biblically and
came all at once? In most places in the U.S.
you would be up to your knees, but here in
the coastal rain capital you would be over
your head and swimming for your life.
Stretches of this river receive up to 120 inches
of rain annually. This creates a rainforest
that rivals the Amazon in its diversity, with
trees wrapped in mosses and ferns, soils
chronically washed of their minerals, and
a brief window of ninety days of sun in the
summer for new growth.
Walking with Giants
Early the next morning, we set out down a greatly flattened
grade of river bottom surrounded by old growth specimens
of three of the earth’s tallest species.
Powerful sitka spruce, heavyweights of the forest, thrive
only within a few hours walk of the sea—and poke their
crowns up where the big winds blow. Graceful, thirsty cedars,
with fragrant bark and elegant straight-grained wood, require
up to a thousand gallons of water absorption a day per tree
in the summer. Douglas fir, the mainstay of Northwest timber
harvest, is immediately recognizable for its deep bark and
graceful columns that create open spaces under its canopies.
Climate
Change Allies
A little-known fact, the coastal
temperate rain forests of the
Pacific Northwest contain more
biology per acre (by weight)
than any other forest in the
world. These woody masses not
only provide fertile habitat, regulate
seasonal flooding and capture
life-smothering sediment,
but are also 250-foot-tall storage
banks for carbon. While carbon
is the staff of life, the human
species has proven to be a great
destabilizer of earth’s climate
systems, with our dependence
on fossil fuels and the burning
of forests and croplands. There
is consensus in the scientific
community that a key counterbalance
to these emissions lies in
the thoughtful management of
these coastal temperate forests
in order to keep carbon stored
in the bodies of billions of trees
here on the surface of the planet.
The journey continues
DAY TWO:
WALKING WITH GIANTS