Sunday, 20 July 2014

Caterpillar Campers

"Spring is my favourite time of the year. My brothers and sisters and I camp out in the woods, surrounded by raspberry shrubs and other fruity plants. We pitch our tent in a vast, open area so that we can bask in the morning sun. Most of the day is spent hunting for delicious food and once we've eaten our fill, we return to our tent to lazily while away the rest of the day. 
Ah, I am truly alive this time of year!"
- A tent caterpillar who would like to remain anonymous

  
The sunny ledge on the mountain
The Poo Poo Point Chirico trail in Issaquah, WA is a short little 3.6 mile trail that nonetheless leaves you quite out of breath by the time you reach the summit. Just before the final steep push to the very top is a little detour to a clearing on the sunny open face of the mountain. The first time we did this hike, sometime in May, we gladly rushed into the clearing and spent several moments being exhausted and trying to catch our breath. It was a while before we noticed the strange clumps of white strands on several of the trees near us. Each clump was about 3-4 inches long and covered with some kind of brown mass.

Distant view of the caterpillar tent
A closer look at the clumps through our trusty binoculars revealed a strange sight. Each white clump was actually an aggregate of scores of tiny little caterpillars, who seemed to be resting on the silky white bed. The caterpillars' heads were swiftly darting in different directions and as my friend remarked, it rather looked as though they were partying in a club. Research I've done since that hike suggests that these social insects are of the western tent caterpillar species, so named because of the characteristic "tent" that large caterpillar families construct in early spring to spend the larval stage of their life cycle. After a busy day of foraging for leaves, the caterpillars return to their silky abode to rest and digest the day's meals. The tent is always positioned in a place where it receives abundant sunlight as a warm body temperature is critical to a caterpillar's ability to digest food. After 6-8 weeks of intense feeding (which gets them nice and fat, no doubt), the caterpillars are ready to leave their childhood home and prepare for the next phase of life - solitude in the cocoons.

When we hiked up the Poo Poo Point Chirico trail again nearly two months later, there were two important differences:
1. The time I took to catch my breath was nearly half of what it was the first time!
2. The caterpillar campers seemed to have finished their spring vacation - the tents were nowhere to be seen!

A close inspection of the hillside uncovered a bunch of little cocoons, hidden in all sorts of unobtrusive locations.

Cocoons containing the metamorphosing caterpillars
Where's the moth?
And even though we couldn't spot the moths themselves, we did find a cocoon with a large hole on one side, suggesting that its winged inhabitant must have escaped not so long ago. I hoped that the elusive moth was flying far and wide, enjoying its incredibly short adult life while searching for its soul-mate. After mating occurs, the female moth deposits a large bellyful of eggs on the branch of a tree and dies soon after, having lived a full life. The males live a couple of days longer but most of the moths die by the time summer wanes. The egg mass, which soon matures into tiny larvae, survives another full year until the next spring, when a new generation of tent caterpillars are ready to take to the campgrounds!

Sunday, 6 July 2014

Harry's Ridge and my neighbourhood active volcano

I've lived in Bellevue, WA for a little under two years now and this whole time I had no idea that just a three hour drive away from me was a piece of geological history. When a friend of mine suggested the Harry's Ridge trail to me, I wasn't particularly enthused. Until I realised that this hike was going to be all about Mt St Helens, its eruption in 1980 and the beautiful scenes the devastation has created.
The last hour of our drive to Johnston Ridge observatory (the trail starting point) was on Spirit Lake Highway and really quite beautiful. The entire landscape was carpeted by evergreens for as far as we could see, and we soon noticed that there was something creepy about the trees - they seemed to be of identical height and age and as my boyfriend put it, a Ctrl+C Ctrl+V of each other. About 15 miles into the highway, we caught sight of a snow capped peak and wondered if that was Mt St Helens. From our sideways view, it looked as though the mountain had been sliced in half and this seemed likely only of a volcano that had an explosive history.
Our first glimpse of the strangely shaped Mt St Helens
The highway is helpfully dotted by several viewpoints where you can stop to take pictures or simply enjoy the beautiful scenes. We stopped at the Loowit viewpoint, just three quarters of a mile shy of the observatory and were lucky enough to run into a friendly ranger there.From the ranger, we learned that the 1980 eruption manifested itself in an explosive blast of ash and pumice that destroyed forests in approximately a 200 mile radius. When we mentioned the identical trees to her, she told us that the entire landscape around us had been recreated following the eruption. All the trees had been planted in bunches and were therefore roughly the same age. This even explained a couple of notice boards we had seen on the drive up, which indicated the year in which a particular area had been planted.
After taking our fill of pictures, we resumed our drive to the observatory. Incidentally, it is also possible to hike the 3/4th mile there from Loowit viewpoint.
At Johnston Ridge, each hiker needs to pay an $8 fee to unlock access to the myriad of trails starting from the observatory and also the educational movies and exhibits showcased there. Our Northwest Forest Pass got us free access for one person. A helpful ranger handed us trail maps and drew out our route for us :
Mapping out our journey
 
Barren lands of the blast zone
The miracle Lupines
Harry's Ridge is an 8 mile loop with 200 ft net elevation gain and a summit overlooking Spirit Lake and of course, Mt St Helens itself. We would later learn that the elevation gain number was misleading as we would consistently make steep ascents followed by just as steep descents. Not to deter anyone though - this is still a pretty easy hike! The hike runs through an area that was in the blast zone of the 1980 eruption but is being preserved as is by the USDA. This meant open fields for the entire journey (don't forget your sunscreen and 2 liters of water!) but the ground was overrun with beautiful wildflowers. Among the most common were these purple flowers that we later learned are called Prairie Lupines. These sturdy little guys were probably the first plant species to thrive in the post-eruption land, with pure chance blowing their lightweight seeds to the area. They're quite the knights in shining armour too, enriching the soil with nitrogen and insects that they attract, thereby creating an environment conducive for less sturdy living species to flourish.

The first mile and a half of the trail was surprisingly crowded. However, just after, we reached a section of the trail that severely whittled down the numbers - the Devil's Elbow.
The Devil's Elbow
You're probably wondering what's special about that picture. Until you realise that the thin light-ish brown line is actually the trail! Its not as scary as it looks on the picture but definitely a place to watch your footing. And if I had kids, I'd probably think twice about bringing them on this section. Acrophobic as I am, I spent the rest of the hike with Devil's Elbow on the back of my mind, I wasn't truly at peace until we safely crossed it on the return trip. Following Devil's Elbow, we really embraced the widened trail and the fact that there wasn't a sheer drop to our side.
Spirit Lake, with a hazy Mt Adams in the backdrop
The next exciting part of the trail was the final ascent upto Harry's Ridge, which is a 700ft climb incidentally. What magnificent views on all sides! First up was the promised view down to Spirit Lake. The surface of the lake, undisturbed by USDA, is still covered by logs of trees that were felled by the eruption.
Next up was a full frontal view of Mt St Helens herself.
Mt St Helens, with its giant crater
What had looked like a slice in the middle of the mountain now revealed itself to be a yawning crater right down the middle. On the morning of May 18, 1980 an earthquake within the depths of the mountain triggered a terrible landslide, the largest in recorded history, and destroyed most of the north face of the mountain leaving the crater seen today. A few seconds after the landslide was the explosive avalanche of gases that wiped out miles and miles of forest, leaving few survivors in its wake. This kind of eruption was a revelation to me as I had previously associated eruptions with hot flowing molten lava. Though calm and serene looking on the outside, Mt St Helens remains very much active, with reports of lava build up as recently as 2008. Although this photo doesn't really capture it, the view of the devastated yet beautiful mountain and the barren lands surrounding it is an absolutely awe inspiring sight!
Harry's Ridge was like a teaser that has made me eager to explore more of Mt St Helens. Maybe some day I'll have to hike to the summit of the volcano itself........