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Brushwork
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PostMon Sep 10, 2018 8:59 am 
Wow, I'm sorry i posted !

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wolffie
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PostMon Sep 10, 2018 9:36 am 
Ringangleclaw wrote:
if the ending of the crazy big sheep herds of the forties to the sixties is what allowed trees to overcome the formerly Flower Dome.
I don't know much about this, but in "Tales of a Western Mountaineer", C.E.Rusk has interesting comments about early attitudes towards wilderness -- torching forests intentionally, almost just for fun; wildness was an enemy to be subdued. I got the impression that a major impetus for creating the U.S. Forest Service was to control the massive sheep overgrazing much earlier than the 1940s-60s, more like 1900s-1920s? I'm told sheep can graze deep enough to destroy the topsoil, and if you know what to look for, you can still see sheep damage. Also that many of the trails we use, or have forgotten, were sheepgrazing trails; they had sort of a rotating system. You'll find them on old maops, or Tabor & Crowder. Rusk's tale of putting up the 2nd ascent of Glacier Peak is fascinating -- he and A.L.(?) Kool left their horses at Buck Ck Pass, intimidated a sheep shepherd into leaving their stuff alone by impersonating a USFS ranger, then headed up the Suiattle with a rifle, maybe a little tent, and a coupla blankets. Likely the first Europeans there. That's how Rusk and Kool glaciers were named. And yes, there was fire buring in the Buck Creek area on their way out. Harpers Aug. 2018 has 2 interesting articles about wildfire: Harper's Aug. 2018 One states that 95% if the fire suppression budget is spent on 15% of the fires -- those that threaten structures in the forest/urban interface. I met an oldtimer -- retired? USFS guy, I thought -- who was visiting old fire lookout sites to recreate the photo panoramas they had. The idea being to study how the landscape has changed. He said the ponderosas on the east side are often suffering insect/beetle damage because they're water-stressed (not enough water to make sap to trap the bugs) because the Doug firs growing up around them in the absence of fire are hogging the water. oops -- that 'oldtimer' mighta been younger than me.... By my time, all the 'old-growth' red and white pine stands of Minnesota had been logged-out long ago, beautiful remnants preserved accidentally. I'm told they were not the natural climax forest of that ecosystem, but the pines seeded and germinated spectacularly after the Europeans burned the whole place down -- sometimes deliberately -- as soon as they got there. Wonder how much truth there is in that....

Some people have better things to do with their lives than walking the dog. Some don't.
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Ski
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PostMon Sep 10, 2018 10:19 am 
wolffie, referencing the deliberate burning of forest lands by white settlers wrote:
"Wonder how much truth there is in that...."
I don't know anything about Minnesota's history. I do know that the original white settlers of "Big Bottom" - the Cowlitz Valley between present-day Morton and Packwood - cleared the land for agricultural use by (I'm paraphrasing here from an article that was published in the White Pass Shopper years ago) "Rolling the logs into piles and setting them on fire. The fires would burn for months." Not sure which volume it's in, but there's a little anecdote in one of Gifford Pinchot's early books in which he describes the burning of a large tree "just to watch it burn".

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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wolffie
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PostMon Sep 10, 2018 10:19 am 
What I want to know: is this stull burning? 'Cause Suiattle > Middle Ridge > High Pass is Plan B for the last week in Sept. BTW we had a scary hike out Chiwaukum Creek last year -- 5 miles of heavy burn, and (unbeknownst to us) a high wind warning. We'd camped above treeline, but on the hike out, there were 2 dozen more blowdowns and things were falling regularly -- including an 8"er 20 feet from me, fortunately ina convenient direction. It did not seem that windy! Treetops swaying a bit, but I wasn't even wearing a shirt. Doesn't take much when a burn is "ripe" for blowdown.

Some people have better things to do with their lives than walking the dog. Some don't.
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PostMon Sep 10, 2018 10:23 am 
Doppelganger wrote:
GB was referring to MG's preference for linking to wattsupwiththat, the site run by Anthony Watts, of a dying breed as one of the last vocal hardcore climate change deniers. Not sure it was warranted, I didn't see any reference by Ski to the Watt site nor quoted text from the Watt site.
No idea who that is either. There was a reference there to what I'm assuming was meant to be "FOX" news - no clue what that's about either. As I said above, I don't watch television - it's all just a lot of BS and sales pitch.

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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wolffie
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PostMon Sep 10, 2018 10:24 am 
C.E.Rusk grew up in a log cabin near Mt. Adams in the late 19th century. He wrote that he always tried to climb it as early as possible (in the season?) to get the view the smoke obscured everything. Sound familiar? He wrote of guiding a survey party wherein some knucklehead scampered up to torch a copse of trees on a ridgetop before he could stop him. Interesting reading!

Some people have better things to do with their lives than walking the dog. Some don't.
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Tom
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PostMon Sep 10, 2018 10:46 am 
Brushwork wrote:
Wow, I'm sorry i posted !
Hey, at least you got out.

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cambajamba
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PostMon Sep 10, 2018 10:59 am 
Could we, even when we're being nostalgic for grandpappy's confirmed kills or whatever, NOT use the term "ChiComs?" That is NOT the preferred nomenclature, dude.

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Ringangleclaw
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PostMon Sep 10, 2018 11:01 am 
wolffie wrote:
Also that many of the trails we use, or have forgotten, were sheepgrazing trails; they had sort of a rotating system. You'll find them on old maops, or Tabor & Crowder.
More likely forgotten. Our family used to see these trails often when we started backpacking in my dad's old stomping grounds on either side of the Buck Creek divide. Twenty years ago I could still find them going up to Image Lake. These were always fairy wide "trails" going straight up. A place like Buck Creek you could see the sheep routes and the hiker and horse routes switchbacking to the same place.

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Token Civilian
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PostMon Sep 10, 2018 12:02 pm 
So forgive me in all of this, 6 pages in. I've looked at the map for Flower Dome and Triad Creek and the surrounding area. I've compared that with what is showing on Inciweb and can find zero mention of a fire in that area. The closest fire I can find is the Bannock Lake Fire in the Agnes Creek gorge, which has the PCT between Suiattle Pass and Stehekin closed. So, where, exactly, is this fire, in the eyes of the USFS or other fire authorities?

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Ringangleclaw
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PostMon Sep 10, 2018 12:23 pm 
Token Civilian wrote:
So forgive me in all of this, 6 pages in. I've looked at the map for Flower Dome and Triad Creek and the surrounding area. I've compared that with what is showing on Inciweb and can find zero mention of a fire in that area. The closest fire I can find is the Bannock Lake Fire in the Agnes Creek gorge, which has the PCT between Suiattle Pass and Stehekin closed. So, where, exactly, is this fire, in the eyes of the USFS or other fire authorities?
I hope this is a real fire and not some hoax by Putin

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aurorabucky
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PostMon Sep 10, 2018 12:58 pm 
First ever post here.... I was out in the Suiattle area from Sept 2nd until the 7th on a trip with my Dad who flew into town, and there is most definitely a fire on Flower Dome. The original plan was Image Lake and then two days at Buck Creek Pass....my personal happy place. Instead we diverted to Lyman Lakes. Wondered if a new fire on middle ridge was going to cut off the PCT route back to the valley bottom. Im pretty sure we met that guy who bailed to Holden with the dog (Bindi?). He told us on his way back to Cloudy Pass that the Flower fire had exploded. He was not wrong. Descending to the Suiattle Riv trail, you could see torching in broad daylight. And yeah, before the hike I scoured InciWeb and all the heatmaps, and I found nothing. The only mention I found of a fire on Flower Dome was the interactive map on the WTA website. I called and asked the ranger station at Wenatchee if there was anything going in that area, and all they could do was parrot back to me what InciWeb said. After the fact I found this. The only status I've been able to keep on the fire is the following from NASA: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#z:3;c:0.0,0.0;l:24hrs Luckily this doesn't show the fire moving too far up the arm. From the trail I thought it HAD and it looked like smoke was rising from behind Flower Dome, looking from the west, which would mean bad things for the pass. Hope I'm wrong. Also interested to hear updates from folks. Cheers.

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PostMon Sep 10, 2018 12:59 pm 
wolffie, those are a couple of excellent articles you cited there. thank you. The one about the fires in Portugal raises some questions about whether or not some poor choices were made in selecting which species to plant. It sounds like they made the wrong choice with eucalyptus. The one about the fires in Montana dances around an issue which should be at the forefront of the larger discussion - the construction of residential units in what is referred to as the "WUI" (Wildland Urban Interface). In any archival photos of early homesteads, what's noticeably absent around any houses or other structures are trees - homesteaders understood that trees were a hazard and mowed down the forests surrounding their homes. The recent trend of constructing that "little cabin in the woods" is simply foolish, particularly in areas that abut state or federal forest lands.

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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Brushwork
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PostMon Sep 10, 2018 1:01 pm 
It is a real fire. I watched it grow for 3 days. I have pictures but I'm "tech disabled". Saw it from Dusty ck and down river on Suiattle. When I got up the first morning there was ash on the tent and then I could see it was actually burning and moving down slope on 3 sides. I know it's not on inci web. Looked myself. Small fires aren't listed. Forest service is well aware. Call them if you don't believe me. It's on Flower Dome. Before talking with ranger I thought it was on the ridge south of Triad creek. But the ranger who was coming out from Miner's ridge said Flower Dome, and used term toast. I thought it fit. There's a recent tr from Buck ck pass with a couple pict of upper Suiattle. There's smoke in the valley(Suiattle). Looks like cooler temp and rain is helping. Thank you to the rain gods!

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PostMon Sep 10, 2018 1:12 pm 
We saw the smoke while doing the Spider/Buck loop between 9/1 & 9/3. It hadn't moved up Flower Dome at that point & looked fairly small--but definitely burning. About the same time we saw a bear cub skinned & hung inside-out over the creek (water source--EWWW) heading up to Middle Ridge. eek.gif

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. ~Groucho Marx
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