Mushrooms and Arches

My first week in Washington has been a busy one! So much has happened in only 7 days that it feels like I’m living in a whole new world with so much more to learn.

What am I doing out here?

I am working for the Forest Service Timber department in region 6 (pacific northwest), which has a very specific history and set of implications. In the 90s, there was a large controversy over the protection of the northern spotted owl which led to the region banning timber sales entirely. From there the forest managers scrambled to come up with a new plan for ways to manage for the owl and for the species in the area. In the late 2000s, they started logging again but at nowhere near the size and scope as before.

The main idea of that they’re doing now is simulating disturbance events (fires) to promote old growth habitat. When a fire hits an area here, pretty much the entire set of trees and plants get swallowed up and destroyed leading to a clearing in a hill or mountain. What the forest service is trying to do now is to thin areas to allow for certain trees to get access to more light and to allow for more shrubs and less density. Ideally this promotes wildlife habitat and a healthier ecosystem because you can have multi-generational trees living together instead of them all being of a similar age. You can see this best in the first photo above! In about 80 years those trees left standing will be what we would call “old growth” and there will be dozens of other trees surrounding them just like in the last photo.

Where do I work?

Basically all of my work is done in the Rec/Timber office and my “commute” is super short from the bunks!

This is the North Bend ranger station of the Mt Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. We primarily deal with the southern half of the MBS National Forest, although I’ve already been to a few areas north of where we’re “supposed” to be managing.

Just this week, we’ve mostly been dealing with timber sales in the areas around I-90 close to North Bend. The Recreation department has zones classified into major transit corridors so we’ve been doing a lot in the I-90 corridor. But timber isn’t limited to just that scope! We cover a lot of ground in the southern part of the forest.

What have I been up to?

This week has been all about getting me up to speed on the status of timber in region 6, learning the techniques they use here, meeting my co-workers, and learning all new trees (spoiler: there’s not that many of them).

The most important thing that happens in the timber department here is a process called cruising. Basically as foresters, we need to know what kinds of wood are in a stand of trees and how much there is to sell. If there’s too many of the wrong type of species, not enough trees, or too many trees, the outcome of the sale can be affected.

The easiest way to do this is to sample some of the trees in a given forest through plots. In the east we use a tool called a wedge prism to help us determine the total volume of trees that are in a particular plot. In the west, however, this doesn’t work because prisms don’t account for the slopes that they have here.

Enter: the Relaskop

This is a precisely engineered device that allows the user to measure all sorts of things about trees. The most important thing, though, is that it allows us to measure the volume of the trees in a plot depending on how much we want to take out. For more information on this you can read about basal area factor.

For the past few days I have been learning how to use this device to do forestry out here. It’s nice because it can account for slope on hills and it is very versatile in measurements like height and diameter.

Before a timber sale can even be marked with paint it needs to be officially cruised. Cruising is a specific term with a distinct legal definition according to the forest service, so if you wanted to just look around before you made things official you’d do what’s called a pre-cruise where nothing is legally binding.

On Tuesday I did a fire pack test which would let me help out in the event of a wildfire this year. The test consists of wearing 45 pounds and walking 3 miles in 45 minutes.

I didn’t have any issues meeting the required pace and so I was able to get my federal firefighting card since I had all my training already done in KY!

I also had to get a rental truck from Seattle, which was my first time seeing the city. I thought the traffic on Nicholasville road was bad, but Seattle takes it to a whole other level.

I was most amazed on that trip to learn about the longest floating bridge in the world just east of Seattle, which is fascinating to me. If you are a civil engineer please contact me because I have a lot of questions as to how this bridge works. Namely: how does the bridge stay afloat if there is a lot of weight on it, and how does the concrete stay in tact even after shifting all day?

The rest of the week was very similar to my first day and mostly involved taking tree measurements in different plots around the forest. One notable day was on Thursday when we went all the way to Verlot, WA (about 2 hours north) to measure some trees in a pre-pre cruise (basically the super early stages of a non commercial thinning). I got to see some cool mountain views and even got to find some oyster mushrooms!

What is North Bend like?

North Bend is a sleepy little town about 40 minutes outside of Seattle. It’s the Lancaster to Lexington, or the Lawrenceburg to Louisville. It has a lot of cool small town things like local restaurants and an interesting character! I went for a few walks around the “downtown” area last week and was thoroughly impressed with how much of a night life there was. Granted, the night life that was present was very generic, but it was still welcome to see nonetheless.

The most prominent feature of the town is Mount Si, which I ended up climbing this weekend. It’s visible from basically everywhere and is absolutely gorgeous at all parts of the day.

There’s a really great ice cream place that just opened last Friday called Friends and Co. I got a cone of black sesame ice cream from them and it was really good!

I also like the amount of biking space available downtown and the thought that has gone in to the care of street trees – again downtown.

It seems like most of the investments in improving the urban environment are happening inside of the downtown district, which is fine for now, but as the city expands its going to have to expand its services into other areas. A big issue I have with the city is that there aren’t sidewalks where pedestrians need them the most- especially on the main road.

I also noticed that they’re trying to employ a pedestrian crossing flag program, but I haven’t seen anyone use these so far and at least in KY, nobody will stop for you when you take these out. The biggest thing that would help would be to allow the local businesses downtown to take up more space on the curb and in parts of the street with protected seating, creating a smaller roadspace and forcing cars to go slower in the first place.

But I digress… I had a killer weekend seeing some cool sights!

Saturday

I decided to hike the notorious Mt Si, which kicked my butt going up it! It was 8 miles total and I felt each of those miles. The thing that did it for me was the elevation gain. In KY, the most we’ll ever have to gain is about 1500 feet, but the gain here was about 3900. It felt like the mountain just kept going up and up for several hours! Since most natural areas in Washington require a recreation fee pass, including Mt Si, I decided to walk from my bunkhouse to the trailhead, which only added another 3 miles to the trip

The view from the the top was amazing! And it was mostly clear enough that I could see Seattle even if it was hazy. Supposedly we were also able to see Mt Rainier, but I wasn’t able to make out much.

The hike took all day and at the end I was absolutely beat. That’s when I took a shower and decided to go get ice cream at the new spot downtown!

Sunday

My mission for today was to see Seattle and to attend the 2023 Folklife Festival. I somehow managed to find a free parking downtown close to the event venue, and I walked down to the shore of Puget Sound, which Seattle is on. I hadn’t heard of a sound before in geography, but the Pacific Northwest is full of them and they are very important to the region!

I walked past a sculpture park on my way to Pike Place, and didn’t actually see that many sculptures. The ones I did see, though were really nice.

I only spent a little time in Pike Place because there were so many people and there was more to do on my agenda for the day. It was very cool though and I’d like to see it when it is less busy! I was getting very overstimulated there as I was walking through the crowds.

The thing I really wanted to do was to ride the water taxi and see the city from Puget Sound. I was able to get on one to West Seattle for $6, which was a phenomenal deal for the view!

I got lunch in West Seattle and caught the taxi just in time to to back to downtown and to catch the folk festival.

The festival itself was absolutely amazing! There were so many good performers, vendors, and staff. I loved the quirkyness of everything. It felt like going to the ren-faire, but if it was held in Seattle. I saw a lot of buskers and a lot of people in costume.

My favorite thing that I saw was a secluded indoor stage with a Ukrainian Bandura performance, and a Turkish classical music performance which featured the Oud. Former listeners of my show on WRFL will recognize these instruments as previous show themes!

I wasn’t allowed to take photos or videos of the performances, but trust me they were good!

I also got to see the space needle for the first time, and my first impressions of it are that it is way smaller than I had imagined it to be! it still looks really cool and when Johnna visits in late June, I definitely plan to go up top.

On my way home from the festival I saw my first glimpse of Mt Rainier. It’s truly a huge mountain and it was lovely to see it in person albeit from afar.

So that was my first week! It’s been crazy and a lot, but I’m excited for what week 2 has to bring and for all of the things I’m going to learn in forestry while I’m here.