All rested up from Ross Lake, I trust? I certainly hope so. We’ve got some island-hopping to do. Never mind that it’s overcast and rather chilly – this is the Pacific Northwest. If it ain’t peeing down rain, it’s a beautiful day.

We will, however, get a late start. Might as well have a leisurely lie-in and futz around until check-out time, then head over to Anacortes for picnic supplies. While you’re there, check out the view:

We went back to Rosario Beach for some follow-up investigation of tide pools and so forth, during which we saw the circle of life in all its glory. In other words, the sea creatures were having lunch, too. I’ll be showing you a lot of lovely photos from that experience, once I’ve got them suitably enhanced. We saw an absolute ton of tiny little hermit crabs in the tide pools, too cute! And starfish and sculpins! Lots of adorable little critters make their living in that harsh environment. It leads to an abundance of squee.

However, we’re also pretty close to the naval air station on Whidbey Island, and on a weekday, you’ll see a plethora of these fly overhead, reminding you you’re not off in the wilds somewhere:

“We want to join the Navy!” the group of us said.

“You can’t,” our recruiter said. “You’re here for the Army.”

And so, en masse, the lot of us said, “Fuck that, sir!” and did not end up serving our country. Probably just as well, in my case. They might’ve told me to shoot someone at some point, to which I would’ve said, “Fuck that, sir!” and gotten dishonorably discharged.

Anyway. I digress. Where were we? Ah, yes, lovely marine views. Here’s a nice one of Sharpe Cove.

The clouds actually deigned to part a bit over the Olympics, with excellent results:

However, there are times when those rumored views become reality, and this was one.

So my intrepid companion, suitably unimpressed with my shrimp-freeing activities, wandered off, and I proceeded to photograph the shit out of the bluff. Interesting driftwood up against it in some places – I particularly like the roots on these:

Speaking of odd things, why not feast your eyes on glacial leavings? Here’s a nice view of the mysterious bluff, which is composed of glacial deposits.

And here endeth the outtakes. Someday soon, I’ll be showing you the geology up-close and intimate. We’ll have tide pool tales, dueling herons, and absolute bouquets of wildflowers. Just let me get back from Oregon and recover…

I’m a coal miner’s daughter, which goes a long way toward explaining why Monday’s mini-adventure delighted me so. All right, so he never did any actual mining – he’s an engineer. And he’s a concrete rather than coal man these days. And I’ve become a green energy advocate. But none of that changes the fact I’m a coal miner’s daughter, and coal is part of my personal history.

I get even more excited by coal now that I know what it is and what it tells us about ancient environments. Take Seattle. You don’t think of Seattle as coal country, not with all those thick glacial deposits draped over everything and all the drama from the subduction zone dominating the scenery, but there’s this place called Coal Creek, and it’s not a misnomer. Back in the Eocene, Seattle and its environs were a maclargehuge floodplain, filled with sediments and swamps. All the ingredients necessary for cooking up some coal existed right here. Those dramatic mountains and glacial landforms are johnny-come-latelies.

And I’m shamed to admit that it’s the mountains that drew us. We wanted a simple little hike with a view, and considering you can drive right to the top of Cougar Mountain rather than having to climb it, we figured that was just the ticket. The sun hadn’t come out yet, but the weather forecast said we’d get some nice bright sunshine in the afternoon.

The weather man, he lied.

The cloud cover stayed stubbornly thick, and turned the Million Dollar View into something worth maybe $250,000 at best.

Million Dollar Viewpoint. Well, you can sorta make out million-dollar homes…

That, by the way, is about the only spot where there is a view – most of it’s blocked by trees. Lots and lots of trees. So even when there’s no clouds, there’s trees. Stupid trees everywhere. All right, so they fix carbon dioxide and give us lovely oxygen. Okay. But they still block the bits of the view the clouds haven’t blocked.

But what the hell, we were up there anyway. Cougar Mountain was an anti-aircraft installation back in the day. Why not take the Anti-Aircraft Ridge trail and see where those had been?

Trees. Bushes. Concrete slabs. Oh, and a cell tower. Woot.

By this time, depression was beginning to set in. However, I’d read about a trail that went down along Coal Creek and supposedly showed some old mining stuff. We’d been after views, but maybe old mining stuff would do. And hey, bonus waterfall.

So we get down to the bottom of the mountain, and take this little trail to Ford Slope, and we cross a bridge over Coal Creek, and I see some rocks in it.

Coal Creek Rockage

“Hey,” I says, “that looks kinda like coal.” So I scrambled down for a look, and screamed for joy, because I’d just found my first-ever coal in the wild.

This, perhaps, should not be as exciting as it is to me, but again: coal miner’s daughter. And rock fiend. Combine the two into one small body, and you get someone who’s inordinately excited by little black rocks that burn.

A bit up the trail, you come to Ford Slope, where they did the mining. There’s a neat little display and the old mineshaft.

Moi with Mine

It’s filled in for safety, but yeah, that’s where they dug out the coal. Too freaking awesome. And if you continue up the trail, you’ll see the concrete foundation for a steam hoist, and a dam for the millpond, and probably lots of other cool stuff, but we turned back after the steam hoist because we wanted to take the actual Coal Creek trail.

That one takes you right alongside an even more shafty mineshaft.

Moi with Mine II

It’s filled with dirt, now, but it looks like you could dig out and continue operations. Just too wonderful. And freaky – the upper bits are nothing more than a hole carved through glacial deposits: clay, sand, and pebbles. Yeow. You can get a better look with this picture:

Moi with Mine III

Day-yam.

Now, it’s been a wet year, and we haven’t quite had a summer, but the creeks in the lowlands aren’t having any of that. They’re not exactly swelled. One branch of the creek bed was, by Seattle standards, dry as a bone. Being who I am, I started walking along it because it was filled with interesting rocks. There was this one enormous chunk of coal upon which someone had smashed a hunk of sandstone. And I played about with it. Fresh faces and all that. Besides, the Puget Group sometimes has fossils in it. I didn’t find anything 100% fossilriffic in the sandstone, but whilst playing around with it, I started to notice oddities about the big chunk of coal. So I went in for a closer look, walked round it, bent down to put my nose upon it, and let out a shriek. I’ve never before in my entire life found an enormous, undoubted, certified near-log of petrified wood, but my darlings, there is a first time for everything.

Moi with Petrified Log

There she is. Isn’t she a beaut? I’ve got macros I’ll be showing you when I do a proper write-up of the Puget Group. That creek bed was filled with petrified wood, with some very interesting details, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I was a total kid at Christmas. I haven’t been so happy in ages. No chunks small enough to haul home, alas, but at least I got to see these, and they are wonderful.

And then, just a ways down the creek bed, you start to hear falling water, and you come across this incredible sight:

Moi with North Fork Falls

Can you believe some Philistines say this isn’t an amazing waterfall? So what if it’s not the tallest or loudest or whatever – it’s bright orange. Just look at the iron oxide! You don’t see that in every Pacific Northwest waterfall (and a good thing, too). I could’ve sat there all day. And look at those lovely exposures of Puget Group sandstone!

We could’ve continued on to the locomotive turntable site and the cinder mine, but we hadn’t expected to hike quite so much and my intrepid companion was dying of thirst. Dunno why he didn’t want to drink orange water, other than the fact it’s probably filled with poisonous crap. I think the creek here drains some old mine tailings. So we headed back home.

And yes, I did set a little piece of my coal on fire when we got back. Can you blame me?

I’m from dry country. Put it like this: when we say “Grand Falls,” we mean a waterfall that doesn’t flow year-round, and when it does, it’s more like a very runny mud than actual water. When we say “river,” we’re often talking about something you can walk across dry-shod 352 days out of 365. Some desperate folk try kayaking in flash floods (not recommended), because otherwise, a kayaking adventure consists of picking the thing up and walking it down a bone-dry bed whilst closing one’s eyes, making paddling motions, and imagining you’re actually at risk of getting wet.

That, mind you, is in years with above-average rainfall.

How dry is it? Yuma once went two years without a single measurable drop of rain. We didn’t find it worth remarking until late in the second year.

I’m still making the adjustment to wet country. Four years on, there are still times, in late spring when all the foliage has completely leafed out, that I feel I am being menaced by all that looming green stuff. Perennial creeks aren’t yet a “yeah, so?” experience. I’ve finally reached the point where I can grumble about too many cloudy days rather than finding them a refreshing novelty, but when I head up into the Cascades, the merest trickle of water down a cliff still causes me to shriek “ZOMG look – waterfall!!” as if that’s something rare and precious. I do a lot of shrieking in the Cascades. There are a lot of waterfalls.

Such as this one:

That, I believe, is Gorge Creek Falls. So the sign said, anyway. We all know how far we can trust informative signs, especially after that thing with knots last time. It’s a waterfall right by the Gorge Dam, which wasn’t quite visible due to too much water. We’ve had a wet year, my friends, even for wet country.

Due to constant water, the biology gets a bit enthusiastic this side of the Cascades. And that’s because of the Cascades: you know that rain shadow thing? Well, put it like this: we are not in the rain shadow of the Cascades. No, what happens is that the lovely moist marine air that’s managed to survive the Olympics looks east and goes, “You know what, I think I’ll go to Wenatchee. I hear Wenatchee’s nice this time of year,” and the Cascades are all like

Source

and the marine air’s like

Source

and the Cascades are like

Source

and the marine air’s like

Source

and the Cascades are like

Source

and the next thing you know, it’s raining in Seattle. Again. And the plants are like

Source

And Wenatchee’s all like

Source

But just occasionally, you can find spots where the rocks have managed to avoid acquiring a thick coating of plant life, and you can see your geology up close and personal. Geologists are awesome. They’re about the only set of people who can find fault in something and go, “Awesome! A fault!”

I’m pretty sure this is one, but I’ll be requesting second opinions in a later post. It’s not like I’ve got a lot of experience finding faults in anything aside from creationist arguments and my own stories.

The Skagit River has a lot of dams on it. Seattle City Light uses the river to ensure that we do, in fact, have light. Ross Dam is one that you can actually go play round on, and it’s pretty dramatic.

It’s got that weird waffle-iron pattern because they’d intended to build it higher (which meant it would have also had to be thicker, if I understand my dam construction correctly), but due to folks deciding that we had enough flooded waterways already, thanks, it never got expanded. Still, 540 feet ain’t shabby.

One of the weirder sights on the way to the dam is a tugboat. Now, you might be thinking, “Well, Dana, there’s a big ol’ lake that goes all the way up to Canada there – what’s so weird about a tugboat? Lots of boats on a big ol’ lake, no reason there can’t be a tugboat.”

Well, yeah, except the tugboat isn’t exactly in the lake.

It’s just sitting there in a clearing in the woods by the side of the road, far from the marina. No idea how it got there, or what its story is. Weird and unexpected and totally fun.

So, I think I’ve mentioned the hike back up is all up. It’s a pretty steep climb, and it’s hot when the sun’s out. This is probably one of the only places in western Washington that boasts actual dry dirt. I mean, it’s a trail with actual dust on it. Dry dirt is something of a novelty item round here, and this former Arizonan was so delighted by it she nearly took her shoes off so she could wiggle her toeses in something resembling home. But the climb back up reminded me why I’d been happy to leave hot, dusty trails behind lo those many years ago: namely, because they’re hot and dusty. Happily, there’s Happy Creek to look forward to. Remember how I said you can’t spit in the Cascades without hitting a waterfall? Huzzah for that!

We had a long, happy sit-down by Happy Creek. The water’s so cold you can put your bottle of liquid refreshment in it (be careful to wedge it in the rocks or it will happily go sailing down the creek to go live in the lake), and a few minutes later, voila – you have an ice-cold drink. This is a magnificent thing for hot, dusty, normally-sedentary hikers.

After we’d recovered from the climb, and finished the rest of the climb, and recovered from that final bit, we headed down the road to this nice little scenic view overlooking Diablo Lake.

Is that spectacular or what? I mean, cloudless skies on the west side of the Cascades. Oh, and the lake and the mountains are pretty spiffy, too.

There is this itty bitty island in Diablo Lake that’s pretending really hard it’s a desert island in the Caribbean. Even the trees are in on the fantasy.

I’ll bet it gets rudely jolted back to reality every time it snows, but you’ve got to admire it for trying.

And there’s another thing there that will make geologists go squee, but I’m going to make you wait for it. I’m a cruel, evil cantinera, I know. But I’m not completely evil. I’m going to take you down to the limestone quarry now and show you a little something outstanding.

Oh, yes. The views of Mount Baker are that good.

Quite the eventful day, that. We didn’t get back to civilization until after nine, and we hauled our sweaty, dirty, exhausted selves into Carino’s, which kicks the Olive Garden’s ass. The service, the food, the decor, the fact they didn’t care a fig how icky we looked, all of it combined for a fantabulous meal, and by that time, we surely needed one. And they have mini-desserts. This is bloody genius. I mean, by the time you load up on all that pasta, you don’t want a whole huge slice of something, you feel like even one wafer-thin mint will have you splattering innards all over the restaurant a la Monte Python, but this adorable, tiny little dessert in a baby dish – now, that you can just about manage. I had the mini-turtle cheesecake. People, I could rhapsodize about the caramel and the chocolate and the cream all swirling together on the palette like a spoonful of utopia, but I’ll spare you that. Just bloody well go there and eat when you’re in the area, m’kay?

Then get a good night’s sleep, because we’re headed to the islands, mon.

I’ll hit you in the face with the detailed geology later. And you will like it. However, in order to do this, I shall have to thoroughly research said geology first. So for now, I shall hit you in the face with a few basics and some delightful photos, and you will like it.

I’m beginning to believe the Pacific Northwest is the best place in the United States. Oh, sure, Arizona has drool-worthy rocks and some truly fascinating geological history. Same for southern California, and it has the added bonus of being all warm and sunny with an ocean to die for. The Basin and Range ain’t too shabby, and I’m sure Yellowstone’s all that. But if you want to see the real geologic mayhem, you’ve gotta head for an active subduction zone. Which is what we have got. And if you want to get a coast-to-mountains perspective without having to travel far, basing yourself in Mount Vernon is a damned good idea. So many amazing things within easy driving distance that we’ll probably be talking about them for months.

On our first day up there, my intrepid companion and I headed west. A quick drive down Highway 20 gets you to Anacortes, on Fidalgo Island. You can have a leisurely lunch whilst contemplating a bay ringed with refineries, and then a short drive takes you to Deception Pass.

There’s a story in that, told on this convenient marker. However, you won’t be reading it at first if you’re a geology buff, because the bastards set it on some utterly delicious bare, contorted rock.

Once you actually lift your nose from the outcrop and read the marker, you’ll discover the following:

Named by Captain George Vancouver, 10 June 1792, Feeling that he had been “deceived” as to the nature of the inner waterway, Port Gardner (now Saratoga Passage) he wrote on his chart “Deception Pass.” He honored Master Joseph whidbey, who found the passage while commanding a small-boat crew of explorers, by naming the island “Whidbey.”

Velocity of currents in Deception Pass 5 to 8 knots per hour. Depth varies 4 to 37 fathoms

1 knot 6082.66 feet           1 fathom 6 feet

Captain Vancouver was apparently upset they’d gone so long believing that Fidalgo and Whidbey Islands were actually one long peninsula before the pass revealed the truth, but he could have also named it for the currents. I mean, seriously, the damned strait flows in different directions depending on the tide, and there’s some pretty intense whirlpool action going on.

I mean, seriously, whirlpool.

And no, you couldn’t pay me enough to navigate that channel in a sail-powered wooden boat, thankyouverymuch.

Now, I’m no chicken when it comes to heights – I’ve hung out on ledges at the edge of the Grand Canyon (always with another nice ledge safely between me and the really painful drop, cuz I’m sensible like that), I’ve run on slickrock with a two-hundred foot fall on one side, I cut my teeth on high places – but walking that bridge over Deception Pass made me dizzy. Good dizzy. And there are some astonishingly beautiful sights to see, well worth the vertigo. We’ll see more of them when I write up the rocks and the islands and all that.

Right now, we’re turning our arses around and headed to Rosario Beach, where we’ll come across some amazingly contorted rocks and a beach with the world’s best skipping stones and ZOMG BABY BUNNY!!!

Yeah, some of the biology’s pretty cute, too.

And lovely. When you see this delightful little bay over the top of thriving fireweed, it makes you feel all tingly and happy inside.

So that’s a little bit of all right, then. You know what’s really all right? You’re looking at some really jumbled geology here. Terranes are just kind of squished and mashed together with the kind of chaotic exuberance that will either make a geologist scream for joy or rip out handfuls of hair, depending on the personality involved. The subduction zone doesn’t care about tidy little maps or orderly accretion – it just jams things in any-old-how. Kind of like my packing on the third day of a trip, actually….

We got there as the tide was coming in, so no tide pools for us. That’s all right. We had a wonderful ramble along the beach, playing with the skipping stones, and then sat on that nice pebbly shore for a good long while watching the waves work.

The rocks to the left are eroded bits of Rosario Head, where the tide pools are, and you can see the San Juans in the far distance, across Rosario Strait. The wee little island in the foreground is, I believe, Northwest Island, which is a bit of a dive (ahaha).

Afterward, we headed up on the headland, where the geology is to die for – wait till I show you it! The views are pretty damned spectacular, too, if you can tear your eyes off the rocks long enough to admire them.

There’s this one place on the side of the headland there where the rock is laid completely bare, and there are faults and all manner of fascinating things, and then, when you’re done exploring those, you can sit and watch the waves worry at the bits of the tide pools that have the audacity to stick up.

Does that, or does that not, make your stony hearts go pitter-pat, my dear geotweeps? And you don’t have to be a geologist to have your breath taken away by those rocks. They’re truly awe-inspiring. And you want to know what the best part is? They aren’t basalt! After the Oregon coast, it’s nice to know that scenery like this can be accomplished with humble old chert and shale, too.

After Rosario, we had a drive round Fidalgo, and came to a wee little park tucked in near the San Juan Ferry, where there were more fascinating rocks (natch), some glacial deposits, and a view across the strait that does the old heart good.

 Just sit here for a moment and contemplate the fact that none of these views would be here without the subduction zone and the Cordilleran ice sheet tag-teaming the place. You’re sitting on some comfy, chocolate-brown rocks with glacial deposits at your back. Just think about this, as the waves swash up and tickle your toeses, as you absorb all that peace and quiet, that beneath you the last of the Juan de Fuca plate, a remnant of the older and grander Farallon plate, is sliding beneath North America. You are the cherry on top of a nice, marbley layer cake of oceanic and continental crust. I suppose the glacial outwash counts as the icing.

Alas, ’tis time to leave the ocean behind. We’re headed for the hills next, and oh, what hills they are.

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One of the many great things about Rosario Beach is its pebbles. The sea has spent a lot of time and effort on making perfect skipping stones. The whole beach is made of up naturally polished rocks, and if you listen as the tide comes in, you can hear the waves busily working away, turning bits of stone into smooth little discs. I love that.

So I shot some video, sitting there on the beach. You can actually feel it – as you’re sitting there, as the waves break, you hear the rattle of pebbles and feel the whole beach vibrate beneath you. I was too busy watching sunlight through curling water and tumbling rocks to notice at the time, but you’ll notice around the 21 second mark that I caught a leaping fish. Keep your eyes on the ocean in the middle-left, just to the right of the left-side sea stacks: