When last we left the Skykomish River, it was chillin’ in the basin.  You could zip up it in a speedboat, and the rocks were wee little things, most of them no bigger than the size of a fist.  Unless you visited at flood stage, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s a tame, sweet thing.

Those rocks should give you pause, however.  They’re far-traveled, and they’ve been tumbled and polished and rounded.  That’s our first clue the Skykomish isn’t always placid.

Our second clue comes when we head up the highway, past the small towns of Sultan and Gold Bar.  The gently rolling basin lands give way to mountains.  And these are serious mountains, people, mountains that rise from the earth like they mean it, mountains that don’t shrug off their snow until summer’s well under way.  Go just a few miles outside of Gold Bar, and the mountains fold around you, shutting out the rest of the world.  There’s a bridge over the Skykomish River, and just beyond it a parking area with river access.  Walk down to the river, and you’ll think you’ve come to a different river entirely.

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There’s where we are now, between the highway and the railway bridge.  A few miles further up the road, the Skykomish splits into its North and South forks, vanishing into the mountains where it’s born.

These are wild waters.  You get the first hint when you reach the river from the parking area, and notice you’re having to thread your way through quite a few rather large boulders.  Looking downstream, the river vanishes into an aspiring canyon.

Skykomish River, looking downstream

Look upstream, and you get a sense of just how powerful the river is here.  None of these namby-pamby low banks, nossir.  No, here, it’s carved out something a bit more respectable:

Skykomish River, looking upstream

And you notice how it’s plastered its banks with boulders.  People go through a lot of effort to pile stuff like this along some of its lower banks in an effort to reduce erosion.  Here, the river does its own rip-rap, and does it in style.  We’ll see more of that later, and get intimate with them in a forthcoming post.  Let’s just say if I had a large yard and a forklift, the banks would be rather a bit less rocky.

Let’s turn our attention to that opposite bank, though.  Here’s a panorama of it:

Nice, isn’t that?  Look at all those lovely layers!  I think an argument can be made that rivers are natural-born geologists.  They like to collect pretty rocks, and they sometimes like to cut down through a sequence so that all the nice depositional layers are on display.  We shall have a closer look:

Look above the debris fans, and you’ll see some lovely horizontal deposits.  Those look like river deposits, don’t they just?  And while I can’t swear to it, they might be fine examples of the fining upward sequences Karen talked about when we first went river-walking.  I need to read up on rivers before I can speak with any sort of intelligence here, but Karen did us the favor of a short description:

Here’s a phrase you can add to your geologic lexicon (if you haven’t already): “fining upward sequences”. As you pointed out, there’s a flood strong enough to carry cobbles, and then pebbles come down, and the sediment in the exposure fines upward into sand and mud… and then the whole thing repeats. Flows of various geologic sorts produce fining upward sequences in sediment; it’s a good phrase to know. 

It’s about this time when I wish they’d hurry up with the implants that will allow me to download things directly into my brain.  But I digress.

One of the things I wanted to show you was the power of this river.  It can and has carried boulders.  It’s dropped boulders off when it’s done with them, and now amuses itself flowing over them.

 And if you’re like me, you could sit on a boulder and watch the river play for absolute hours.

No still photograph can capture the power of it.  So I shot some video.  First, we’ll pan up and down the river:

That gives you a general overview and some sense of how fast those waters flow.  And in this one, I give you a close-up of some particularly interesting rapids.  Pay especial attention to the fact there’s a person talking for a bit there.  That’s my intrepid companion, and you can’t hear a word he says.  Neither could I. The river drowned out everything except for itself.

And even that doesn’t really capture the magnitude of it.  The deep roar of rushing water is something you feel as much as hear.  It’s on the same order as standing right beside a freight train.

Right.  So here we are, further up the river, and we can turn to look downstream back the way we came.  Hard to believe we navigated all of those boulders:

Not easy walking, I can assure you.  I’ve heard of gravel bars, and cobbles, but I think this has to be dubbed a “boulder bar.”

Looking upstream, we now have a better view of the mountains:

Okay, well, aside from the clouds trying to eat them, but this is the Pacific Northwest, people.  We’re lucky we can see the mountains at all.

If you look closely at the center-left of the bank, you’ll notice a gap in the trees, and a house that’s about to have a whole new definition of riverfront property.  It might have had a back yard once, but the river ate it.

The clouds weren’t feeling particularly cooperative, but I did get a couple of close-up shots of the mountains.  Here’s one where you can see just how precarious slopes can be:

And this:

If we’d got deeper into the Cascades, you would have seen quite a lot more snow, and possibly some glaciers, but this will do.  Cliffs and crags with a bit of sunlight on are nice.

In our next segment, I’ll be introducing you to some of the rocks that didn’t come home with me, and you will see some lovely examples of what being stuffed into a subduction zone can do to stone.

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Every time we go out on a new adventure, I tell myself very sternly, “Dana, you have already got rocks.  You have got lots of rocks.  Rocks are, in fact, threatening to outnumber the books.  You will have to move someday.  It will cost you roughly $4,000,000,000 dollars to move the books and the rocks you already have.  So stop picking up rocks.  Okay, maybe just one rock, but only one.”

And when we went to Al Borlin Park, I thought, “Oh, good.  It’s the lowland part of the river.  Should be mostly mud and sand.  No chance of rocks there.”

Sigh.

The number I ended up with has a one in it.  Unfortunately, the one is followed by an eight.  And it’s only in the teens because a) I asserted some self-control and b) because some of them would have required a forklift.  I didn’t have a forklift with me.

The Skykomish River drains the Cascades, which are a wonderful mish-mash of metamorphic and igneous goodness.  It is a powerful river, which you’ll see in our next installment.  And its drainage area and power combine to bring down crazy cobbles of the most delightful kinds, many of which I’m at a loss to identify, but this does not stop me from coveting them.  Loaded with geologic treasures, the river then hits that nice lowland, loses the energy to carry anything larger than sediment and pebbles, and dumps the lot in its bed and along the banks and in enormous gravel bars full of cobbles.  During their journey, the rocks have become nicely tumbled, and when they’re wet all their colors and textures really pop, and all of this combines to weaken far stronger wills than mine.

Below the fold, I present to you pretty rocks.  I cannot with confidence identify 90% of them, so I’m just going to emphasize pretty rocks!!  If you see one and say, “Ooo, I know that one!” please do enlighten me in comments. 

And remember: in science, three of the most important words are, “I don’t know.”  Three of the most exciting are, “Let’s find out!”

I actually left some rocks behind.  This is one.  But I really liked the texture of it and that big black blotch.

This one would seem to be a member of the granite family.  I didn’t bring it home, either – I’ve got a ton of granite – but I loved the texture of its crystals.  All sort of sugary and large and sparkly.  Something had whacked it, exposing the unweathered interior.  Just lovely.

This one did come home with me.  Obviously metamorphic, lovely swirls and folds, and check out its other side:

Somebody was all like, “I will not be compressed, nossiree!”  I like its defiance.

I suspect this of being another member of the granite family, but might also be something subjected to a desultory bit of metamorphism.  I suppose breaking it in half and studying a fresh face might have been more informative, but I didn’t bring the rockhammer on account of believing there wouldn’t be enough rocks to pound on.  And I honestly don’t know if I could’ve brought myself to whack it.  I’d make a terrible professional geologist: “But it’s too pretty to break!”

Speaking of too pretty, just look at that beauty!  Another one where I can’t even hazard a guess beyond “something metamorphic,” but the colors and textures of it are just mesmerizing.  And yes, it followed me home, and I am keeping it.

This is green.  I mean, really green – the photo couldn’t quite capture its greeny goodness.  No idea what it is, but it’s quite hard and extremely friendly.  In fact, it’s sitting beside my chair in a very friendly manner as we speak.

This one isn’t.  I probably should have brought it home, because it’s sort of red, and I could have put it out with the green one at Christmas and been all holiday-spirit.  Ah, well.  I’m sure I shall find lots of red rocks this summer.

I think you can see the hazards of this stretch of the river for a geology buff.  And this is merely a small sampling of all the temptations set before me.  It would have gone very badly for me indeed if I’d been able to wade out to the gravel bars.

Just you wait until we get out by Gold Bar, where the river has left ginormous chunks of the most astonishing rocks, some of which I can even identify.  In our next installment or two, we’ll be discussing where all this metamorphic stuff comes from and what sorts you can find.  I’m also going to show you the power of a mountain river.  Prepare for whitewater and very wild geology, people.

Let me show you a sight that is frankly astonishing to someone from dry country:

This is the Skykomish River.  It has got water in it, all the time.  Where I come from, a river is defined as a linear depression in the ground that is too wide to jump over and is occasionally moist.  This goes a long way toward explaining why I’m bloody ignorant about rivers.  But ignorance is not bliss, and I’m using this visit to the Skykomish River to continue my education about rivers.

Absorb the above photo for a moment.  You’re looking at a prime example of a riparian zone.  I first heard the word “riparian” in my physical geography class, and immediately fell in love with it.  It’s just got this certain ring.  And for me, it’s associated with scent: sweet water and luscious plants, damp earth and, sometimes, just a hint of fish.  It’s got a particular feel: a cool, damp world unto itself, small and yet somehow expansive.  It’s got a look: green.  (Mind you, everywhere I go is green now, but that wasn’t so back home, so riparian is the quintessential green.)  It’s got a sound: trickling, rushing water and rustling leaves and insects and birds and unseen things rattling around in the bushes.  Riparian isn’t so much a zone as an experience.

And experience it we shall, but not before I force you to delay gratification a moment while we indulge in an overview.

Skykomish River

The Skykomish River is short, sweet and to the point.  It’s only 29 miles from its origin in the Cascades to its end at the Snohomish River.  But it drains nearly a thousand square miles.  It played a large role in the economy of this bit of Washington State.  It’s certainly not inconsequential.

Here’s where we’re adventuring today:

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That forested strip just to the top left there under the city of Monroe is Buck Island.  It’s more peninsula than island, but we won’t quibble.  It’s very nearly surrounded by water, and sometimes it’s completely covered in water, so if it wants to be known as an island, we’re good with that.

We’ll be walking down there in just a moment, but right now, let’s have a closer look up the river.

You can see the Cascades there in the distance, doing their best to hide behind the clouds.  We’re in the Skykomish River Basin here, and just to our left is the Woods Creek Sub-Basin.  Note the word “basin.”  We’re in the down-low here.  This area was once underneath about 3,000 feet of ice, which did interesting things to the topography, and the river’s been playing with it ever since.

I don’t think a lot of people think of rivers when they think geology, but as we meander along like the river meanders through its basin, we’ll see that it’s got a lot to do with geology.  It’s making geology right before our eyes.  Check out, for instance, that sexy little gravel bar in the middle of the above photograph.  If it’s very good and very lucky, it shall one day become a lovely conglomerate.

Let’s go down on Buck Island and have a look at matters from the picnic area.

Looking toward the bridge, here, you can see the river take a bit of a turn around its gravel bar.  It looks like it’s trying to carve its way through to Woods Creek, which is just behind all those very tall trees to the right, there.  And as it takes that turn, it’s undercutting its bank on this side.

In fact, it had just recently finished carving off bits.

It may not be riverbank collapse on the scale of the Missouri River, but it’s along the same continuum.  The river gaveth sediments to Buck Island, and now it taketh them away. 

Here’s a nice closeup of those sediments, which other people call mud:

I think I see some mica glittering in there.  It’s all full of minerals, and the plants seem to love it.

Here’s a nice view of the opposite bank, where you can see all the layers laid out:

Someday, those might become sandstones and mudstones and conglomerates that will tell far-future geologists that a river once ran through here.

Right now, the river seems lively, even frisky, but not particularly wild.  Don’t let it fool you.  It carries an average of over 24 million gallons of water past this point per day.  I’m not sure how much flows past in flood stage, but considering Buck Island goes under and we’d have to swim for it were we standing at this spot during a flood, it is, to put it mildly, a hell of a lot of water.

And it is powerful.

This is what is known as “large woody debris,” or “holy shit the river just ripped those trees right off the bank and dumped them in!”  Big trees, very tall trees, which had been happily growing with a nice riverfront view for years, and they are now sleeping with the fishes.  In fact, fish quite like having them round.  But pretty damned catastrophic for the trees.  Think of that before you start thinking of building a nice riverside home.

Before we head up river, let’s have a good look round, take in the whole scene.

Large woody debris, undercut banks, gravel bars filled with rather large (and, take it from one who schlepped a few out, heavy) cobbles, and an enormous amount of water.  Amazing, when you think of it, that we had the chutzpah to put a bridge over it.  That’s the tiny little human structure toward the top right, there.

All right, let’s head on up river.  Here we have a slightly muddier little cove, and oh, look, more large woody debris.

One of my sources for this post notes that “LWD provides physical habitat for plants and animals, alters in-stream habitat by creating pools, riffles, shade, and hiding places, adds nutrient and energy sources, and can decrease erosion.”  Here we have a fine example of LWD doing its level best to create a nice pool.  If it doesn’t get hauled downstream in a big ol’ flood, it might even trap enough sediment to create more land at some point, depending on how things go.  I find that fascinating.

Here’s another thing I found fascinating:

Inland from the river, you can find these banks of sandy sediment and pebbles.  I didn’t know at the time that the Skykomish sometimes turns Buck Island into Buck Riverbottom, but I could guess, just from these deposits.  I love this stuff.  I love seeing how rivers create land.

There’s a very nice bank further along that exposes the layers of river-deposited sediment nicely:

Look at all the cobbles!  And if I’m not much mistaken, we’re seeing variations in energy here: at times, the river was powerful enough to carry gobs of cobbles.  At others, it managed pebbles and sand.  Someday, I’ll know more about how rivers flood and sediments settle out, and this will make exquisite sense.

Did I just hear you say, “Please, Dana, may I have another?”  Why, yes.  Yes, you may.

Isn’t that wonderful?  And you’ve even got my Intrepid Companion’s boot for scale!

And as we walk upriver, we notice one of the most fabulous examples of erosion ever.

It seems there was a lot more riverbank here at some point, because this tree had a chance to grow a very gnarly root system.  Now the river’s carving it out.  Check this from another angle:

This baby’s got “Future LWD” written all over it, but for now, it’s clinging on with stubborn determination.  It seems almost grumpy about it, like it’s muttering, “durned river, get off my lawn!”

When you get further up river, away from the gravel bar and undercut banks, you can look back down along it and think it almost looks placid.

It’s anything but.  Oh, and did I mention it’s bloody freezing frickin’ cold?  It’s fed by snow.  It’s very, abundantly clear that it carries a lot of snowmelt, and that it’s been snowing in the Cascades, and that snow has been, above all, cold.

Let’s have a look from upstream at the gravel bars, shall we?

Really, seriously amazing and beautiful things, rivers are.  And just you wait ’til you see what it’s like when it’s not ambling along a nice, gentle gradient, but dashing down the mountains.  But before that, you’ll see what I have against it. 

My Intrepid Companion and I ventured forth despite threatening clouds on Monday.  I’ve been shut in with the Muse for months now, aside from occasional local escapes, and since my hormones had knocked her over the head and stuffed her in a closet, bound with duct tape and zip ties (bit of overkill, there, but it’s a bad hormone month), this seemed like a bloody good time to do more than retread the same ol’ ground.

Besides, I had a hankering.  I kept quoting Bilbo: “I want to see mountains again, mountains!”  So we headed east.  I’m only half an hour from Monroe, where one can begin to see evidence that something massive’s happening to the continent.

You go from the roly-poly drumlin-riddled and glacial-deposit draped lowlands up a very gentle grade, and then suddenly there’s a road cut with solid rock in (which, alas, I didn’t get a chance to stop and photograph), and then a little past that you reach Monroe, where, on a day with fewer clouds, you can actually see the Cascades.

Even on a day with clouds, you can drive down little country lanes there and see what we call “foothills.”

Some foothills, right?  There are places in this country where those would loom over the local mountains like a basketball player over moi. 

I like this foothill.  I have no idea what its name is, but it looks vaguely South China karst landcape, what with that conical shape and all the greenery.  Mind you, it’s not karst.  Not sure what it is, but it’s most likely volcanic, perhaps even a bit scraped off the ocean floor and plastered to the North American continent.  I’ll look into it and get back to you.  In the meantime, I want you to follow me after the jump and live my dream.

You see, I have decided I want a ranch.  With horsies.  In the Cascade foothills.  It’s so lovely and peaceful, and the mountains make such a delightful backdrop to the horsies.

I liked this one a lot.  He, or she (I didn’t bend down to look) was a friendly little bugger.  Made a beeline over to us to say “Hey, hello, got any treats hidden away somewhere?  No?  No matter, pet me anyway!”  And so I did.  Which reminded me how much I miss having horses in my life.  I need to work on this whole riches-and-fame thing so I can have one or two.

One very much like this one, actually.  A beautiful baby with some pizzaz and a liking for people.

What’s that?  You’ve had enough horsies?  You want rocks?  Okay, right, here we are, then:

There’s a nice close-up of the cliff on the “foothill” for ye.  I know, I know, there’s a lot of biology in the way, but you have to admit, it’s wonderful, the way the cliff laughs at all that lovely green.  Like “Ha!  See if you can hide me!”

I’ll even give you rocks and raptors:

Okay, admittedly, that is a raptor.  But I swear to you there were three there just two seconds before I got the camera aimed.  Little buggers buggered off as fast as they could fly, didn’t they, but this bugger was too slow.  And so we have a nice eagle (I think) soaring over our lovely rocks.

Speaking of rocks, oh, my darlings, just you wait until you see what I’ve found for you.  We’ve got a river for Anne, with lots of amazing erosion, and sediments for Karen.  I’ve got new bebbes that will make you drool.  Pretty rocks that may be just what Evelyn needs.  And one of the most incredible boulders I’ve ever had the pleasure to squee over, which is going to require Callan to get to the bottom of.  I’ve got mountains soaring over raging rapids, and some truly nice gneiss, and confections of conglomerate, and I think we’ve even got serpentine.  We’ve got stuff I just have to identify as fuckifIknowite, so hopefully some of you will step in and identify, however tentatively.  Yes, I know what it’s like trying to identify from photos, but still.  And wait till you see the folds in some of these puppies.  We’re talking rocks that’ve really been through it.  We’re talking subduction zone veterans that have been pushed, pulled, squished and squeezed, put under pressure, had their metaphorical feet held to the metaphorical fire, been chewed up and spit out, and basically demonstrate to even the casual geology buff how intense it gets out here on the edge of colliding continents.

And the schist.  Holy shit, the schist I found…

I’ve got flowers, too.  Bleeding hearts and lupines and others, oh, my.  Not to mention a double-winged dragonfly.  So stay tuned.