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About Appeal tribune. (Silverton, Or.) 1999-current | View Entire Issue (April 15, 2020)
Appeal Tribune ❚ WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 2020 ❚ 1B Outdoors THE NATURALIST’S EYE: ENCHANTED VALLEY Enchanted Valley near the Oregon Coast is a great place to see nature reclaiming an area. PHOTOS BY BOBBIE SNEAD/SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL Bobbie Snead If you go Special to Salem Statesman Journal USA TODAY NETWORK Editor’s note: The Enchanted Valley is part of the Siuslaw National Forest, whose trailheads have been closed to stop the spread of the coronavirus. We present this hike as an armchair visit for you, with the hope of getting out there, safely, soon. To see a landscape becoming wild again is to witness the healing power of nature. If given the opportunity, an eco- system will restore itself one species at a time. The Enchanted Valley, just inland from the coast near the town of Flor- ence, is an ideal place to see land revert- ing to its feral ways as nature reclaims its territory. No one seems to know how this val- ley got its fanciful name. It’s one of sev- eral branching arms radiating from Mercer Lake, a natural reservoir im- pounded by ancient sand dunes. At the close of the ice age the valley was part of the lake. During the ensuing millennia, Bailey Creek gradually filled the valley with sediment, transforming it from submerged lakebed to verdant meadow. In the late 19th century, pioneering dairy farmers arrived and the lush meadow became a pasture for a herd of grazing cows. Directions: From Florence, drive 5 miles north on Highway 101. Turn right on Mercer Lake Road and drive 3.6 miles to where it be- comes Mercer View Drive. Con- tinue 0.2 mile to Twin Fawn Drive and turn left. Drive 0.2 mile to a small turnaround at the end of the road. Best Month: April. Late spring and early summer bring mosquitoes. Winter brings muddy conditions. Length: 4 miles round trip Duration: 2.5 hours Elevation gain: 80 feet Age range: suitable for kids of all ages A yellow wood violet. In 1991, the Siuslaw National Forest acquired the valley, along with a hun- dred years of environmental degrada- tion. Long-term concentrated grazing had left a legacy of compacted soil, sloughing stream banks, sparse vegeta- tion and a murky creek harboring very few aquatic creatures. Nearly 30 years later the rewilding of Enchanted Valley is well underway. The valley’s east side lies in morning shadow as I step around the unmarked gate and start up the trail. The moist ground squishes underfoot. Glancing down, I recognize elk tracks all around me. I imagine the squashy sounds their hooves must have made as the heavy animals tramped along this path. Each avocado-shaped track is about four inches long. The widest part is near the heel and gradually tapers toward two points at the front of the foot. Dozens of tracks parallel each side of a small boardwalk. I kneel down to touch a re- cent imprint; its edges are clean and firm. Older tracks crumble in on them- selves as I gently press their dried out- lines. Tracks of varying ages indicate this is a frequently traveled elk highway. The trail curves around a copse of drooping cedars and skirts a small wet- land crowded with cattail plants. They look like fuzzy brown corndogs rising above lance-like leaves in the marshy ground. Each sausage-shaped spike is covered with tightly packed seeds in a cottony fluff. Winds disperse the downy seeds when they are completely dry. During the valley’s dairy days cattails were sparse; the hungry herd devoured them. A single rotting fencepost stands in the middle of the meadow, a ghost from a former life. Clear water glides below me as I cross a mid-meadow footbridge over Bailey Creek’s unnamed sister stream. The trail leads me to the meadow’s west margin, just at the edge of the forest. I pass through intermittent patches of sun and shade as I continue upvalley. See ENCHANTED, Page 2B How to stay at home and still enjoy fishing Fishing Henry Miller Guest columnist A former Statesman Journal execu- tive editor once introduced me as “Hen- ry Miller, the writer who makes milk come out of your nose every Thursday.” Hard to think of something humor- ous to say at the moment. And milk’s hard to come by. The times in which we find ourselves hunkering in our bunkers puts an eerily macabre spin on the old theatrical chestnut that “dying is easy; comedy is hard.” So I thought that I’d make a sugges- tion to hopefully lighten the loads, both yours and mine. The best idea I could come up with is to come up with a couple of fishing- themed movies to stream during the self-quarantining. Contemporary offerings such as “A River Runs Through It” and “The Perfect Storm” are great films, but both have, shall we say, extreme downer elements. “Jaws?” Don’t we have enough terror al- ready? Henry Miller's fishing buddy Phil. HENRY MILLER / SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL Ironically, a perfect cinematic con- fection of fishing, fluff and fun came out of The Great Depression. “Libeled Lady,” released in 1936, fea- tures Myrna Loy and William Powell, staples in romcoms – then known as “screwball comedies” - of the era, along with Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy. I first saw this as one of the offerings on Turner Classic Movies, which was running a Powell/Loy marathon at the time, and it stuck. The fly fishing is a sub-plot with the clueless and inept Powell deriving all of his knowledge through a hotel-room casting lesson and skimming “The An- glers’ Hand-Book for Beginners” while trying to fake his way through talking on the subject. It doesn’t help. Libeled Lady is on offer through Am- azon, iTunes, YouTube, Vudu (rent for $2.99, buy for $9.99). Have a glass of milk handy, if you can find any. My other pick is another Depression- era film with Spencer Tracy. “Captains Courageous,” a 1937 classic directed by Victor Fleming, is a movie to watch with your kids. A rich, spoiled, entitled brat played by Freddie Bartholomew falls off a steamship while traveling with his fa- ther to Europe and is picked up by Tracy and ends up aboard a fishing schooner. The pushy, arrogant Bartholomew wants to be returned immediately to New York, but the captain, Disko Troop (BEST CHARACTER NAME EVER! Thanks Rudyard Kipling) played by Li- onel Barrymore, says they’re going to spend three months fishing the Grand Banks. And, you guessed it: Arrogant prig of a kid matures into grateful, grounded youth over the course of the journey. The thing that’s great about this movie is that the transformation seems au- thentic and organic, not forced or con- cocted. And there’s lots of fishing and tons of what looks suspiciously like rubber cod landed in the process. The lesson I took away is that people really do improve with fishing. Spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen it, Tracy’s character dies a horrible death (not shown) near the end. Available for online streaming from the usual suspects. Happy vicarious fishing. A fishing buddy, Phil, takes social- distancing to new heights (make that distances). He went steelhead fishing with an- other angler recently … taking separate vehicles. Got a favorite fishing film? Let me know via email at HenryMill- er@gmail.com