Appeal Tribune
| WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17, 2020 | 1B
OUTDOORS
SKY ISLANDS
A meadow atop Marys Peak.
Harsh paintbrush is seen along the trail at
Marys Peak.
The trail at Marys Peak winds through a noble fir forest.
PHOTOS BY BOBBIE SNEAD / SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL
Peek in on the isolated beauty of peak-dwelling plant populations
If you go
Bobbie Snead
Special to the Statesman Journal
USA TODAY NETWORK
Sky islands are isolated peaks inhabited by
species that don’t grow in the surrounding area
— relict plant populations dating back to the last
ice age. Marys Peak, west of Corvallis, is a hiker-
friendly sky island that is easily accessible
spring through fall. Longer, more difficult trails
access the summit year-round.
At 4,057 feet, Marys Peak is the highest point
in the Coast Range. The mountain towers above
its fellow peaks, its hump-backed silhouette
dominating the central Willamette Valley’s
western horizon.
Marys Peak came to be a sky island during
the most recent ice age, about 11,000 years ago.
Back then, a thick ice cap covered the Cascades
from Mount Hood south to the Three Sisters.
Continental glaciers extended down from Cana-
da to a point in Washington State about two
hundred miles north of Marys Peak. The Wil-
lamette Valley was repeatedly flooded by cata-
strophic torrents that raged down the Columbia
River and backed up in the valley as far south as
Eugene.
A cold-loving forest of noble firs cloaked the
Coast Range, including Marys Peak. Park-like
clearings in the forest held open meadows. Tem-
peratures were cool, but not cold enough to sup-
Directions: From Corvallis, drive west on
Highway 20 through Philomath. Turn left on
Highway 34 and drive 8.9 miles. Turn right on
Marys Peak Road and drive 8.8 miles to Marys
Peak Campground and turn right. After one
hundred yards, turn left to the day use area and
trailhead.
Best month: June, for wildflowers
Length: 2.5 miles round trip
Duration: 2.5 hours
Elevation gain: 600 feet
Age range: suitable for kids 6 years old and up
port glaciers; annual precipitation was probably
about fifty percent less than what currently falls
in the Coast Range. As the region warmed at the
end of the Pleistocene epoch, trees and non-
woody plants that thrive in higher temperatures
began to populate these mountains. Remnants
of the once-vast noble fir forests and numerous
meadows were marooned in the high, cool con-
ditions near the top of Marys Peak, where they
remain today.
My friends and I start up the Meadow Edge
Trail through a landscape that looks identical to
those bordering countless paths in the Coast
Range: middle-aged Douglas-firs two feet in di-
ameter stand over a tangle of vine maple,
salmonberries and knee-high herbaceous
plants. A newly fallen Doug-fir lies next to the
trail; the spicy scent of splintered conifer bark
rises from it like the smell of warm chai tea.
Shortly, we arrive at a junction with the
Meadow Edge Loop Trail. Choosing to do the
loop clockwise, we turn left. The trail gradually
gains elevation and, suddenly, the look and feel
of the forest change dramatically. It’s as if we’ve
crossed some kind of invisible boundary; our
gentle ascent has reached an elevation of 3,600
feet and lifted us up into the sky island. Most
Coast Range peaks top out at this elevation, but
Marys Peak reaches much higher.
We enter an old-growth forest of stately no-
ble firs, rare for these coastal mountains.
Ground-hugging shamrocks called Oregon oxal-
is carpet the forest floor, with five-petaled white
flowers raising their heads above masses of clo-
ver-like leaves. Each leaf consists of three heart-
shaped leaflets joined at the tips. Perfectly suit-
ed for life in a shady forest, oxalis can photosyn-
thesize in subdued light where other plants
struggle to absorb the solar energy they need to
grow. Sensitive to harsh light, Oregon oxalis will
fold its leaves downward when a shaft of sun-
light breaks through the forest canopy to shine
See SKY ISLANDS, Page 2B
Can you hold a Zoom call at a fishing hole?
Fishing
Henry Miller
Guest columnist
Been doing much Skyping/Zooming/
Face Timing with friends and relatives
lately?
Those are some of the growing (some
would say groaning) number of video-
chat applications for computers, tab-
lets, cell phones and other internet-con-
nected devices.
We’ve done a couple of Zoom chat-
fests with Kay’s family, and I’ve Skyped
a couple of times with my distant sib-
lings.
I’ve got to say I like the tic-tac-toe for-
mat of Zoom that puts participants in
frames on a grid that looks like the set of
the old Hollywood Squares TV show.
Kay and I are sort of the Nanette Fa-
bry/Charley Weaver to Kay’s niece,
Clair, and her husband, Jeff ’s, Karen
Valentine/John Davidson (ask your
grandparents).
Although those in my age demo-
graphic say that Wally Cox or Paul
Lynde come to mind in my case.
I digress.
Anyway, the thought occurs: What is
a fishing rod if not a multi-tasking selfie
All it took was a slip of the knife to cut
short a planned clamming trip. HENRY
MILLER / SPECIAL TO THE STATESMAN JOURNAL
stick?
So if you attached the phone to the
rod, you could do some social-distance
fishing while Zooming or Skyping with
your friends.
If you’ve read about any and all of my
frequent past fails when it comes to DIY
outdoor adventures, you can under-
stand my sense of queasy trepidation
about casting with a $300 phone duct-
taped to a medium-action spinning rod.
For some insight, see previous col-
umns re: wader and/or raft repair, truck
mud-flap replacement, also pepper-in-
fused suet bricks.
Still, if you, say, lock the phone on a
tripod mounted on the bank nearby, the
risks can be minimized.
And there you go.
There’s one thing that you never
think about when you MacGyver, er, ju-
ry-rig, a home-made solution to an out-
door problem that involves remote in-
ternet connections.
No signal.
Ever.
OK, so you could buy a satellite phone
for about $1,000, with service plans that
start at the low, low price of $39.95 a
month … for 10 minutes.
Hmmm … 10 minutes; that would be
my life expectancy when Kay saw the
MasterCard bill.
So how about shooting a short video
and emailing it when you get back
home?
Or as the old saying goes, good judg-
ment comes from experience. Experi-
ence? That comes from bad judgment.
Sure, it’s fun until someone loses...
The planned clamming outing the
past weekend was canceled both be-
cause of the torrential downpours and
some pre-outing cutlery high jinx.
Subject A, that’s what I’m going to
call David to protect his identity.
The subject in question, A, texted the
night before the planned outing that
“I’m probably out … I sliced my thumb
open while cutting up vegetables … It’s
taken a while to stop bleeding, and I
probably shouldn’t be dunking it in bay
water.”
In the reply text, I attached a photo of
my bandaged left thumb, which was
sliced open when I, too, was doing some
slipshod culinary knife work.
No stitches among the two of us, but
some pride in need of mending.
Still texting. Thanks for asking.
The vegetables in question in both
knifings were onions, so we both were
literally crying over the lost clamming
opportunity.
Laugh-or-cry situation?
Getting a birthday card… from the
gastroenterologist who does your col-
onoscopies.
Wait. It gets worse: The same mail
delivery also had an advertisement of-
fering pre-paid cremation plans.
FISHING THOUGHT FOR THE
WEEK: Give a man a fish and you feed
them for a day. Teach a man to fish and
you provide him with a lifetime of bot-
tomless expense and futility –
Henry (based on my experience as
opposed to the old chestnut about self-
sufficiency and charity.)
Contact Henry via email at Henry
MillerSJ@gmail.com.