B1
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2019
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Lucy Kleiner
lkleiner@dailyastorian.com
Robie Pruden
Phillip Thiessen cuts
a turn on the Tatoosh
Range at Mount Rainier
National Park.
Calming cold,
breathtaking
experiences
Old Man Winter’s Northwest musings
Nancy Tynkila
Ron Baldwin as Old Man Winter.
By RON BALDWIN
I
t is dead calm on the beach — the
east wind subsided after sunset.
It’s not common to walk on Clat-
sop beaches at night in the winter, but
the calm beckons my companion and I
to venture out on the sand in the crisp,
clear night, the moon now showing
about three quarters of its natural glory
near the barely visible western horizon.
We stroll along, just shoreside from
the damp sand. It’s unusually quiet,
the surf almost nonexistent. Ahead, a
thin skim of fog hovers over the beach,
slightly illuminated by the moon.
“What’s that?” my companion whis-
pers breathily. I turn my ear north and
hear a faint, irregular thumping. Then,
as we move farther along, the thumping
is accompanied by splashing sounds.
Suddenly, an elk almost the size of
a truck zooms past us into the surf. By
now, the moon is showing us the silhou-
ettes of perhaps 30 elk frolicking in the
shallow seawater, running at each other
and jumping from side to side, rolling
and splashing around like a gaggle of
elementary students at a public pool.
We move up the beach to keep clear,
but the show goes on for another 15
minutes until suddenly, unanimously,
the animals turn to the east and thunder
off the beach.
When we return to our vehicle, we
stare at each other as if to say a silent
“Did you see what I just saw?” along
with “How are they not freezing to
death?” If it were summer, it’s unlikely
those elk would venture onto the beach
where they would encounter humans,
but animal’s habits change in winter, as
do human’s.
Robie Pruden
Backcountry skiers traverse Mazama Ridge at Mount Rainier National Park.
ern beings in winter at that time — they
held up in a safe place and conserved
their energy and resources for the com-
ing dry season.
Crabby but brave
A time to recharge
Winter is the resting time in nature.
It’s a time when the forests quiet, the
roads decongest and home by the fi re-
side is the best place to be.
Our North Coast winters feature rel-
atively warm temperatures and little
snow, but they make up for that mild-
ness with fi erce tempests that rock
beaches and headlands throughout the
cold months.
Old Man Winter is merciless.
He pounces on the unprepared, pun-
ishes the foolish. Life and limb are
threatened. Earthly beings take heed or
suffer the consequences. It is not sur-
prising that the Corps of Discovery
considered their stay at Ft. Clatsop as
the coldest they’d ever been, even after
the preceding winter in North Dakota’s
frozen landscape. They did as all north-
Technological changes in the last
200 years have made it possible for
humans to challenge the power of Old
Man Winter. A good example of this is
Dungeness crab fi shers on the coast of
North America. Dungeness crab fi shers
are creatures of winter. They venture
out from coastal harbors when condi-
tions are most abominable. Commer-
cial crabbing is the most lucrative of
fi sheries on the West Coast, and it hap-
pens mostly in the depths of winter.
The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention estimates that the Dunge-
ness crab industry has 310 deaths per
100,000 full-time employees, a chilling
statistic. The modern-day fl eet is less
endangered by the North Pacifi c than
their predecessors due to unprecedented
Robie Pruden
See Winter, Page B2
Backcountry skiers cross Commonwealth Creek near Kendall Katwalk at Snoqualmie Pass.