Re: [This and That] Amalgam post

The biggest portion of that garbage was left there by Suzanne the
summer she stayed up there with her kids.

On 5/27/15, Virginia Hanks <sknah100@gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Jake <jstoke@physics.utoledo.edu>
> Date: Wed, 27 May 2015 05:52:25 +0000
> Subject: [This and That] Amalgam post
> To: sknah100@gmail.com
>
> How's it going out there everybody. Hopefully your getting some good summer
> adventure in. We have to do something to bide our time until the snow flies
> again. This post is a collection of adventures. I didn't think each one
> warranted a post individually but together I think it is post-worthy.
>
>
>
> The first adventure was a kayak session up the Pack River which is just
> east of Sandpoint, ID on the north side of Lake Pend Oreille. The Pack
> River flows into Pend Oreille with a slack water delta (unlike the Bull
> River which rages into the Clark Fork). I wanted to explore the delta
> region and see how far I could paddle upstream before I got tired.
>
>
>
> I didn't make it nearly as far I had hoped. I guess I have more river to
> explore on a different outing. I took one channel up and floated back on
> another. I surprised a blue heron in the process. I wish I had the camera
> ready because seeing it take flight would have made for an awesome picture.
>
>
> The next adventure is a random road trip. I had a few hours to kill last
> week so I decided to drive over the state line to my native Idaho. I have
> had an urge to visit a place where my Dad and I used to get firewood back
> in the day. The best way I can describe this area is Beauty Bay Creek
> drainage. It is a small valley where the water runoff flows into Beauty Bay
> Creek which in turn flows into Beauty Bay of Coeur D' Alene Lake. This area
> is pretty interesting because you have pockets of cedar trees which provide
> a canopy. This canopy significantly reduces light intensity underneath and
> as a result there is not a lot of brush or small trees. It is also a lot
> cooler under the cedar canopy, so these areas are cool (literally and
> figuratively) places to hang out on hot summer days.
>
>
>
> At the top of the forest service road that runs along Beauty Bay Creek I
> took these last two pictures. This area was a huge clear cut when I was
> younger. The logging companies stripped out every tree and burned all the
> scrap wood (branches; stumps; trees too small for lumber). It was nice to
> see it green again. I'm not an advocate for clear cutting. From what I've
> read it is pretty environmentally disruptive to strip hillsides of giant
> sections of trees, only to extract one or two species and burn the rest.
> However, it does look like this section has recovered somewhat. The conifer
> biodiversity may not be what it was like before the clear cutting but at
> least it doesn't look like scorched earth.
>
>
> The last adventure on this post pertains to an area south of Emida, ID
> which is in the middle of nowhere. Stephanie and I were on a mission to
> correct some environmental misdeeds. We drove down to my great
> grandfather's mining claim to clean up some trash that he and probably
> quite a few of my relatives left on the claim. My Great Grandpa Prescott
> was "old school" meaning he grew up in the Great Depression and his
> priorities were more along the lines of 'surviving' more than caring for
> nature. I imagine in those days if you wanted to put food on the table,
> money came first and environmental awareness was way down on the list of
> day to day priorities.
>
> A few years ago I showed Steph the area where my Grandpa used to run a
> slurry through sluice boxes and pan the remains for pieces of gold. As I
> showed Steph the cement platform where my Grandpa built a cabin and the
> drainage where he used to run sediment through his sluice boxes, I was
> beaming with family pride. However, that pride was diminished somewhat when
> I noticed that my Grandfather must have used the a nearby area as his own
> private garbage dump. It was pretty bad, there was a lot of crap that he
> left behind. I thought that someday I'd go back and clean up his junk pile.
> Well, this past weekend Steph and I rolled up our shirt sleeves and did
> just that.
>
> I took a couple pictures of a big cedar that Charlie Creek washed out.
> Steph took a picture of me standing next to it to provide a sense of scale.
> Charlie Creek runs right near the edge of the mining claim.
>
>
>
> The structure on the right used to be an old out house. I don't have a
> problem with this because human waste breaks down and the wood it was made
> out of will probably be pretty much decomposed in a few decades. However,
> the plastic that I think my Grandfather stashed to make a "natural light"
> roof does not decompose and I pulled up a lot of it.
>
>
>
> There was garbage scattered all over, but this was the worst area by far. I
> wonder if my Grandfather had plans to 'pack it out' but didn't get to it
> before he died. I say this because the junk was kind of segregated into
> piles with steel cans in one pile and broken glass/ceramics in a different
> pile.
>
>
>
> This is what the area looked like after we cleaned it up. We didn't get
> everything. There were a lot of pieces that were less than a square
> centimeter that I didn't feel like sifting through. Also I think the
> depressed region was a garbage pit with trash buried to some unknown, but
> probably insane depth. I was exhausted by the end of the session and didn't
> feel like digging down 8 feet to extract buried trash.
>
>
>
> When we were done we pulled out 6 trash bags full of junk (and one bed
> spring I couldn't smash into a bag). Four of the bags were recyclable
> material. Rather than get down on my Grandpa, I'd like to think he was
> planning on pulling the junk out of the area but just didn't get around to
> it before he got too old. I'd like to think that if he were here today he
> would thank us for what we did. I knew him probably more than most people
> know a great grand parent. Heck, I've known quite a few people that didn't
> even know there grand parents let alone their great grand parents. My Great
> Grandpa "Bill" Prescott was a good man. For me he was an example of how
> hard work and a love of the outdoors can keep a person young. During the
> time my immediate family lived in Idaho I loved going to the "cabin" as we
> called it. It was even more fun when extended family came along for the
> fun. I remember watching my Great Grandfather when he was in his late
> seventies working the sluice boxes; cutting rounds with a chainsaw and then
> splitting those rounds with an axe. You could tell that spending time at
> the claim had a rejuvenating effect on him. I just wish he could have given
> some of that "life energy" back to the land by being a better steward of
> it. I hope that in a small way we gave back to the place that Bill loved
> and I personally enjoyed growing up.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Posted By Jake to This and That at 5/26/2015 10:52:00 PM
>