Rafting outfits going with the flow

You’d think an extra week of raftable September flows on the Tieton River — which figures to be the case this year — might be just the thing to lift the spirits of commercial outfitters vexed by this economic downturn.

Except that they don’t seem to be vexed.

“This is one of the most successful seasons we’ve ever had,” said Don Martin, who runs River Recreation, based in Bothell.

The state’s largest rafting outfitter, Blue Sky Outfitters in Peshastin, can even top that.

“We’ve actually had a record-breaking year,” said Terri Sarver, who oversees Blue Sky’s operations with her husband, Brad. In the struggling economy, she added,

“Instead of going on a three-day rafting trip on the Colorado (River) or the Salmon over in Idaho, people still want to go out and do something. And since we offer one-day trips, people can still get out and go play for the day.”

Blue Sky is coming off the most productive August the company has ever had, and the Tieton season may just produce some September magic. This year’s Bureau of Reclamation decision to begin the Tieton “flip-flop” a week earlier than usual means the river — usually not at thrill-inducing whitewater levels until a week into September — is already there.

Flows are already running at close to 1,200 cubic feet per second, probably double the typical levels at the beginning of September — and that meant a bustling opening weekend of rafting before August even ended. The flows are projected to ramp up slowly to a peak in the 2,000-to-2,400 cfs range in mid-month before beginning to come back down. That means there should be as many as four productive whitewater weekends — perhaps even five.

“It’s definitely a positive thing for the rafting community,” Martin said.

“Our Saturdays are expected to definitely sell out,” Sarver said. “We’ll probably raft 200 people every Saturday. Sundays, we’ll probably be at about 100, and weekdays are kind of hit-and-miss.”

Last year’s Tieton rafting season was spotty, primarily because of rafters’ concerns over congestion around the two bridges west of the Windy Point campground. Last year the

Department of Transportation was in the middle of a construction project replacing the two bridges, meaning two rafting take-out areas were inaccesslble.

That project is now almost complete, with traffic using the bridges and only some finishing touches and cleanup remaining. The take-out area Martin’s crews typically used beside the westernmost bridge will remain inaccessible, while the one nearest the east bridge — routinely used as a take-out by the majority noncommercial rafters — is nearly ready.

“The takeout just below the (easternmost) bridge is not quite finished,”

Transportation Department spokesman Mike Westbay said last week. “The contractors are guaranteeing we’ll have that open by the 4th. We’re pushing them to have it open sooner — Sept. 1 is what we’re hoping for.”

Until then, rafters have been leaving the river at the Windy Point campground.

“I think the biggest improvement should be a slightly safer situation on the road,” said Jerry Michalec, proprietor of North Cascades River Expeditions in Arlington, one of the oldest rafting companies in the Northwest.

“It’s always been a fairly dangerous highway to begin with, and then to have a situation like that, where you have people coming off the river, carrying boats across the road, and trying to park and then pulling out with trailers. I’m hopeful the situation should be improved.”

Most commercial rafting companies that run the Tieton offer a 14- to 16-mile trip lasting roughly 21?2 hours, with prices typically running $65 to $80 per person. The price includes wetsuits (and, in some cases, the wetsuit “booties”), safety/training instructions and usually a pre-run or mid-run snack/lunch.

At the upper end of the scale is Blue Sky — “the Cadillac,” according to another outfitter — at $92 per person. Blue Sky’s trip is longer than most, at 21 miles and four hours, and customers also finish their rafting experience with a steak barbecue dinner (or veggie option).

Bruntjen forced to drop out of Tour Divide

Last summer, when he completed the rugged Tour Divide mountain bike race in honor of a Selah veteran injured in Iraq, Eric Bruntjen’s heart was clearly in the right place.

This summer, though, his knee wasn’t.

Nearly halfway through the 2010 Tour Divide, Bruntjen was on pace to improve dramatically on his 2009 performance over the 2,780-mile course along the Continental Divide between Banff, Canada, and the New Mexico-Mexico border.

“I was really racing well,” said Bruntjen, a 39-year-old information-technology specialist and Yakima resident. “My head was in it, and my heart was in it.

“But I just really overdid it.”

Bruntjen had ridden the 2009 race to raise enough money to buy a specialized all-terrain wheelchair for injured Army veteran Evan Mettie of Selah. His goal that year was to go the full distance, because the pledges he had collected were based on how many miles he rode.

This summer, Bruntjen was in the race strictly to compete, and he was churning out 150-mile days and running nearly 31 hours ahead of his 21 1/2-day 2009 pace by the time he reached the Teton Range in Wyoming. But he was paying a steep price. The harder he pushed himself, the more the muscles, ligaments and tendons securing his patella — his kneecap — tended to pull it out of place.

The issue, called patella tracking disorder, is often hereditary and related to the knee structure itself. It can sometimes be caused by failing to stretch properly prior to exertion.

Bruntjen knows he wasn’t stretching properly. He was in a hurry. Every day.

“I’ve had it in training before and I’ve always been able to stretch my way out of it. This time it didn’t stretch off,” Bruntjen said. “The crazy thing is I had no pain walking — I could walk just fine. I’d get off my bike and walk for a while and I’d think, ‘OK, I’m cured, I’m fine,’ and I’d get back on my bike and start again and my knees would be in agony right away.”

Bruntjen pulled out of the race on the eighth day near Jackson, Wyo., and although he regrets not being able to complete the race — and, of course, improve on the time from his 2009 Tour Divide debut — he doesn’t have any second thoughts about his decision.

“It was super frustrating for me, but it was actually clear-cut. I didn’t waffle about it,” he said. “I was just mechanically unable to go any further.”

Another Tour Divide racer, a 37-year-old Vermont resident named Dave

Blumenthal, died after he was struck by a pickup truck near Steamboat Springs, Colo. Bruntjen had gotten to know Blumenthal earlier in the race, when the two were both camping at Wise River, Mont.

“He was this 6-foot-7, just towering guy — a nice guy,” said Bruntjen, who had already left the race and returned home when he heard about Blumenthal’s accident.

Despite the rough going in the 2010 race, Bruntjen said his Tour Divide days may not be over.

“If I have enough time to train — and to stretch,” he added, laughing, “I might do it again. There’s nothing like it. You feel like you’re a superhero out there, like a cowboy out in the wild west. It’s so remote out there. No one can help you, no one can save you, and you’re trying to go as fast as you can.

“I’ve never found a sport like it, or like the feeling you get in that race.”

Hunting doves requires a ton of shells, patience

YAKIMA, Wash. — Here are a few figures and a smattering of unconfirmed “facts” about the dove hunting season opening Wednesday morning at daylight. Think of it as dove hunting by the numbers.

It has been approximately 335 days since the end of dove season last year. That is 8,040 hours since we were able to be in the field cursing the little birds that are so much fun to shoot at, yet so impossibly difficult to hit. Dove hunting addicts have been counting the minutes —  which, by the way, was 482,400.

No official studies have been conducted, but it is estimated that the average dove hunter will shoot 10 times to bag one dove. With the daily limit of doves being 10, that means a hunter will shoot around 100 times a day to bag his limit of the darting, diving missiles with wings. That is on the average. Some hunters shoot way more times than that.

The shotgun shell manufacturers just love  dove hunting season. While a pheasant hunter might buy a box or two of shells the whole season, and a duck hunter might purchase a half dozen boxes to supply him for the long waterfowl season, a dove hunter planning to spend any time in the field will purchase a case of shells.

Figure that just in the Yakima Valley, there are conservatively 500 dove hunters, and each buys a 10-box case of No. 8 shot shotgun shells, and there are 25 shells in a box. That comes up to — just a minute, I need a calculator — 125,000 shotgun shells purchased to burn on trying to hit the little gray birds that fly like their tails are on fire.

Shotgun shells intended for the use of dove hunters are the least expensive shells a hunter can buy, but figuring a box of No. 8s costs $5, each shell costs 20 cents. Multiplied by 125,000, dove hunters just in our little Valley are spending $25,000 on dove hunting ammunition alone!

People who don’t hunt doves may be overly concerned that hunters purchasing all of these shells just for shooting doves might be having some effect on the population. If this is the case, I refer you back up to paragraph three: The majority of dove hunters are shooting the thousands of shells they are purchasing into the wide blue yonder. The doves are quite safe. In fact, over the past several years, surveys done by biologists of the Yakama Nation show dove numbers at or near all-time highs.

This year’s surveys by tribal biologists show the dove numbers in the area at their fourth highest in the past 17 years, at three doves for every mile. The all-time best numbers came just last year: five doves every mile.

Habitat and weather have much more of an effect on dove populations than hunting ever will.

A few other numbers to consider on this eve of the 2010 dove hunting season:

• Roughly 82.4 percent of all dove hunters will hunt just one day during the dove season. Why? Nobody knows for sure, but it’s likely related to the fact the little speed demons are so difficult to hit. The average hunter simply can’t take more than one day of that kind of humiliation.

• Approximately 30 percent of all dove hunters will bring their hunting dogs along on the first hunt of the year, only to have the poor animals sit quivering at the side of their master, waiting for the call to retrieve, only to find out they may never hear that call. Seasoned retrievers will immediately find a comfortable spot to lay down and take a lengthy nap.

• At some point during the first day of dove hunting, approximately seven hunters will throw their expensive shotguns down in the dirt in disgust because of the anger and embarrassment caused by missing dove after dove after dove.

• At least one dove hunter per season will actually give up hunting altogether because of the disgrace and shame over his poor shooting — not to mention the ridicule and mockery heaped upon him by his dove hunting partners.

• And one hunter, possibly the one who just swore off hunting forever, will claim he actually heard doves sitting in a nearby tree snickering at the hunters who were blasting and swearing and reloading and blasting.

The year’s first bird hunting season is upon us, so go forth and have fun.

Just don’t expect much success.
• Rob Phillips is a freelance outdoor writer and partner in the advertising firm of Smith, Phillips & DiPietro. He can be reached at rwphillips@spdadvertising.com.

8-31 What’s Happening

NWTF organizational meeting set tonight

A new Yakima Valley chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation will debut this evening with an organizational meeting at the Selah Civic Center.

Anyone with an interest in wild turkey hunting and conservation issues is invited to attend the 6:30 p.m. meeting at the civic center, 216 S. First St.

The NWTF’s regional director, Barnabas Koka, is expected to come over from Idaho for the meeting, and Washington state chapter president Kurt Beckley is also scheduled to attend.

For more information about the meeting or NWTF goals, call Ross Huffman at 509-961-8093.

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Tickets available for DU’s Sept. 9 banquet

Tickets are on sale for the Yakima Ducks Unlimited banquet set for 5:30 p.m. Sept. 9 at the Apple Tree Golf Resort.

The event will feature the silent and live auctions members have come to expect, with plenty of guns, outfitter trips (hunting, fishing and golf) and other outdoor-related items available to win or purchase. A variety of “date night” packages to numerous destinations will also be up for grabs.

Tickets are $75 each (or $300 for sponsor or $1,000 per table of eight, including one sponsor), and will remain on sale through Sept. 8. Dinner options will be prime rib or salmon.

For more information, call Nate Rothrock at 509-630-3319, or e-mail nate.rothrock@gmail.com. Tickets can also be purchased online by going to www.ducks.org/state/68 and then clicking on the Yakima DU Dinner link.

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AROUND AND ABOUT

PCT STRETCH REOPENED: A 6.5-mile segment of the Pacific Crest Trail inside the Alpine Lakes Wilderness — between Mineral Creek Trail 1331 to Lemah Meadows Trail 1323.2, closed since last summer for safety reasons related to fire and burnt trees — was reopened to the public last week. Two detour routes to the trails — popular with hikers, Scouts and horse riders — were in place during the closure.

DELAYS AT RAINIER: Visitors can expect occasional delays of up to 20 minutes when accessing Mount Rainier National Park’s southwest entrance because of a construction project on Nisqually Road, six miles east of the entrance. The work schedule will be primarily Monday through Thursday, with some work on Fridays if necessary, and nothing on weekends.

FIRE NEAR ENCHANTMENTS: Hikers heading up to Chelan County to hike in or near the Enchantments can expect some smoke from the Eightmile Lake Fire, which has been burning on as much as 190 acres above Eightmile Lake west of the Enchantments. Two trails (Eightmile 1552, and Eightmile/Trout Lake 1554) remain closed, but nearby trails to Stuart and Colchuck lakes are unaffected.

LAKE WENATCHEE CLOSURE: The state parks commission closed Lake Wenatchee State Park last Thursday because of safety problems associated with tree root rot that led to two trees falling in the south campground. On Monday, the commission announced it was reopening the day-use area of the park and that campsites 101 through 148 would be reopened by this Thursday in time for the Labor Day camping crowds.

DEER POACHING CHARGE: An 18-year-old Walla Walla man was charged last week with poaching four deer in the Woodward Canyon area of western Walla Walla County on Aug. 2. Charges included seven gross misdemeanor counts, four related to closed-season hunting and wastage, and one each for spotlighting big game, shooting from a road and having a loaded firearm in a motor vehicle.

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BIRD ALERT

The fall migration of Vaux’s swift through the Yakima Valley is picking up. The swifts spend the night roosting in large chimneys, typically gathering near their selected chimney in the 20 minutes before sunset and dropping into the chimney shortly after sunset — earlier in poorer weather.

The chimney must be brick-lined, which gives the birds a rougher surface to cling to.  Swifts have such weak feet they can’t perch on the branch of a tree or a power line like swallows do. They use their stiff tails to help them roost in the chimney, similar to the way woodpeckers use their tails when they climb a tree.

Two birders counted 810 Vaux’s swifts flying into the large chimney at the Herald-Republic building on Friday evening, then counted 830 on Saturday. A slow-motion video recount of Saturday’s chimney drop showed that 1,041 birds had actually flown into the chimney that evening. Sunday’s total was 850. The fall migration should continue for another 10 days.

Are there any volunteers to show up to the Herald-Republic building in the morning and see what time the swifts fly out?

Another birder spotted swifts circling around the chimney Sunday evening at the old Parker Heights School on Yakima Valley Highway. The flock was around 40 at 7:25 p.m., grew to 300 just after sunset, flew away at 8:03, then came back with a vengeance two minutes later.

At 8:06 p.m. a continuous drop of 490 Swifts entered the chimney; one early bird and six late ones brought the total to 497.

A visit to Wenas Lake Sunday morning found a lower water level and more exposed mud, and therefore more shorebirds searching for tasty morsels in the mud. Highlights included one greater yellowlegs, two Baird’s sandpipers and 24 Wilson’s snipe, plus the spectacle of 250 violet-green swallows flying low over the lake.

Please call you bird sightings in to the Yakima Valley Audubon phone line at 509-248-1963.

— Denny Granstrand

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ON THE CALENDAR

TODAY: The Cascadians’ “Tuesdays” hiking group will head up to Chelan County for a 9-mile hike to Colchuck Lake, a trek that will include 2,200 feet of elevation gain. Participants should meet at 7:30 a.m. at the 40th Avenue Bi-Mart, bringing along a lunch, plenty of water, sturdy boots and clothing for potential changes in the weather.

WEDNESDAY: The Mount Adams Cycling Club’s weekly 24-mile Naches Loop begins at 6 p.m. at the Fred Meyer/Key Bank parking lot. For more online info, go to www.mountadamscycling.org.

THURSDAY: The Cascadians’ Pokies will hike up to Edgar Rock overlooking Highway 410 near Cliffdel. For information on meeting time and place, call Ramona Banning at 509-965-9304.

MONDAY: The Mount Adams Cycling Club will hold a members-and-guests bike ride starting at 5:45 p.m. from YAC Fitness in Terrace Heights, with the ride to be somewhere between 23 and 30 miles.

The Cascadians: Blazing trails, telling tales

YAKIMA, Wash. — Eighty-four years ago, an intrepid pair of Yakima men, Clarence Starcher and Clarence Truitt, did something that remains just as remarkable today as it was then.

Over nine days in July 1926, Starcher, Truitt and a third man climbed Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams and Mount Rainier. They carried no bedding, lived on a diet of berries, canned wheat and gorp — good ol’ raisins and peanuts — and climbed four substantial peaks that constituted some 11 miles of climbing.

Except for the stretch from the base of Mount Hood to Spirit Lake near Mount Adams — they didn’t drive from one peak to the next. They hiked — 350 miles in all, including the trek from Paradise on Mount Rainier all the way to Bumping Lake to catch their ride back to Yakima.

Insane? Incomprehensible? Impossible?

Well, perhaps more than anything else, one thing about those two men lends their achievement its proper frame of reference:

They were Cascadians.

By 1926, the club had already been around for six years since the Yakima Morning Herald’s introductory headline — “Amateur Walkers Organize a Club” — that didn’t begin to do the Cascadians justice.

For 90 years the Cascadians have walked more miles to more out-of-the-way breathtaking spots than just about anybody else. They have made first ascents on precipitous peaks, skied into the backcountry when almost nobody else was, hiked trails rarely taken and, of course, built trails where there weren’t.

They have seen more wildflowers, enjoyed more mountain alpenglow, picked more huckleberries and morels, and in every way experienced the great outdoors to a far greater extent than the rest of us Valley-bound landlubbers combined.

The memories and tales will flow Wednesday night when past and present Cascadians celebrate their 90 years of collective existence with a “birthday bash” at the Living Care Retirement Community’s Meyer Auditorium.

Perhaps someone will bring up the renowned mountaineers that have populated the club over the years, from Louie Ulrich and Lex Maxwell to the Prater brothers, Gene and Bill, to Dave Mahre and Fred Stanley, men who literally and figuratively wrote the book on climbing in the Cascades.

Someone might wax rhapsodic about Chuck and Marion Hessey, crosscountry ski pioneers whose films of backcountry skiing in the 1950s and 1960s are still cult classics in that hardy world. Or perhaps they’ll recall Dorothy Egg, who made crosscountry skiing so accessible, by teaching Cascadians the sport she loved so they might teach others.

Or maybe somebody will recall how instrumental Don Havlin was in directing the Cascadians’ focus on trail building and maintenance, a labor of love championed in more recent years by Clar Pratt. Or maybe somebody will bring up the astounding native-plant expertise of Clarence Seely, who even had a rare mountain flower (Seely’s catchfly, or Silene seelyi) named after him.

Or, perhaps, the assemblage will focus instead on who hiked where last week and what they saw.

And that should take a while.

•   •   •   •

Though older and grayer around the temples, the Cascadians — numbering roughly 200 these days — are still filling the trails. And if you’re an outsider wondering whether hiking with the Cascadians is for you, here are the daily hikes:

Tuesday: You have two choices here — the “Tuesdays,” which is an experience for the limber of limb and the Olympic of cardiovascular capacity, and the Tuesday “Twos,” which is for the rest of us.

The Tuesdays’ popularity with a solid core of regulars is testament to the hardiness of the Cascadians, because those people go. A typical hike might be a 10- to 12-miler with 2,000 feet of elevation gain, with little tarrying along the way. Hikers who pause to snap a photo or admire a view are apt to find themselves 200 yards behind the rest of the group.

“The Tuesdays are too damn fast,” says Jim Barnhill of Yakima, one of the founders of the Tuesday Twos.

“You can’t change that Tuesday group — that’s the way they’re going to be,” adds Irene Hlousek of Zillah. “That’s why I steer new people away from there. People say, ‘I walk every day.’ Well, that’s not the same as hiking with elevation. Don’t even think about going out with (the Tuesdays) unless you know what you’re in for.”

The Twos go a pretty good distance — maybe eight to 10 miles — but you can take a picture or a water break and not have a lot of catching up to do. The other hikers will — gasp — wait for you.

Hlousek was a longtime regular with the Tuesdays who also switched to the Twos. “I was beginning to feel that I couldn’t keep up the (Tuesdays’) pace,” she says, “and there was no way I was going to give up hiking. And there were other people feeling the same way, so we figured why not have another group? We meet a half-hour later, don’t go as far or especially as fast. We have people who like to take pictures, and we enjoy the strolling along.”

Thursday: The “Pokies” typically have the largest group every week, with 20 to 25 people regularly showing up and as many as 50 Cascadians who hike with this Thursday group at least infrequently. Although there are the occasional younger Pokies, many are grandparents or great-grandparents. But don’t let that fool you: They can still hike.

“We do have a lot of (people in their) 70s and 80s who have been hiking a long time, and we’re still there,” says Jeanne Crawford, who has coordinated the Pokies’ hikes for many years. “We figure that’s why we’re still there — because we’re still out there.”

The Pokies might hike anywhere from two miles to seven or eight miles — last week’s trip to Union Creek Falls was about five miles — but they’ll take breaks for views, breathers and the camaraderie. Says Crawford, “It’s a companionship thing.”

Some Thursdays also feature a second hike that might be called the “Thursday alternates,” though it hasn’t quite taken hold. This one is sort of the reverse of the Tuesday Twos — it’s for people who want to go faster and perhaps further than the Pokies.

Saturday/Sunday: Some of the weekend hikes are as long and difficult as the Tuesdays, but because newcomers or prospective Cascadians are more apt to be on hand, the pace is typically a little less than breakneck. And more recently the club has begun hosting easier hikes — including one this Saturday at Naches Peak — intended primarily to introduce the club to potential new members.

Even for people who aren’t joiners, Cascadians are great to know because, well, they know things. They know where the wildflowers will be at their prettiest and where to see them, where the huckleberries will grow and when, when to break out the crosscountry skis and where the first good snow trails will be, how and why some winter trails are better for snowshoes, and where the views are good regardless of the time of year.

Cascadians do it all. They have a camera club that meets monthly to share their outdoor photographs or techniques. They host backpacking trips, climbs and treks of all kinds.

Not too shabby for a bunch of “amateur walkers.”

Cascadians would do well to pay experiences forward

Anybody who has ever seen Frank Capra’s Christmas classic,

“It’s a Wonderful Life,” remembers the film’s final-scene toast by Harry Bailey to his brother George, “the richest man in town.”

When it comes to the great outdoors, the Cascadians are George Bailey.

The members of this venerable club have hiked and skied to so many places, seen so much remarkable scenery, been so routinely close to what Mutual of Omaha used to call “the Wild Kingdom,” and enjoyed so much of this state’s wilderness that they are a collective vault of knowledge, understanding, experience and appreciation of the very things that make this part of the country so special.

So here’s my suggestion to the Cascadians: Pay it forward.

Pass that wealth on to future generations.

Specifically, to kids.

Honesty in advertising moment: It wasn’t my suggestion, initially. It came from my far better half, who comes up with a significant portion of “my” great ideas. Upon learning I was going to be going out with one of the Cascadians’ hiking groups last week, she asked why they didn’t offer hikes — nature walks, whatever you want to call them — specifically for families with kids.

And I thought, “Huh. Good question.”

Over the last decade, I’ve heard countless Cascadians lament the inexorable aging of club membership, resulting from a relative dearth of younger club members. It’s not that the club is closed to outsiders; their hikes are always open to non-members. But for years, few of those hikes have been very family-friendly, at least when that family includes kids.

Some years back, the club tried out something called “Kidcadians,” outings for kids with adult supervision, but it stayed largely in-house, consisting largely of kids and grandkids of Cascadian members. That wasn’t necessarily by design. It was just how things went.

Perhaps the Kidcadian events weren’t advertised enough; maybe the word didn’t quite get out. Or maybe non-club members just weren’t interested.

But they should be.

They need to be.

We are besieged by studies reminding us our younger generations are growing increasingly overweight. Maybe that’s the fault of the way we fund public education, with P.E. classes — once a staple in nearly every school — too often falling victim to budget cuts. Maybe it’s the byproduct of modern technology, which gives us ease and convenience and makes it easy for us to forget that, hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little sweat and effort. Or maybe the kids’ obesity comes from their parents, who think a trip to the mall constitutes an “outing.”

Either way, I think people who have as much to offer as the Cascadians have a great opportunity to reach out to those kids. Maybe even an obligation.

Roger Short, a Cascadian member who has been involved with the Boy Scouts of America for more than 60 years, thinks so. “Kids aren’t getting out there enough,” he says. “It would be nice to have a group like the Cascadians show them how to do it and do it well.”

An enterprising Cascadian named Claudia Christie has begun hosting a relatively easy monthly Saturday hike specifically to introduce newcomers to the club, and that’s a start. But parents with younger kids aren’t chomping at the bit to go along, probably because they think the hikes would be too tough for the kids.

So give them easier hikes.

Perhaps have a different Cascadian leader every time — one with an expertise in flowers one outing, maybe one who can talk about the different birds or animals the next. What’s the most popular hike in the county, year after year? The Cowiche Canyon Conservancy’s Earth Day hike, in which the leaders take their time to point out the rock formations, the birds, the plant life — and the kids, dozens of them every year, just eat it up.

But once a year on Earth Day isn’t enough.

It’s up to you, Cascadians. You have the means to get those kids away from their video games and the malls and get them into the great outdoors, even if it’s only for a little while here and there. Their parents or grandparents will have to come along, too, of course — hey, just think of all those potential new members. And think of the gift you’ll be giving to future generations.

You’re the richest people in town.

Share the wealth.

• Outdoors editor Scott Sandsberry can be reached at 509-577-7689 or ssandsberry@yakimaherald.com

8-24 What’s Happening

Thursday hearing set on white-tailed rules

If you want to have your say about whether the hugely popular white-tailed deer hunting in two northeastern Washington game manage-ment units (GMUs) should

be restricted to four points or better, Thursday’s your best chance.

The last of a series of public meetings put on around the state by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife will be at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Yakima Convention Center (Room A). It will follow a meeting tonight at the Colville campus of the Community College of Spokane and one Wednesday at the Center Place Regional Event Center in Spokane Valley.

Under current rules, any buck can be harvested during hunting season in GMUs 117 (49 Degrees North, Stevens and Pend Oreille counties) and 121 (Huckleberry, Huckleberry County). Those GMUs have been consistently productive units in terms of harvest, though WDFW wildlife managers hope to increase white-tailed population in northeast Washington.

Last spring, the Stevens County Fish and Wildlife Advisory Committee petitioned the state wildlife commission to restrict harvest of white-tailed bucks to four antler points or more. Last month, a majority of stakeholder groups around the state favored the four-point restriction over reducing the general season or limited-entry hunting.

A lot of hunters from this part of the state hunt white-tailed deer in northeast Washington. So: What would you like to see the state do?

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Wild turkey group to meet next Tuesday

Wild turkey hunting enthusiasts, save this date: Tuesday, Aug. 31.

Local members of the National Wild Turkey Federation are trying to work up some momentum towards creating a local Yakima-area chapter, which there hasn’t been for a few years.

Organizers have tentatively set next Tuesday evening as the date for an organizational meeting, with Idaho-based NWTF regional director Barnabas Koka and Washington state chapter president Kurt Beckley scheduled to attend.

The meeting site, though, has not been finalized. Look in this column next Tuesday or later this week in the Herald-Republic’s Out There blog for the specific time and location.

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BIRD ALERT

Wenas Lake continues to draw interesting birds and interested birders.

Last Tuesday a birder went to check on the juvenile black tern that’s been creating a stir there, but instead discovered an immature Bonaparte’s gull and an adult common tern — birds more easily seen along the Columbia River than in our area. Birders there also saw one long-billed dowitcher, several Wilson’s snipe, a dozen lesser sandpipers and three Baird’s sandpipers.

A group of birders visiting Fort Simcoe on Sunday found several black bears eating pears under the old pear trees at the fort. A ranger told the birders this is an annual event, with up to seven black bears in the park at one time this year.

High in one pear tree, four or five Lewis’s woodpeckers, 15 western tanagers, a few black-headed grosbeaks, and one Bullock’s oriole jabbed into ripe pears. Other interesting species included about 10 purple finches and a variety of migrants: western wood-pewee, dusky flycatcher, violet-green and barn swallows, warbling vireo, gray catbird, orange-crowned and Wilson’s warblers.

The fall migration of Vaux’s swifts has started; 62 were seen Sunday evening flying down the large chimney at the Herald-Republic office — where, in May, more than 500 were counted flying into the chimney several nights in a row. People will probably be in the parking lot on the west side of the Herald-Republic off every evening for the next couple of weeks, and they could use more folks to help count. It’s quite a spectacle.

Please call your bird sightings in to the Yakima Valley Audubon phone line at 509-248-1963.

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AROUND AND ABOUT

• Several areas on the Cle Elum Ranger District have recently opened for firewood collection, with piles available featuring a mix of Douglas fir, grand fir, ponderosa and lodgepole pine. Firewood areas are posted as such and are located along forest road 9712 (Lion Gulch), north of Liberty, and 9726121 (Pine and Harkness Gulch), south of Liberty;  9738 (Blue Creek), (9714112) Iron Creek and 7320111 (Old Blewett). Maps of these areas and cutting permits ($5 per cord, minimum purchase four cords) are available at the Cle Elum Ranger Station, 803 W. Second St., Cle Elum, and at the Ellensburg Chamber of Commerce.

• Lake Wenatchee will close for sockeye salmon fishing one hour after sunset Aug. 31, by which time most of the sockeye currently in the lake will have migrated to the White and Little Wenatchee rivers.

• The Washington State Department of Natural Resources is  temporarily closing some roads, a campground, and access  in two areas due to road work in Capitol State Forest, south of Olympia, and near Mount Si. In Capitol State Forest, Porter Creek Campground and the nearby B-Line Road will be closed into next year. Just east of Mount Si Natural Resources Conservation Area, the DNR and the U.S. Forest Service are working on abandoning some old logging roads, with one section of road to be converted to a trail. That closure began last Friday. For more information, go online to: washingtondnr.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/

• The WDFW will hold a roundtable meeting Sept. 8 in Brewster to discuss fish and wildlife issues with the public, with Director Phil Anderson and regional staff on hand. The 5:30-to-7:30 p.m. meeting will be at the Columbia Cove recreation building, 508 W. Cliff Ave.

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ON THE CALENDAR

TODAY: The Cascadians’ “Tuesdays” will head up to Ironstone Mountain north of Highway 12, meeting at 7:30 a.m. at the 40th Avenue Bi-Mart and carpooling from there for what will be a 10-mile hike with 1,700 feet of elevation gain.

WEDNESDAY: Yakima Valley Audubon will host a morning bird walk beginning at 9 a.m. at the first parking lot inside the gate at Yakima Sportsman State Park. The walk is the summer’s Birdin’ Around event of the Yakima Greenway’s Kiddin’ Around program, aimed at involving area kids in outdoor activities, and figures to be a two-hour search for answers: Will young blackbirds still be at the marsh? Will shorebirds find mud at the main pond? Will the fall migration of warblers be under way?

WEDNESDAY: The Mount Adams Cycling Club’s weekly 24-mile Naches Loop ride gets rolling at 6 p.m. from the Fred Meyer/Key Bank parking lot. For more online info on the club and its ride schedule, visit www.mountadamscycling.org.

THURSDAY: The Cascadians’ Pokies will finally make their oft-postponed trek of the Naches Peak Loop, with some hikers sticking to the four-mile Naches Peak Loop and more hardier sorts making the trip down to Dewey Lake and around. For meeting time and place, call Jeanne Crawford at 966-8608.

SATURDAY: The Cascadians will host two hikes on this day, an easier one at Naches Peak intended to introduce potential new hikers to the club and a gnarlier one to Grand Park for experienced hikers. The former, just over four miles with 500 feet of elevation gain, offers great wildflowers, a spectacular view of Mount Rainier and, at this time of year, probably some huckleberries to savor along the way.

For the meeting time and place on that hike, call Claudia at 509-388-9307. The Grand Park will be significantly tougher, a 14-miler with 2,000 feet of elevation gain. For meeting time and place, call Ed at 457-1533.

MONDAY: Members and guests of the Mount Adams Cycling Club will head out at 5:45 p.m. from YAC Fitness in Terrace Heights on a ride that will be either longer (30 miles) and flatter or shorter (23 miles) and hillier. Expect the pace to be in the 13- to 16-mph range.

Cowiche landscape burned, not burned out

COWICHE — It took years to secure and turn Snow Mountain Ranch into an 1,800-acre haven for hikers, mountain bikers and nature lovers. Reducing most of it to a charred moonscape only took days. Hours, even.

Last month’s human-caused Cowiche Mill Road Fire replaced sagebrush, native grasses and trail systems with blackened ash over roughly two-thirds of the ranch. But the blaze hasn’t darkened the optimism of those charged with maintaining its natural splendor.

“It kind of hurts your feelings as much as anything,” said Curtis Sundquist, board president of the nonprofit Cowiche Canyon Conservancy, which in 2005 purchased the property with $1.1 million in grant money and a lot of assistance from public and private partners. “It’ll take quite a few years for it to all recover. A lot of the sagebrush up there was pretty ancient.”

Fire officials believe the 6,200-acre fire began on Snow Mountain Ranch — just behind the kiosk near the main entrance, in fact — and two fire-protection agencies have combined to offer $10,000 for information leading to the arrest of whoever started it.

But although as much as 1,400 acres of Snow Mountain Ranch burned, the area’s creekside vegetation was left largely unscathed and natural post-wildfire regeneration has already begun.

“In many ways, this is good news,” said Betsy Bloomfield, Conservancy executive director. “On a very, very human scale, no one was killed or seriously injured. No major structures were lost. No major agri-cultural infrastructure was lost. What we got instead was a big wildlands burn.

“In our part of the world here in Eastern Washington, we would expect to see natural wildfire in these shrubsteppe ecosystems on an interval of between 30 and 70 years, and it had been about that long (since the last wildfire in the area).”

Wind pushed the fire south and east from its genesis behind the entry kiosk, leaving the kiosk itself untouched by flame. Signs directing hikers and bikers around Snow Mountain’s 9.2 miles of trails, much of that snaking up and over Cowiche Mountain, also survived the blaze.

“What’s amazing is we did not lose any trail signs,” said Conservancy board member David Hagen. “Sometimes it burned the post and that fell, but then the fire moved on and the sign survived. We lost some old-growth sagebrush — some taller than I am — and those won’t be back anytime soon. We’ve lost that. But the grasses and the wildflowers, they’ll all be back next year, maybe better than before.”

Thanks to Hagen, the Conservancy has access to a remarkable pre- and post-fire photographic record. A month before the fire, Hagen and Kristen Winter, a graduate student working in Central Washington University’s geographic information system (GIS) lab, had made a photographic tour of Sun Mountain Ranch, using GIS mapping technology to chronicle each location.

Their intent was to be able to upload the photographic data onto Google Earth, thereby allowing Internet users to take a virtual tour of the site. Now, it will also give the Conservancy and others a scientific tool to study wildlife fire and its ecological impacts.

“Now we have this perfect set of these photographs,” Bloomfield said. “We will set up a five-year, post-five monitoring survey, see how the landscape changes after fire, what birds come back, what animals come back, what plants come back, what doesn’t come back. So we’ll learn a lot from this — what kind of restoration techniques work, and how to plan for the future.”

The primary post-fire concerns are threefold, according to Bloomfield. The first is the potential for invasive weeds establishing a foothold in the most highly-disturbed areas. Then there are the wide fire breaks designed to contain the fire spread have inadvertently “created a potential superhighway for the off-road vehicles that can really damage areas.” And, finally, nearly three miles of Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife elk fence burned in the fire, opening up nearby fruit orchards to marauding elk.

Other public and private entities — the Audubon Society, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Bureau of Land Management, North Yakima Conservation District, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Audubon Society and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — have offered to help the Conservancy in the aftermath of the fire. Their participation might include mapping the extent and severity of the fire and reseeding highly-disturbed areas with natural bunch grasses.

There’s also the possibility of erosion, especially in the areas that burned the hottest, an event that could impact the gains made in the South Fork Cowiche Creek. Since the 2005 purchase, the Conservancy removed a dam and diversion channel built for irrigation purposes in hopes of restoring natural fish runs. Those hopes were realized last April when a WDFW survey found 10 steelhead egg nests (redds) and three adult steelhead in the creek bordering Snow Mountain Ranch.

“We weren’t sure if we would even have visibility to (see the redds and steelhead),” said WDFW fish biologist Eric Anderson, who oversaw the April survey. “We just happened to hit it just right. This was along about a mile-long reach that borders the ranch, so there’s likely more redds above that point and more redds below that point.

“The fact that the fire didn’t burn down into the riparian area is a great thing. Unless we have a huge snowmelt spring runoff this following year, I would think a lot of that area will grow back pretty quickly.”

That’s just one more reason for optimism among the people responsible for turning Snow Mountain Ranch into a destination for recreationists.

“I see a lot of good coming out of this,” Bloomfield said. “We have a wakeup call, and we’ll have a road map toward what we need to do (in the event of) future emergencies.”

Fire singes acreage, hunting fences

COWICHE — Master hunters are apt to be very busy this fall and winter and into next spring. The Cowiche Mill Road Fire saw to that.

In addition to charring 6,200 acres, including more than two-thirds of the Cowiche Canyon Conservancy’s Snow Mountain Ranch property, the fire also burned nearly three miles of elk fence along the Cowiche unit of the Oak Creek Wildlife Area.

Right now, that’s not a problem, because it’s the dry season and the elk are higher in the hills. But when the need for winter forage or the pressure from hunters move them into the area, which serves as elk winter range, the orchards once protected by that elk fence will now have to be protected by qualified members of the state’s Master Hunter program.

“We’re going to try to put them to work hazing and hunting those animals,” said Anthony Novack, a deer and elk conflict specialist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“There’s a good likelihood elk will get through. Some of the fence is burned but still standing, and it might fool them. But it’s a paper tiger — you could probably go up and push it over.”

Replacing the fence won’t be easy. Counting all of the associated surveying and cultural-resources assessments, elk fence construction costs roughly $100,000 per mile. Having the WDFW’s Eastern Washington construction shop in Yakima could lessen that cost because “roughly 80 percent of the cost is in labor,” said Ted Clausing, the department’s regional wildlife program manager.

And with state officials cutting budgetary excess at every turn, elk-fence issues aren’t likely to rank as a high priority.

“The last time we had an elk fence burn up (during the 2005 School Fire in the Blue Mountains), we actually had to live for several years with no fence at all,” said WDFW regional director Jeff Tayer. “That was during a lot, lot better budget climate than we’re in now, and it still took us several years to raise the money … to rebuild that right where it was.”

And in a best-case scenario, the WDFW might not want to rebuild the elk fence where it burned last month, but to extend it. The department is in discussions with landowners adjacent to the Oak Creek’s Cowiche unit over possibly extending the elk fence — should funding become available — across their private property, thereby increasing the elk’s winter range by about 1,500 acres.

That would also mean putting up not just three miles of elk fence, but closer to seven miles.

“If you get more winter range,” Clausing said, “you don’t have to feed as many.”

Department officials hope their winter elk-feeding stations west of the burned area will keep the animals from discovering the missing elk fence. “But if they get an extra dump of snow or get disturbed and start east,” Clausing added, “that’s when the problem will occur.”

And that’s when the master hunters will be getting the call.

“It’s not so bad if it’s a few elk,” Novack said. “But if it’s 100 elk in there, that can cause significant damage to an orchard. And even though (farmers) may not lose this year’s crop, the brousing (the elk) will do on those trees will negatively affect next year’s crop.”

Pheasant count likely to be low this season

Once again there is good news and bad news for bird hunters who will be hitting the fields of Central Washington during the next few months.

Based on some population survey work done by wildlife biologists of the Yakama Nation, it looks like hunters should find plenty of doves when the season opens in less than two weeks, but come October they are likely to find far fewer pheasants than in years past.

According to Tracy Hames, biologist for the Yakama Nation, the dove populations on the reservation are the fourth highest since surveys began in 1993. With plenty of grain fields and good nesting conditions, the doves are doing well in Central Washington. Only an unseasonable cold snap in late August could hurt the hunting prospects as the season opens Sept. 1.

The massive amounts of corn, wheat and other crops are good for doves but are also the probable cause of the downfall of the pheasant populations. For years, at least on Yakama Nation lands, there were thousands of acres of unfarmed lands, which provided adequate nesting, brood rearing and winter habitat for pheasants and other wildlife. But in the past two or three years, much of that land has been leased out and turned into crops.

With today’s incredibly efficient farming practices, there is very little habitat left on the edges for wildlife.

Hames had been hoping for good pheasant numbers on the annual brood count survey after seeing pretty good numbers of pheasants in his travels around the Lower Valley. But the just completed counts didn’t come out as he had hoped.

In fact, the count — roughly one pheasant per every eight miles — was the lowest ever since surveys began in 1993. The 1997 and 1999 levels were almost that low, but the birds bounced back somewhat in the early 2000s.

But real recovery isn’t likely, Hames said, unless habitat is restored.

“Landscape-scale habitat changes are reducing the numbers of these birds,” Hames explained. “The birds will not return with a couple of good production years. The birds will not return with a couple of low harvest years. They will only return if we restore the habitats they need.”

Local conservation groups, such as Pheasants Forever have helped by putting tens of thousands of dollars into habitat work in various parts of the lower Valley, working with both the Yakama Nation and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. And, to a certain extent, those efforts are paying off.

Where there is good habitat, Hames said, there has been good pheasant production this year. Some restored and managed wildlife areas have abundant pheasant broods this year.

So it is possible to help the birds. But more needs to be done.

Hames is asking landowners in the area to consider adding a little bit of wildlife habitat to their property.

“An important component of the quality of life in an agricultural area is the wildlife,” Hames said. “We will continue to lose the pheasants and other wildlife unless we all pitch in to bring back their habitat.”

He said he is available to assist any landowners on the reservation in the planning for restoration of wildlife habitat on their land. There are cost-effective, low-maintenance actions people can implement to help bring back the pheasants and other wildlife. These birds will not increase in number without more habitat restoration.

Hames can be reached at the Yakama Nation Wildlife offices (509-865-5121, ext. 6309) if anyone is interested in improving the wildlife habitat on their property.

In the meantime, local pheasant hunters may be in for one of the poorest years ever, which is a shame. The Yakima Valley used to be one of the best spots for pheasant hunting in the state. According to the latest survey numbers, that’s not the case any more.
• Rob Phillips is a freelance outdoor writer and partner in the advertising firm of Smith, Phillips & DiPietro. He can be reached at rwphillips@spdadvertising.com.

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