Chuckanut 50K

An amazing group of 300+ runners, including world class competitors, participated in the Chuckanut 50K yesterday on trails and roads within the Chuckanuts.

Please support Fairhaven Runners they are a sponsor of the Chuckanut 50K as well as a leading benefactor to the Chuckanut Conservancy.

More later but here are some of the images from yesterdays competition.

Please click on any image to enlarge.

All photographs are copyright Paul K Anderson 2011

Runners crossed Chuckanut Creek and began the switchbacks up to the Interurban Trail 

Early in the race runners were still clustered together but the steep trails quickly dispersed  the crowds.

Snow had fallen on the upper elevations allowing Michael Smith, the early race leader from Flagstaff, Arizona, to keep cool on the rugged elevation gains.

Eric Stagg on the right climbs Cleator Rd. with Colorado native Geoff Roes, on the left.
Geoff paced himself early in the race before passing Michael Smith at about the 22 mile mark

Tim Olson of Ashland, Oregon

The elite ladies weren't too far behind near the top of Cleator.

High tech fabrics, watches, hydration systems and tunes helped many of the runners.

Runners ate and drank on the run to keep fueled and hydrated.  Numerous check points and aide stations were positioned over the 30.6 mile course. 

Some were motivated by friends and family members.

Super Moon 2 over the Salish Sea

Super Moonset over Lummi Island by copyright Paul K Anderson 2011

One of the advantages of high places like the Chuckanuts is the ability to over look our home grounds. In this photo the "Super" moon sets over the Salish Sea and Lummi Island.  Clouds obstructed the moon within minutes after this image was captured a short while ago.

Super Moon over the Salish Sea

Photographed this morning shortly before moonset.
Copyright Paul K. Anderson 2011

Chuckanut 50K

One of the iconic events of the year that utilizes the wonderful trails and roads in the Chuckanut Range is the Chuckanut 50K.  The event starts at Fairhaven Park this Saturday morning and ends almost 4 hours later for the top runners.

If you get a chance please stop by the Chuckanuts and encourage these athletes on their quest.

Check out the website for the Chuckanut 50K.  Who knows maybe this will inspire you to participate in this excellent event in future years.

RACE START: 8AM Fairhaven Park near the north end of Chuckanut Drive.

click on image for a bit larger version.

And while in Fairhaven be sure to stop by one of the iconic businesses nearby - Fairhaven Runners - Steve Roguski and his staff are huge contributors to the Chuckanut Conservancy. They also sponsor many fine events like the Chuckanut 50K, local track teams and local runners! 

image from earlier this winter by Paul K Anderson

Logging, Coal Dust and the Progress of Man

Timber Harvest in the Chuckanut Range by Lee First

Lee First and all our friends over at RE Sources for Sustainable Communities and the North Sound Baykeeper's Team are great to work with, we all love the Pacific Northwest, the Salish Sea, the Cascades and our Home Ground of Whatcom and Skagit Counties!

Lee, a field investigator for North Sound Baykeepers shared this photograph from a recent hike in the Chuckanuts.

Although this timber harvest was on private land, high up on top (as revealed by the spectacular view of the San Juans) it is an indicator of the degradation that this beautiful area is being exposed to from the extractive resources industry.

Soon, the Chuckanuts, Chuckanut Bay, Samish and Bellingham Bays will be exposed to 25 million +  tons of coal passing through each year - for decades if action isn't soon taken. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad states on their own website that each coal car, on these 150 car trains, can lose as much as one ton of coal between the mines in Wyoming and Montana and Cherry Point, Washington.

Coal dust and particulates will be deposited along the tracks and in the surrounding landscape of the Skagit River Valley, the Chuckanuts, the oyster beds of Samish Bay, numerous salmon streams, Larrabee State Park, through Edgemore, Fairhaven, Boulevard Park, South Hill, Western Washington University, downtown Bellingham and the neighborhoods heading out to Cherry Point.

Families enjoying an event at Boulevard Park just yards from the BNSF tracks
copyright Paul Anderson 2011

The progress of man can better be measured by safe and healthy families, clean air, clean water and sustainable communities.

Please support the Chuckanut Conservancy.

Mr. Peabody's Coal Train and the Chuckanuts

Copyright Paul K. Anderson
A Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train passes thru Blanchard as it enters
the Chuckanuts.

As many as nine fully loaded coal trains a day will pass through the Chuckanuts and return after unloading according to a plan by SSA Marine to build a $500 million bulk loading shipping terminal at Cherry Point in northern Whatcom County.

Coal would be loaded on freighters bound for China.

Peabody Energy recently announced that it was prepared to export 24 million metric tons of coal per year via the new Gateway Pacific Terminal.

Bob Ferris, executive director of Re-Sources for Sustainable Communities was recently interviewed and quoted for an article in the Bellingham Herald.

ReSources for Sustainable Communities has additional information on their site.

Expect with the terrible earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear reactor disaster in Japan that there will be a huge marketing push for the continued use of coal - and development of this project.

Winter in and around the Chuckanut Range

Snow Geese turn into the northern breeze to land in a farmers field to feed before nightfall.
Copyright 2011 Paul K Anderson

Tundra Swans head out to the Salish Sea as dark storm clouds approach.
Copyright 2011 Paul K Anderson

Any time is a good time to visit the Chuckanut Range and lands surrounding, but if you are itching to get out and don't want to hike in the snowy, icy conditions drive down to the Samish Delta around Blanchard and Edison, head over towards Samish Island, and then drive over to the Skagit Flats and Fir Island area.

Late yesterday afternoon the raptors, Tundra Swans and Snow Geese were out in full force.

Take a circular route and end up having dinner at one of the fine establishments here and in Fairhaven area of Bellingham after finishing your trip on Chuckanut Drive.

A Bald Eagle is knocked off the carcass of a Snow Goose by a rival.
Copyright Paul K Anderson 2011

Coal Trains Could Alter Quality of Life In the Chuckanut Range

All photos Copyright Paul K Anderson 2011

Air quality in Bellingham recently has been rated as the best of any city its size in the United States. But an effort by the Wall Street firm of Goldman Sachs could alter that and dramatically affect our quality of life here in the 4th corner.

Our friends over at the North Sound Baykeeper Team sent out this update.

Please click on this link and those inside the Baykeeper link.

The Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks that would carry additional millions of metric tons of coal and pass directly through the cities of Mt. Vernon, Blanchard, along the complete length of the Chuckanut Range and above the oyster beds of Samish Bay, through Bellingham including the neighborhoods of Chuckanut Bay, Edgemore, South Hill, downtown, the waterfront, below the Lettered Streets and over to Cherry Point. The trains will be unloaded, then reloaded onto ships bound for coal fired power plants in China.

Coal dust will be bad. What effects will that have on our residents in the north county, on families, retirees and seniors living near Birch Bay and Semi-ah-moo, Blaine and Lynden?

Why as citizens of Whatcom County are we enabling the Chinese to continue to build and to pollute the atmosphere with their coal burning power plants?

They are taking jobs away from Americans and these will not be replaced by the inflated numbers mentioned by slick public relations handouts or printed so glowingly in the Bellingham Herald.

Dirty jobs.  Dirty industry. Why here in this beautiful location of the country? We do not want to become known as the Houston or Galveston of the Northwest.  Tourists do not flock there for the beauty of the land.

We spend millions as taxpayers investing in Salmon recovery.  This could have an effect on the herring spawning grounds near Cherry Point.

This is not for the defense of our country, it is not to prevent power shortages at home. It is to create profit to be removed from here, for a Wall Street firm and for Warren Buffett.

We are better off spending our money on attracting clean, high tech industry.

And the promoters have the audacity to tell us that we as taxpayers will have to help subsidize improvements for the benefit of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and the shipping terminal.

How soon will companies who settled in Bellingham and Whatcom County (specifically for this quality of life) announce that they are looking elsewhere and taking hundreds of jobs with them?

Will the BNSF and the shipping terminal company subsidize the citizens of Whatcom County for declines in salmon, the decline of water and air quality, loss of jobs from companies leaving the area, lowering of property values, for the increased health problems?

No - of course no;  after being handed subsidies, they will ask the taxpayers to lower their taxes and fees in the future.

It is not in our best interest to sell off our future for quick profits for companies that have no relationship with this area, so the Chinese can create more jobs at the expense of the American middle class.

Thanks to Matt Krogh and our friends over at the North Sound Baykeepers for this information.

Where the Cascades Meet the Sea

North Washington State Parks Ranger Amber Forest left the gates open for almost 70 of us as we joined local marine biologist Doug Stark and Beach Naturalist volunteers at Larrabee State Park for a night time tide pool viewing during a winter minus tide. Thanks to ReSources for Sustainable Communities and the North Sound Baykeepers.

The value of the Chuckanut Range goes far beyond the "extraction of natural resources"and developments that can and will happen in the future.  It is a classroom for young and old alike. The value of the Chuckanut Range for education, recreation, clean water and air and as a corridor for wildlife will enhance our lives as more and more people live in the Salish Sea watershed.

It is estimated that the 7 million people currently living in the Salish Sea watershed has the potential to nearly double in the next 35-50 years.

This close to the metropolitan areas of Vancouver, British Columbia and Seattle, Washington the Chuckanuts have a much more important role that needs to be defined for the future.

It is open space.

Please click on any photograph to enlarge it.
All photos copyright Paul K. Anderson 2011

Beach Naturalist Volunteers and Staff from ReSources for Sustainable Communities
and North Sound Baykeepers meet prior to the night time beach walk. 

The Vancouver BC to Seattle Amtrak train passes nearby as 70 of us
viewed life on the edge of the Salish Sea.

Moms & Dads, Grandparents, kids, exchange students, couples, friends
all got into the spirit and mystery of the evening - even with the rain.

A new member of our community, recently from Montana,
gets his feet wet in salt water where the Cascades meet the Salish Sea.

The glow of lights of Victoria BC reflect off of the low clouds as a
ReSource trained beach naturalist views a sea star.

Exchange students at Western Washington University listen as a Beach Naturalist
describes the feeding habits of the sea star

"whoa, that was kinda prickly and that gooey stuff that makes it stick to rocks is  -
sticky!"

With great enthusiasm marine biologist Doug Stark kept students -young and old - under his spell as he described
life on the edges of the Salish Sea.

Please support:

ReSources for Sustainable Communties

North Sound Baykeepers

The Chuckanut Conservancy

Ringnecked Pheasant

All photos copyright by Paul K Anderson 2011

The sun and moon were aligning and we were having a "King Tide" here in the 4th Corner.  Tides up to three feet higher than the traditional high tides were arriving and possibly causing damage that we might find in the future as the climate warms.  This morning fortunately was calm and beaches remained intact, dikes weren't scoured away by the tides.  I didn't photograph any damage thankfully but I did find and follow 15 or so Ringneck Pheasants as they fed in early morning light along the banks of the Samish River.

Ringnecked Pheasants are iconic birds for me. Growing up in the mid-west these were the birds of choice for "sportsmen" and I remember how proud I was when my Mom and Grandmother served the family roast pheasant that Sunday evening after I had brought home my first trophy.

Mom had a hat made from the feathers - as it was very stylish for women to wear their best pheasant feather hat at church.  I could tell which of my 10 year old buddies had had a good hunt the previous year when their Mom showed up with a new pheasant hat.

Those hats were a distraction for all the young hunters sitting in church.  I would gaze at those hats and daydream away whole sermons thinking about the next time Dad was going to take my brother and I and a couple of friends out into the cornfields of eastern Iowa. The preacher may have been talking about loaves and fishes but I was sitting there salivating over the potential for roasted pheasant thigh and mashed potatoes smothered with rich brown country gravy.

Those were happy times and that led me to thinking about the role nature plays in our own happiness. I don't know how to describe that in such a short missive but I know we are fortunate to have places like the Chuckanut Range and the surrounding valleys, farmland, deltas, and waters so close to all of us.

I leave you with this short paragraph from Kathleen Dean Moore's latest book of essays titled:


Wild Comfort - The Solace of Nature.

"The earth offers gift after gift - life and the living of it, light and the return of it, the growing things, the roaring things, fire and nightmares, falling water and the wisdom of friends, forgiveness. My god, the gift of forgiveness, time and the scouring tides. How does one accept gifts as great as these and hold them in the mind?"

Beauty Surrounds Us in the Chuckanut's and Samish Delta

photographed early Saturday morning 1-15-2011

Great Blue Heron

Adult male Northern Harrier

As I Walk with Beauty As I walk, as I walk The universe is walking with me In beauty it walks before me In beauty it walks behind me In beauty it walks below me In beauty it walks above me Beauty is on every side As I walk, I walk with Beauty. Traditional Navajo Prayer

Boys Will Be Boys - Fields Below the Chuckanuts

copyright Paul K Anderson

Mt.Baker Rising Above the Chuckanut's to Cascades Corridor

Snow fell overnight in Bellingham in a peculiar pattern. Just north of Bakerview Road there was little if any.  On my deck I measured a bit over 5 inches.  I decided it was perfect weather for a drive through the Chuckanuts.

To be honest I was envisioning a photograph with an eagle or hawk perched on a post or telephone pole or perhaps the stoic heron with some fresh snow landing on their feathers as I captured the image.  Alas, not to be.  This close to the Salish Sea it was warm enough to have been mostly rain with just a smattering of snow.

Many don't like to go out and photograph in inclement weather, it's either too dark or too gray, too wet.........

But some of the best photographs can be captured on the cusp of weather, coming in or leaving.

Down here on the Samish Delta just southeast of Edison this morning it was dark, gray, drizzly, snowing and for a brief moment partially clear. Cold, clear, northern air pushed the clouds south just enough to briefly reveal Baker in beautiful early morning light. I didn't have time to set up the tripod and use a longer lens so I hand held and cropped this image to draw in Baker as it poked its summit over the Chuckanut's to Cascades Corridor near Blanchard Mt.

copyright 2011 by Paul K. Anderson

Enjoy, and get out and visit the Chuckanuts,  and the small burgs and businesses surrounding it!

A Beautiful Frosty Morning Below the Chuckanuts

Annual Christmas bird counts were happening on this cold frosty morning.  I decided to get up and watch the sunrise over the Cascades warming up the Samish delta below Blanchard Mountain yesterday.  The birds put on quite a showing near the small town of Edison.

All photos copyright Paul K. Anderson 2011

Happy New Year's Everyone!

Enjoy the Chuckanuts and the surrounding landscape.

Fog slips in off of the Salish Sea

Copyright 2010 by Paul K. Anderson

Stormy Dusk Over Padilla Bay - A Delicate Balance Between Industry and a National Estuary

©Paul K. Anderson

Early Evening Lights

Lights from Samish Island, City of Anacortes and across the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the Olympic Peninsula are seen from the Chuckanut Range as a mid December storms clears.

Clearing December Storm ©Paul K. Anderson

Heavy Rains and the Streams Run High

Oyster Creek in December ©Paul K. Anderson 12-14-2010

Just a few short weeks ago the creeks and streams flowing out of the Chuckanut Range were flowing at very low levels.  Fall rains raised the water levels and Chum Salmon swam upstream and gave it their all for the next generation. Recent cold and snow caused water levels to fluctuate down, up, and down - then the Pineapple Express roared in.

Chuckanut, Oyster and Colony Creeks are at high levels and have been observed carrying a significant level of sediment based on observations of water color.

Compared to Sunday, Oyster Creek has cleared up significantly by Tuesday.