Fire’s scars can’t hide wonders of wilderness

SALEM, Ore. – The trail was hot and dusty, the shade eliminated and the thick stands of lodgepole pine and mountain hemlock in large part obliterated by forest fires in 2003. “Then you round a little bend, and Three Fingered Jack is right there and everything is perfect,” said Hilary White, her face reflecting her amazement. “Nothing could be more perfect.”
There are diamonds, but also a lot of lumps of coal, in the Mount Jefferson Wilderness in the Cascades 80 miles east of Salem.
“The Mount Jeff has changed a lot, a third of it having burned three summers ago,” said Bill Sullivan, a Salem native who made major revisions in one of his most popular hiking books this year after assessing the fire damage.
“A huge area burned, and you worry about some of your favorite places,” he said. “The fire has turned a lot of it quite hellish, but there’s an angel watching over some corners, and you can still find these places.”
Sullivan has reduced several hikes to mere listings in the back of “100 Hikes in the Central Oregon Cascades,” while moving others up to positions of prominence as a result of the fire.
He began his post-fire reconnaissance by cross-country skiing into the wilderness in the winter of 2003-04 and since has hiked all the trails.
“Hiking in on the Pacific Crest Trail from Santiam Pass, it’s a moonscape, a hike I’ve decided to give a rest,” Sullivan said. “But a lot of hikes on the east side of the wilderness start out in trees that have been hammered, then you get to places like Carl Lake and it’s as pretty as ever. You can hike to Table Lake, where you’ve left the crowds behind, and you’re deep in the Mount Jefferson Wilderness, still with creeks and meadows and monkey flower. There still are places like this. It just takes a little looking.”
The fires induce a proliferation of wildflowers in some areas.
“I’ve never seen the penstemon like this, so thick,” said Bob Frenkel, a retired Oregon State University professor of plant ecology. “Look at that beargrass. It’s wonderful.”
Frenkel was in heaven as he walked along with a group of backpackers, identifying Mariposa lily, cats ears, Washington lily, scarlet gilia and queen cup bead lily.
The fire has induced extra vigor in many of the plants.
“Smell that lupine? I’ve never smelled lupine like that,” hike leader Doris deLespinasse said. “And those larkspur, boy, are they a deep purple.”
Then came that marvelous moment when the waves of shooting stars, columbine, red Indian paintbrush, lupine and larkspur spread wide under the backdrop of the east face of 7,841-foot Three Fingered Jack.
“Wow, it’s almost like a dream. It doesn’t look real,” White said.
The group hiked through the meadow, at 5,500 feet elevation, and up to the rim of a cirque lake at the base of a small glacier at the 6,100-foot mark on Three Fingered Jack.
O’Brien looked to the north, Mount Jefferson presiding over the singed forest, and said, “Look at that destruction, for as far as the eye can see. I had no idea it was so immense.”
After a scramble down to the meadow, the perfume of lupine thick in the air, deLespinasse observed, “You’d never know there’s even been a fire when you’re here. I felt so bad during the fire. I had expected this all to be fried.”
It’s an area that concerned Sullivan, too.
“Canyon Creek Meadows is one I was most worried about because it was in the heart of the burn, yet it’s one of the most beautiful places on Earth,” he said. “As it turns out – you can see it on the maps in my book – Canyon Creek Meadows is surrounded by cliffs, and they acted as a natural firebreak and left a hole in the middle of the fire. The meadows are a doughnut hole that was not burned.”
The hike to Duffy Lake is another that was minimally impacted.
Other lakes, such as Berley Lakes, have vegetation left only next to the water.
“The difference at Berley Lakes is that the entire 4-mile trail was hammered. I mean, one tree in 100 (was) left alive, if that,” Sullivan said. “There’s nothing that’s much fun anywhere around Santiam Pass. You don’t want to try to go to Square Lake. There’s nothing left.”
The thing that Sullivan emphasizes is that this is nothing new.
“This is perfectly normal in a 200-year cycle, but it’s shocking to us because we don’t live in a 200-year cycle,” he said. “For 20 years, it’s going to look kind of bleak. It won’t be like you remember as a kid, going into a lot of these places.”
Janet Throop, a Sierra Club hiker, said the fire definitely makes the hike interesting.
“It’s part of the natural cycle, not that I’m encouraging fires,” she said. “But the meadows are just gorgeous, the flowers are outstanding, and I certainly want to come back again.”