Active Rescue Operation on Mount Ellinor

THREE HIKERS INJURED ON MOUNT ELLINOR
By Dedrick Allan 02/06/2008
http://www.masoncountydailynews.com/News/NewsArticle/tabid/1897/selectmoduleid/3468/ArticleID/108/reftab/1632/Default.aspx

This article lists the names.

Over the weekend, three injured hikers were rescued from Mount Ellinor in the Olympic National Forest - two of them by helicopter in the middle of the night. A female hiker with an injured ankle was rescued by a ground crew Saturday afternoon.

That person, identified as Karla D. Piecuh, 51 of Suquamish, was transported to Mason General Hospital. In a separate incident in the same area, known as the "Shoot", a man and a woman were injured later in the afternoon when they apparently were hit by a block of ice as they were descending the mountain, about 15 miles west of Hoodsport.

After rescuers reached them, a helicopter was called in from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. Using night vision equipment, the helicopter crew located the climbers about 2:30 a.m. Sunday and lifted them off the mountain. They were flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with head and neck injuries.

Those hikers have been identified as Yi-Bing Wu and Lisa Song, both 39 and both from Kirkland. The rescue crews were from Mason County Fire Protection Districts, #4, #6, and #18, and the Mason County Sheriff's Office along with elements of Olympic Mountain Rescue and Tacoma Mountain Rescue.

Mount Ellinor is 5,944 feet tall, and still has snow-covered areas. (Updated 10:08 AM 6/2)



A hiker or hikers got hurt on the chute and Olympic Mountain Rescue is with them. Search Base is set up at the lower trailhead. An airlift is planned for 6:30 am.

Someday the new Mason County SAR unit will be trained and will be able to respond faster then OMR which is located in Kitsap County.

(I never blamed SAR units. I simply said that a unit that is 30 miles closer to the mountain can respond faster. I am a member of SAR. If the politics are going to be this heavy I want nothing to do with SAR. I hate politics and I'm sensing a load politics related to SAR.)

Video Here

Three injured climbers rescued from Mount Ellinor

01:54 PM PDT on Sunday, June 1, 2008

KING Staff


SEATTLE - Three hikers were injured Saturday when they were hit by huge piece of ice in Olympic National Park.

Authorities say the accident happened at about 2:30 p.m., in the area of an avalanche chute, nearly 5,500 feet up Mount Ellinor.

Rescuers spent a good portion of the night reaching the two women and one man. One reportedly had an ankle injury and the other two had head and neck injuries.

A Firewood 3 H60 Nighthawk from Naval Station Whidbey flew them off the mountain to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle early Sunday morning.

There was no immediate word on their conditions.

Mount Ellinor is about 15 miles west of Hoodsport.


3 hikers injured on Mount Ellinor in Olympic forest
Seattle Times - United States
Three injured hikers were rescued from Mount Ellinor in the Olympic
National Forest - two of them by helicopter in the middle of the night
See all stories on this topic:
Story

3 hikers injured on Mount Ellinor in Olympic forest
(AP) -- Three injured hikers were rescued from Mount Ellinor in the
Olympic National Forest - two of them by helicopter in the middle of
the night. A female hiker with an injured ankle was rescued by a ground
crew Saturday afternoon. ...
Story
Columbian.com State News Feed


3 hikers injured on Mount Ellinor in Olympic forest
Associated Press - June 2, 2008 12:35 AM ET HOODSPORT, Wash. (AP) -
Three injured hikers were rescued from Mount Ellinor in the Olympic
National Forest - 2 of them by helicopter in the middle...
Story


3 hikers injured on Mount Ellinor in WA
Three hikers have been rescued from Mount Ellinor in the Olympic
National Forest after they were injured.
Story

3 hikers injured on Mount Ellinor in WA
Three hikers have been rescued from Mount Ellinor in the Olympic
National Forest after they were injured. Mount Ellinor is about 15
miles west of Hoodsport.
Story


Two More Mountains and more skills
By Love(Love)
Today our group went over to the Olympic Penninsula to hike Mt.
Ellinor. The mountain is beautiful and I definitely want to go back and
check it out again. While this was only about a 3 mile hike, it was
good for elevation gain (right ...
Story


Two injured hikers rescued from Mount Ellinor | Local News | KING5 ...
Local news from Seattle, Washington including breaking stories and top news
coverage on KING5.com.
Story
Local News | 2 hikers injured on Mount Ellinor in WA | Seattle ...
Authorities say the accident happened at about 5 p.m. on Saturday, in the
area of an avalanche chute, nearly 5500 feet up Mount Ellinor. ...
Story

Three injured climbers rescued from Mount Ellinor - Seattle- msnbc.com
In a span of about 12 hours, three hikers had to be rescued from Mount
Ellinor, two by Navy helicopter in the dead of the night.
Story

Stomata

I stand upon a hill so green
And spy upon a leaf
Its occupied with chlorophyll, beyond the mind’s belief
Microcasms everywhere
Stomatal holes of hell
Expiring vapor
For the carbon they inhale

How does the object relate to the space around it?

That is a question I have to answer for a 3D object and I really don't know what the question means! The object is the giant dog here The paper is due on Friday.

SDS holds sit in outside Art Contatino's Office

Students for a Democratic Society in Olympia has begun a sit-in to demand reinstatement. Members of Olympia Students for a Democratic Society occupied the hallway outside the office of Vice President of Student Affairs Arthur Costantino ion Wednesday. A member of the group, says 50 to 60 students are rotating through, usually 20 to 30 at a time. The group was suspended after being unfairly discriminated against when the college cancelled a previously approved panel discussion at the last minute. Evergreen declared a moratorium on concerts following a disturbance at a hip hop congress sponsored concert in which four Thurston County sheriff's patrol cars were vandalized. But other groups were allowed to have concerts during the ban, only the SDS discussion panel was disallowed.

Thieves cut down old maples for rare wood

Thieves cut down old maples for rare wood


I'm too ill to hike this month it seems.

A bear sighting has closed Callanan Park

BEAR SIGHTING CLOSES CALLANAN PARK
A bear sighting has closed Callanan Park today and all little league games scheduled at the Park have been canceled today. According to Mark Ziegler, Supervisor of Shelton Parks, a bear was spotted in the Park late Saturday night rummaging through a garbage can. The State Department of Fish and Wildlife has placed a trap in the Park and hopes to have be bear out of the area as soon as possible. But until officials can capture or confirm that the bear has left the area, Callanan Park will remain closed as a precaution. (Posted 9:30 AM 5/19)

I'm too ill to hike again.  My 4  year old brings home every cold an flu bug in the region.  I expect to be ill off and on until school gets out. Then I will make my escape to the mountains.

Crash on the 23 line

FOUR TEENS INJURED IN CRASH IN SKOKOMISH VALLEY

Four Shelton teenagers were injured in a crash on the 2300 (The road to the South Fork Skokomish trails) Line Road off Skokomish Valley Road just after midnight Saturday. The State Patrol reports that a 1989 Mercury four-door was southbound on 2300 Line when it left the roadway to the right, struck a tree, rolled over, struck a stump, and came to rest on the driver’s side off the roadway. A passenger in the car, 18-year-old Camille Coleman, was flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with back and internal injuries. The rest in the car were treated at the scene. The driver, 18-year-old Melissa A. Wood, had bruised collar bone. 19-year-old Terry A. Barnhardt had head and shoulder injuries. And 18-year-old Tasha Hillstrom had elbow, shoulder and neck injures. The Trooper report says the cause of this crash was inattention and Wood was cited for Negligent Driving Second Degree. (Posted 7:5 AM 5/18)

How fast is the snow melting?

Check out the stream flow levels
that should give some idea.   It looks like it is melting really fast.  Lily asked me about snow on Ellinor and I answered her comment with a comment on the Ellinor overlook page in this blog.   

How to Remove Moss from Maple Trees

Hoh Rain Forest

I see that people have been coming to this site for advice on  removing moss from maple trees. Please don't remove moss from maple trees. That moss supports many animals and it is good for the trees.  Lichens are often confused for moss and they can pull nitrogen right out of the air. Nitrogen is a very important nutrient for all plant life including your maple trees. Most plants can not pull nitrogen out of the air and they have to get it second hand from lichens and plant such at  Alder Trees. In scientific terms nitrogen is the single largest limiting factor for tree growth in our forests.  When you remove that moss and lichen mat you are actually harming your tree!

From The Daily Astorian

"There’s a large amount of biodiversity up there, with 80 different species of moss found on big leaf maple trees alone. Scientists can look at the reproductive biology of plants, how they pollinate and disperse seeds. They can observe the adaptations animals have evolved, like the skin flaps on gliding lizards or flying squirrels.

There are plants in the top branches of trees that create their own communities, living, dying and decaying in tree branches, and creating an arboreal soil high above the ground that becomes home to earthworms, beetles and bugs."

Finally an old growth forest is far more then just big trees; the amount of moss is also one of the factors that determines what is really old growth.

I admit a bias towards mosses because mushrooms and moss go together! Surface moss holds in soil moisture and provides an ideal habitat for mushrooms.


Importance of Mosses, Lichens, and Liverworts to ONP

Coastal areas from Alaska to northern California, including Olympic National Park (ONP), are home to unique forests often referred to as "temperate rain forests". High annual precipitation and mild winter temperatures in these areas result in immense trees and a lush non-vascular flora. The aesthetic experience of visitors to ONP is strongly influenced by the communities of mosses, lichens and liverworts that drape its tree branches and carpet the ground. These organisms, also called 'non-vascular cryptogams' in reference to their simple structure and small size, contribute significantly to the unique character of the park.


Non-vascular cryptogams have important ecological roles in addition to comprising a significant portion of forest biomass. They influence availability of water by intercepting rainfall and fog, reduce the effects of torrential rain, prolong water input after precipitation has stopped, and maintain high humidity which aids growth of other forest vegetation. They provide shelter and nesting materials for animals and birds, and winter forage for deer and small mammals. Non-vascular cryptogams also have a role in nutrient cycling. Most of their nutrients come from the atmosphere and are subsequently added to the rest of the system either through leaching by rainwater or during decomposition after falling from trees as litter. In some systems the nutrient contribution from non-vascular plant litter fall is comparable to that from all vascular plant litter. A significant source of nitrogen in Olympic forest is litter fall of the nitrogen fixing lichen Lobaria oregana.

Lichens, mosses and liverworts also have great potential as indicators for long-term ecological monitoring. They have no protective cuticle so they cannot regulate gain and loss of water. Daily drying and wetting cycles concentrate chemicals and pollutants dissolved in rain, fog, or dust in their tissues. These may include sulfur, nitrogen, metals, radioactivity, and pesticides. Hence, tissues of these organisms have been sampled for decades as indicators of air pollution. If pollution is high enough, the lichens and mosses themselves may disappear. Measurements showing changes in abundance then become important assessment tools for pollution damage. Similarly, some ground dwelling cryptogams are good indicators of soil conditions because they indiscriminately absorb chemicals dissolved in the soil solution.


Consequently, ONP is concerned about the conservation of mosses, lichens and liverworts for many reasons. They are obviously an important aesthetic and functional part of park ecosystems, they are susceptible to changes in air quality, precipitation chemistry and climate, and some species are extremely rare. They are also of management concern because they are illegally harvested from the park in increasing amounts for sale to the floral industry.

Potlatch State Park: a real disapointment

Potlatch State Park a real disappointment




Last Week




This Week

As part of my art class I was required to find a spot in nature to do my practice drawings each week. I picked Potlatch State Park because it is close to home and there are some large Douglas-firs down by the water.

Last week I wandered into the campground and drew an old moss covered Maple tree. The tree had been savagely pruned over the years so it had a funny shape to it. Today after my Mother's Day breakfast my family went to Potlatch to hang out and I headed back into the campground to do some drawing. What I saw today horrified angered and saddened me. Sometime this week the Park butchered the old maple tree. They cut it off about 15 feet above ground; they also cut down a smaller nearby maple tree.

I am so disgusted by this act of vandalism. I'm sure the park has rationalized this destruction by claiming the tree was rotten and might fall on someone. The tree was not rotten and I bet most of it is sitting in a firewood pile right now. The park sells bundles of camp-fire wood. Have you ever wondered where some state parks get all that wood to sell?


The tree had a large burl on it and that burl is now sitting in the campground host's site. Maybe someone thought they could make a burl table out of it? Was the tree murdered for its burl or to make room for a new road or for firewood? Do they need to make a new road going to the walk-in campsites? At the rate Potlatch State Park is going there will soon be no trees left. This is not the first time I have seen them needlessly cutting trees.

The park gets uglier every year. They might as well close the park down and re-install the waterfront sawmill.

Good news for trees

U.S. judge stops logging project in Olympic National Forest

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TACOMA, Wash. -- A federal judge has blocked a plan to log 2,200 acres in Olympic National Forest.

U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton says the National Forest Service approved the Bear Creek Saddle logging operation under changes the Bush administration made to the Northwest Forest Plan in 2004. Those changes, which weakened environmental protections, have been struck down as illegal.

Leighton sent the matter back to the Forest Service to conduct a new environmental assessment of the logging's impact.

CALL OUT FOR SUPPORT OF OLYMPIA SDS AND FREE SPEECH

To: nwsds@lists.riseup.net
Subject: Support Olympia SDS and FREE SPEECH - May 21
From: maslauskas@riseup.net
Date: Tue, 13 May 2008 00:04:59 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: northeastsds@lists.riseup.net, midwestsds@lists.riseup.net, southwestsds@lists.riseup.net, southernsds@lists.riseup.net


CALL OUT FOR SUPPORT OF OLYMPIA SDS AND FREE SPEECH

On Wednesday, May 21st the Olympia chapter of Students for a Democratic
Society will hold a rally for free speech leading up to our last and final
appeal with The Evergreen State College administration regarding our
student group's suspension. The rally will start at 3pm in Red Square at
Evergreen. All community members are welcome to attend this. Now is the
perfect time that our comrades, allies and supporters from Olympia,
Cascadia, the US of A and beyond put pressure on the Evergreen
administration to reinstate SDS as a student group, with full funding,
complete rights and no strings attached.

Here's who you can put pressure on. You can make the demands listed above,
and feel free to add in any more information (see below) you want. Wendy
Freeman will be presiding over our appeal on May 21st, but Art Costantino
and Les Purce both have been putting a lot of pressure on SDS.

Wendy Freeman
Director of the Career Development Center
360.867.6187
freemanw@evergreen.edu

Art Costantino
Vice President of Student Affairs
360.867.6296
costanta@evergreen.edu

Les Purce
President
360.867.6100
purcel@evergreen.edu

WHAT HAPPENED TO SDS?

Olympia Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was suspended by The
Evergreen State College administration as a student group. We can no
longer access our budget, have meetings, book events, or do many other
functions that regular student groups do. SDS was originally suspended
from until January 1, 2009 and will then face probation until March 13,
2009. After an appeal was held, our suspension was shortened and our
probation will go until January 1, 2009.

WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?

Olympia SDS planned a series of events for Friday March 7th. The first
event was a panel discussion on the San Francisco 8 to discuss issues of
torture, police and government repression, COINTELPRO, the Black Panther
Party and political prisoners. The second event was a folk show with
musical artists David Rovics, Danny Kelly and Mark Eckert to raise
awareness about anti-war activist Carlos Arredondo whose twenty-year-old
son Marine Lance Corporal Alexander Arredondo was killed in Iraq.

Just two days before the events were to take place, the administration
decided to cancel both events, using the "moratorium on concerts" to
cancel both the folk show and the panel discussion.

The so-called "moratorium on concerts" was created by the administration
following a Valentine's Day dead prez show on campus that led to an
uprising of concert goers after a black man named Kaylen Williams was
arrested by a white cop. Concert goers peacefully demanded he be let go.
He eventually was, but police from several other local agencies came in
and, without any warning, started clubbing and pepper-spraying people.
Countless people were injured and one member of SDS was hospitalized that
night for internal bleeding. The crowd responded to the violence and
racism of the police by throwing bottles, rocks, garbage and other
objects. The cops retreated, leaving a cruiser behind which was then
flipped and some of its contents taken. Nine people have been charged with
various felonies and misdemeanors since the uprising, and the
administration and police continue to hunt the student population for more
"rioters". Art Costantino has gone so far as to encourage the police to
investigate the Hip Hop Congress, SDS and prominent port protesters in
their hunt and students' records have been given to the sheriffs.

When word went out that the SDS events would be canceled, members of SDS
consulted with the musicians, panelists, and community members who helped
organize the event and decided to go through with it on the two conditions
that there would be no further advertising for the event and that in case
police came to the event to shut it down, that SDSers would deescalate the
situation. In addition, members of SDS and many other students not in the
group approached administrators Phyllis Lane, Art Costantino and Les Purce
to try and go through with these events. But all three administrators did
not listen.

Because SDS went through with these two events (which are protected by the
First Amendment and free speech rights), the administration decided to
suspend SDS's group status. We in SDS also believe this suspension came
about for our group's official condemnation of the racist, violent police.
SDS has also worked in various ways to support those who have been used as
scapegoats by the administration following the uprising.

WHAT IS OLYMPIA SDS, ANYWAY?

Some people may be unsure about Olympia SDS and what it is exactly. The
mission statement of the group states that Olympia SDS is a
non-hierarchical radical anti-authoritarian student organization dedicated
to promoting radical political and social change through action/praxis
rather than rhetoric in a movement working to build an educated world that
is democratic and free of all forms of exploitation and oppression.

Olympia SDS formed in May 2006 and has been organizing around issues of
campus democratization, poverty and homelessness, the prison industrial
complex, political prisoners, the war and occupation of Iraq, port
militarization resistance efforts, labor struggles, immigration and many
other issues. Some of its most recent projects have been centered on
creating a Free Student Union, establishing a free health clinic,
supporting the San Francisco 8 and working to make Olympia a Sanctuary
City for undocumented workers and GI war resisters. Olympia SDS is part of
a network of over 250 SDS chapters with 1,000s of members. SDS takes its
name from the 1960s-70s SDS which was rooted in ideas of participatory
democracy, student syndicalism (unionism) and was active in the civil
rights and anti-war movements at that time.

If you have any questions, feel free to email olympiasds@riseup.net. Also,
if you would like to make donations for the legal defense of Kaylen
Williams and/or others who were arrested following the uprising, email us
as well.
This message was not written by Olympia SDS as a group, but by one SDSer.



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Mushroom Drawing

Wooly Chanterelle (click to enlarge)



Same but revised a bit. Both have been digitally enhanced.




My art class is going well, I am learning how to draw and how to make books. My drawing gets better everyweek. I have a good proffesor again this quarter, if she can teach me how to draw she can teach anyone. I could barely draw a stick person before I took this class.

South Fork Skokomish and really, really stuck in the snow

What a day this turned out to be! I woke up grumpy but my husband woke up even grumpier and I was glad to get out of the house. I was also excited because the wild life gates opened two days ago and now I could hike three trails that had been closed off to me all winter.

By 10 AM I was almost to the trail head and I was so excited that I managed to get my self stuck in the snow 1.5 miles off of FS-23. The elevation was only 1,000 feet. I did my usual routine, put firewood and sticks under my tires. But my darn Jeep just would not budge. I tried every trick I know but I could not get my Jeep to move a centimeter in either direction. I got cold and wet trying to get unstuck but I never got nervous. At worst I felt annoyed and embarrassed.

It was still early in the day so not too many cars would be coming my way. I decided to rest a bit, make one more attempt to get unstuck and then hoof it out the main dirt road to look for help. I was so relaxed about being stuck that I almost fell asleep. I had plenty of food and water, a cook stove and a thermos full of hot tea. I also had lawn chairs, fire wood and a blanket so if worst came to worst and I had to spend the night out there I would be comfortable. I knew it was not going to come to that though.

After my nap I got out and started to try to get unstuck one last time and it was then that a van appeared. It was a van full of brush pickers and they came to my rescue. I had been hoping for someone with a monster truck to come by and pull me out but that van load of brush pickers was a very welcome sight. There were six men and one woman in the van and it took them one hour to get me dug out of the snow! I had high centered the Jeep so bad that the tires were basically up in the air and could not get any traction. There was bare road all around me but I still managed to get high centered. I bet those nice brush pickers thought I was one crazy gringo!

It was noon by the time I got out of there. Part of me wanted to just go home thinking that I had enough excitement in the woods for one day but the hiker in me won out. I tried to drive up to Spider Lake but there was too much snow there so I turned around and drove down to the Lower trail head.

There was a huge group of WTA trail workers on the trail. Some of them were very efficient young woman. I spent time talking to the more relaxed older folks in the crew. They had logged out the trail for the first four miles and they had two more work parties planned for later in the year.

I did my usual 9 mile loop hike utilizing both the trail and the road. The first four miles of the trail were easy going but the next mile was tougher. There are still massive mud slides, blow downs and wash outs to contend with.

The forest service has started to do it's logging up there but it does not look too bad.

9 miles round trip with 600 Feet Elevation gain.

My rating out of 4 possible mushrooms

Beauty:

Difficulty:


38 hiking miles on my new shoes now and a few around campus miles from the day that my normal shoes were covered with mud from clam digging.











This is the trail at 5 miles




WTA fixing up the trail


WTA fixing up the trail



WTA fixing up the trail.. Thanks!



Some yellow flowers, I don't know what they are.

Impressive Damage to Forest Service Areas

Bear Gulch picnic area from ONF


The forest has put up a pdf file that shows some of the damage.. no wonder Staircase is still closed!

http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/olympic/news-nu/2007/documents/FinalPresentation_web.pdf

I'm happy about one thing though.. the wildlife gates should be open so I my hiking options will expand now.




I have a geocache near here, I think it's a goner.




The bridge at Lake Cushman this gives acess to the Dry creek, Copper Creek and Shady Lane Trails.