Crooked River

Fallen forest and fireweed

A few living sentries among the many dead

On Monday, J had his last furlough day, so he picked out a new trail for us to explore. It's about an hour's drive from us, and is a place that one of his fly-fishing compadres had liked fishing. The Crooked River Trail area was swept by the Pioneer fire in 2016. . .a fact we didn't realize until we got there. The Pioneer Fire lasted a long time, had Boise in smoke on and off for months, and devastated thousands of acres.

It was interesting to see how the land works at recovering. The river seems alive and well, and the trail winds along the river, sometimes at rivers edge, sometimes high above it.

The drive is absolutely beautiful Idaho mountain terrain until you get to the fire ravaged parts. But after you get over the first gasp at the tree devastation, you start to notice a froth of pink flowers along the forest floor. This is fire weed (Epilobium angustifolium), a member of the Primrose family. It is prolific. A closer look reveals a wide variety of wildflowers, whose seeds have been waiting waiting waiting in the soil on the forest floor for just this opportunity for sun.

The Crooked River and downstream

It's really odd how a few trees survived the fire that took most. Their trunks are invariably fire-scarred, but for some reason they survived where most did not. It reminds me of the Ericoid mycorrhizae I worked with that allowed some plants to thrive where others could not even survive. Different thing altogether of course, but nature's mechanisms are varied, enigmatic, and understudied.

Jasper feeling the heat

In some areas, it's clear that the fire just didn't penetrate completely, but you can see in the distance, that it was was completely devastating.

No post is complete without an image of Sir Jasper of Rockridge. The panting is emblematic of our return hike. We got a late start in the morning and it was 92F when we got back to the car. Not a terrible temperature in this climate (it's a dry heat), especially given that tomorrow and the following few days are expected to be in triple digits. But the trail is so exposed because of the extensive tree death. Sun for wildflowers=excessive radiation for mammals. We stopped in Idaho City for an ice cream cone, where the shop owners were clearly taking the pandemic seriously. A sweet thing in a fraught time. On the less positive front, I just read that a dog died of Covid19 yesterday. Bad news for all of us. It's one thing to be careless with our own species, but others deserve better.

Two early canisters. Thrown. Decals. Cone 10 reduction.

I have been remiss about the clay. For anyone looking for pots, I apologize. I'm including an image of some early work. I'm hoping to get back to the studio soon.