Beargrass -- Xerophyllum tenax

July 26, 2019 by Will Clausen in Plants

For the past fifteen minutes, I have been an unwitting pollinator. Arriving at my campsite, I throw off my backpack, a necessary burden on the long hike up this steep mountainside. I’m lightheaded and tired as I notice white dust covering my pants, sleeves, and the sides of my pack. It puzzles me as I set my breath and take time to recover, but looking out toward the open meadow, it clicks. This isn’t dust, but pollen from the field of flowering beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax) I just waded through to get here. After I set up my tent, I head back into the meadow to run my hand through the masses of inflorescences, large and comprised of many small white flowers at the end of four foot stalks. I smile as I look at my hand, covered in pollen, confirming my thought. I send it through the beargrass again before wiping it off on my shirt. This summer seems to have brought a particularly great bloom for this beautiful plant. The meadow is awash in white, mimicking the blanket of snow that covers it for more than half of the year. Looking back downhill, I can barely make out the path that I followed because of the dense growth of beargrass crowding everything. The plants along the trail, near the tree line, have used me to send pollen uphill. When I head out of here in a couple of days I will be used again, this time in reverse, helping to send pollen down, mixing genes. Not that this remarkable population of beargrass needs any help. Tens of thousands of them fill the meadow I am in and the hillside above me. My contribution to its reproduction is infinitely insignificant. But still it has put me to work.

Thunder Mountain

March 11, 2019 by Will Clausen in Places

The trail to Thunder Mountain really kicks up right at the end. Suddenly I am free of the trees and on a flat ridge which acts as a divide. Looking back, there is sweeping view of the mountains ranges and islands that populate Southeast Alaska. Shimmering water and distant high peaks. Directly below me 2,600 feet down, residential Juneau, the capital of Alaska, squeezes into the narrow strip of flat land between mountain and water. From here I can see the airport, landfill, and jail, the abandoned Walmart, roads and neighborhoods. All of it the ugly and completely normal stuff found in every town. But it is strange to see those things from here because when I turn around and show my back to all of that, I am confronted with the most majestic natural landscape. It’s not just in front of me, I’m actually in it. This cramming together of things which are normally kept apart is what makes Juneau. The experience at the divide is aural just as much as it is visual. It’s actually incredible to experience the shift in sound. On one side is the sound of humanity. Vehicles streaming up and down Juneau’s lone highway, oversized trucks roaring their hearts out, pedal to the metal, frustrated by the reality of two dead ends confining fifty miles of isolated highway. Going a few more steps and just slightly down on the other side of the divide, the sound quickly turns to wind, and animals, and nothing.

Mountain bog gentian -- Gentiana calycosa

January 28, 2019 by Will Clausen in Plants

The ground is a maze of color. Dashes of red and white freely weave among browning green, tufts of lime green dabbed around. From where I am, more or less laying on the ground, it is just a jumble. But I’m not quite thinking straight yet. After a long and arduous hike along a steep trail through recently burned forest, I have stopped short of the lake which was my goal. The sun beating through the canopy-less forest has worn me down. Sweat mixing with the ashes kicked up with each step has left a layer of grime covering my skin. I did not bring enough water and in this dry place I have not found a stream. I have been fighting cramp and moving too slow, so this damn lake isn’t happening even though it’s nearly in sight just over the next rise. It would be so nice to jump into. I cannot. I have a genuine concern about getting back to the trailhead with these legs and I know that the best thing to do is stop for a minute to recover. So I collapse under the shade of a western larch, rub my legs, drink and eat, and take in the colorful chaos of fall color right in front of my eyes.

Cliff paintbrush -- Castilleja rupicola

September 14, 2018 by Will Clausen in Plants

Narrow crevices in alpine cliffs are surprising places to find plants. Despite their stark appearance, high alpine rock faces provide great habitat for all sorts of plants. But even when you know to expect them, seeing plants in such conditions is always impressive. I have marveled at boulder-splitting trees oozing from the crack in the rock from which they have eked out a living. Seeing fern species I associate with wet forests growing in boulder fields above the treeline has made clear to me the amazing adaptability of certain species. And of course this rocky landscape is home to so many colorful compact wildflowers that make high altitude hikes so much fun during the brief summer.

Subalpine larch -- Larix lyallii

September 03, 2018 by Will Clausen in Plants

Autumn in the Pacific Northwest is all green trees and gray skies. Coming to the Northwest as an adult after growing up in Minnesota, I dismissed the thought of any fall color. It obviously wouldn’t match the foliar blaze on the ridge along Lake Superior. I had lived in New England one October, a place where leaf tourism is a boon for small towns. Moving to southeast Alaska, I knew it would be green and I was mostly right. When I moved to Washington two years later, I knew it would be green and I was mostly right. While other parts of the country turn red, orange, and yellow, the Pacific Northwest would look just as it always does. But over the past five years I have learned two things and been reminded of one. The first: fall color can occur below eye level. The second: muted colors can look brilliant among evergreens. The third: there are exceptions to every rule. Washington has larches, and larches are trees with amazing fall color.