Motley Moose – Archive

                                                   Mt. Shucksan in the mist

                                        Mount Baker (July 3, 2013)

As the snow melted sufficiently for the snow cats and plows to cut through, one of the most scenic spots in the North cascades, Artist Point was opened recently and afforded us its  dramatic 360 degree view. At an elevation of 5,100 feet, Artist Point is situated between Mt. Baker, the live volcano and its neighbor, Mt. Shuksan, a non-volcanic, faulted behemoth. This area is rich in geologic history and features and as the authors of Hiking Washington’s Geology state:

“Standing in the parking lot at Artists Point, you can see as much geology in the 360 degree sweep as in almost any other location in the world.”

This 360 degree sweep from Artist Point is amateurishly illustrated in this iphone video. Standing in the parking lot at Artist Point, the sweep begins at Mt. Shuksan, moves to just seeing the top of Baker, then to Table Mountain, then to the north toward Canada, and finally back to Shuksan:

I was unable to imbed the video but here is URL on You tube)  http://youtu.be/efE9hH-nlTI  I will try to embed the video in a comment.

     

                                            Oregon Coast from Cape Perpetua

A recent trip to meet up with old friends from graduate school gave us an opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with them and with the Central Oregon Coast as it had been many years ago when we interned in Portland. The coast line and beaches have changed little but the growth of previously small burgs is unavoidable.  Being there in mid May afforded us minimal traffic but also iffy weather. As it worked out, it was fine. It rained on the afternoon we arrived and when we left five days later. Intermittent sun brought out the best the coast has to offer and contributed to the wonderful visit with old friends.

Some of the largest cataclysmic geologic events on earth occurred in what is now the Pacific North West. About 11 million years of volcanic flow activity, ending about 6 million years ago, created the Columbia Plateau with basaltic lava formations up to two miles deep. This huge basaltic plateau covering much of Eastern Washington and Oregon and adjacent parts of Idaho was later inundated by massive Ice Age floods ending about 15,000 calendar years ago. The scale of these events has been seldom seen elsewhere as it carved a landscape that appears œother worldly. (In fact, the resulting terrain so closely matches that seen on Mars that NASA tested the Sojourner robotic rover here before its 1997 mission to Mars.

 

                                                                Scablands from basalt and flooding

                   

                         The Columbia River continues to cut into basalt

As many as 100 floods deposited layers of sediment atop the basalt that today provide the soil for growing some of the best wine grapes and hence wines in the country and in some cases, the world. These are the wines of Oregon and Washington State.  

There is rampant hysteria today about the mentally ill being dangerous and having access to guns. To some the mentally ill are the major problem with gun violence. Take for example, Ann Coulter’s recent headline: “Guns don’t kill people, the mentally ill do”.  

Too often government policies are based on these erroneous beliefs as legislatures are spinning off new laws to constrain the mentally ill. New York state passed a law dirercting therapists to report any client thought to be “likely to engage in” violent behavior to the police. Such prediction is very difficult to do accurately and results in many false positives.  

There is rampant hysteria today about the mentally ill being dangerous and having access to guns. To some the mentally ill are the major problem with gun violence. Take for example, Ann Coulter’s recent headline: “Guns don’t kill people, the mentally ill do”.  

Hello Motley Moose,

 This is my introductory diary on the Moose and it is mostly a photo diary illustrating the part of the world in which I have lived for 43 years. I apologize for the sometimes awkward layout and structure as I have yet to master the finer points of editing on this site.

I posted something similar but not identical in the past on DKos but this one is a bit wider ranging and more local.  The present diary comprises some of my amateur photos depicting Bellingham Bay and its environs. Bellingham, a city of about 80,000 is bounded on the East by the Cascade Mountains that loom over our city as an extension of the Cascade Range that includes Mt. Baker, a 10K foot volcano. To the north is Canada and its extension of the Cascades. To the West and South lay the San Juan Islands, arguably the most popular cruising islands in the U.S. and perhaps the world. Of the 172 or so islands in this archipelago, only 4 are served by the State’s ferry service, hence they are largely cruising islands. These islands are set within the  Salish Sea which extends from Puget Sound north into Canada incorporating also, Georgia Strait and the Canadian Gulf Islands.