Tuesday, August 5th, 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. at the Shafer Historical Museum
Doug Devin, a local rancher and author, will be joined by Elinore Drake, Terry Karro, Leanna Kumm Melton and others to share stories and history of the upper Methow Valley.
Drawing on first-hand accounts, unpublished diaries, and other historical resources, Doug Devin and friends will share what life was like and how it has changed in the upper Methow Valley from the late 1800s to 2008. Come learn or even share stories of how Mazama became what it is today and who made it that way.
Doug will sign copies of his new book, "Mazama: The Past 125 Years," which will be available for purchase from the Museum. Participants are also welcome to enjoy the Shafer Museum before and after the program.
The event is free and open to everyone. Questions? Contact Mary at 996-2870 or info@methowconservancy.org.
The Methow Conservancy’s 67th conservation easement, recently completed with Stephen MacDonald, protects an active floodplain of the  dynamic Methow River, upland and riparian forest, beaver pond wetlands, and agricultural lands and open space.
The easement property is south of the Weeman Bridge along the upper Methow River. Much of the MacDonald 69-acre conservation easement property is visible from Wolf Creek Road, the Methow Community Trail, the Methow River as well as surrounding public lands. The property is situated in a corridor of both public protected land and private properties with Methow Conservancy conservation easements, so that the riparian habitats and undeveloped character of the property support a huge variety of fish and wildlife populations.
Upper Columbia River spring Chinook salmon, Upper Columbia summer steelhead trout, and bull trout (all either Federally Endangered or Threatened) utilize this part of the Methow River that includes the MacDonald property for spawning, rearing, and/or migration habitat. Mapping data  demonstrates the Methow River on the property to be one of the highest concentrations of spawning for spring Chinook salmon of any stretch of the Methow River.
The numerous side channels and deep pools, spring fed creeks, and beaver pond wetlands as well as incredibly healthy and structurally complex riparian vegetation, combine to create one of the most productive stretches of the river for fisheries. Aquatic species specifically require protected corridors in order to move between various habitats including pools, riffles, and side channels. The continued health of the stretch of river through the MacDonald conservation easement property is critical to the productivity of this riparian habitat, and we thank Stephen MacDonald for his thoughtfulness and partnership in protecting it.
Eric Bard, our Stewardship Associate, wrote this fascinating article on Mazama Ash and what’s in the dirt all around us. Maybe you’ll look at the ground differently after reading this!
A chance to tour our unique conservation easements and local properties with landowners is a wonderful benefit of working for the Methow Conservancy. As ideas flow and collaboration takes place regarding stewardship plans and concerns, we are also able to enjoy beauty, discuss history, and experience the flora and fauna of the surrounding landscape while sharing time with and learning from conservators. But to see and appreciate the whole picture, one must search for what is hidden: fragile and invaluable soils, prolific glacial and water-born deposits and unique rock formations. I often look for these sediments and outcrops along the cut banks of our local rivers where active channel migration has been occurring and alongside the banks of their tributaries.
Here, you can examine the soil that has been developing since the retreat of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet about 13,500 years ago. If you are lucky, you also may find the parent(s) of the soil. In our semi-arid climate, the soil has been evolving slowly from an eclectic group of parents with names such as bedrock, alluvium (stream deposited sediments), glacial till, glacial outwash, and lacustrine (lake) sediments. Usually, there is an interesting geologic story behind each of these parents to ponder.
For example, while monitoring a conservation easement up the Twisp River this summer, I was fortunate to run across a cut bank exposing the interesting deposit pictured below:
Note at the top the thin dark soil forming from brown rocky parent material. This soil is actively forming from an alluvial fan deposit (A fan-shaped wedge of sediment that typically accumulates on land where a stream emerges from a steep canyon onto a flat area). The thick white powdery deposit below the fan is yet another unique parent of our soils. To discover this mystery, we will have to travel 270 miles south to a lake pictured below:
Do you recognize the deepest lake in the United States (1,943 feet, about 500 feet deeper than glacially formed Lake Chelan)? What does this have to do with our soils? This deep lake was formed more than 7,000 years ago by a large catastrophic volcanic eruption. In fact, a remnant volcano known as Mt. Mazama, estimated to have been 12,000 feet in height, was transformed into this caldera and lake known as Crater Lake, Oregon. Much of the mountain, as well as the magma chamber once present below, traveled far and wide via an eruption approximately 50 times the volume of the 1980 Mount St. Helens event. Find a white powdery volcanic ash layer (tephra), and you can bet that you are witnessing evidence from this eruption!
Another Cascade volcano has also enriched our soil. Along with ash from Mount St. Helen’s (183.5 miles/295.3 kilometers distance), the most active volcano in the Cascades, ash from Glacier Peak, which is our closest active volcano at 49.7 miles/80 kilometers distance, is also in much of our Methow soil (see U.S.G.S. sketch below on main tephra events and thicknesses). Volcanic soils are among the most productive. A few of the many benefits of volcanic tephras include adding new material to rejuvenate soil forming processes, addition of nutrients and organic carbon, and an ability to act as mulch. They also help create soils with high water holding capacity for our crops and flora. Eventually, both of these Cascade volcanoes will send ash to the Methow again. The ash will build and enrich our soils and eventually help provide food and habitat for the Methow fauna and flora of the future.
So, next time you are out walking and/or working your land, I hope that you will ponder the world beneath your feet. Take the time for a little subsurface investigation. You may be amazed, surprised, or even perplexed, but either way the experience will likely enrich your connection with the land, its history, and the unique valley in which we live.
As we’ve mentioned in past E-News reports, our Stewardship Program recently acquired grant funding via the Chelan/Douglas P.U.D. Tributary Fund for  restoration work within riparian forest habitats of the middle Methow and lower Twisp Rivers. This funding will allow us to cage saplings and seedlings in areas where riparian forest recovery is being severely hampered by deer browsing.
Several volunteers helped us with our first project in June. Now we need help again for an East County Road property on August 21st from 9 a.m. until Noon. We will be building 50+ cages and anchoring them around young saplings and seedlings that would love to become trees. If you can lend your hands to help give a riparian forest a new chance to thrive into a healthy habitat for fish, birds and water quality, let us know!
To sign up, please call the Methow Conservancy at 996-2870 or email us.
We will have more volunteer opportunities like this in the future. If you’d like to be personally notified via our “volunteer opportunities” email distribution, tell us to add you to that list.
Below, you'll find announcements about events or publications (ours and those of other organizations) that we think you might find interesting.
August 4th: Join Greg Studen and PSM for a book review and discussion of “PLAN B 3.0, Mobilizing to Save Our Civilization,” 7:00 p.m. at the Twisp River Pub. Doors will open6:00 p.m. with a snack menu. Greg will give a presentation based on the book by Lester Brown.  Brown founded Worldwatch Institute over 30 years ago to research and monitor world wide environmental trends. Under his direction Worldwatch developed the highly respected State of the World report, which is published annually. Brown left Worldwatch in 1990 to found the Earth Policy Institute, where he continues his mission to help people become aware of environmental and social issues and to inspire them to take action. Plan B 3.0 was written to carry out this mission.
Greg Studen has been working on natural resource conservation and sustainability issues since 1969, when he was an agricultural Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa. After completing law school, he was an assistant attorney general in Vermont, where he worked on a broad range of land use and pollution issues. In 1992 he completed a Master of Science degree in Environmental Health Science, and has been extensively involved in resource conservation ever since.
This program will consist of a slide show presentation of the main ideas in Plan B 3.0, together with an in-depth discussion. It will focus on the wide range of interrelated problems identified by Brown in his book, and on his inspiring ideas for how we should attack these problems. The goal of the program will be to give a good foundation for understanding our global predicament and to show how a path to a better world is possible.
August 5th: 1st Tuesday Program- Mazama: The Past 125 Years, 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. at the Shafer Historical Museum.Doug Devin, a local rancher and author, will be joined by Elinore Drake, Terry Karro, Leanna Kumm Melton and others to share stories and history of the upper Methow Valley. Drawing on first-hand accounts, unpublished diaries, and other historical resources, Doug Devin and friends will share what life was like and how it has changed in the upper Methow Valley from the late 1800s to 2008. Come learn or even share stories of how Mazama became what it is today and who made it that way. 
August 9th: Kid’s Nature Outing at Pearrygin Lake State Park, 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. Kids age 7 and older are invited to join the Methow Conservancy for an hour of fun and learning at Pearrygin Lake State Park. What lives in the lake? What needs the lake to live? Look for one of the smallest lake critters and learn to identify the mammals who roam about. The event is free, and at least one parent must accompany the children they bring. Please wear shoes and clothing that can get wet and be prepared for possible heat and mosquitoes. Drive to the main State Park entrance (the east campground), and look for directions at the entrance booth. Contact Mary at 996-2870 or info@methowconservancy.org if you have questions.
September 9th: Methow Conservancy monthly program (on the 2nd Tuesday) – The Red Shed: Local Food Supporting the Local Community 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. at the Red Shed garden on Twisp River Rd. Join Kelleigh McMillan, Red Shed volunteers, representatives from  The Cove and Room One, for an amazing garden tour and exploration into how caring individuals and local food are making a difference in our community. The event is free and open to everyone. Contact Mary at 996-2870 or info@methowconservancy.org.
September 28th: 5th Annual Cider Squeeze and Social, 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. at Dave and Marilyn Sabold's house in Winthrop. Join us for another entertaining celebration of the harvest season with an apple cider squeeze, great food and conversation. It's free and all are welcome. We'll make apple cider with a distinctive historic press; have kid’s activities, music, food, drinks and more. Meet Conservancy staff and board members, new friends and old friends. Please bring your own jugs for cider, and apples or food if you wish. RSVPs (by 9/25) appreciated but not required. Contact us at 996-2870 or info@methowconservancy.org for more info.
October 6th: 5th Annual Methow Mixer, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m. at the Flagship REI store in downtown Seattle.Join us at this unique event where we bring the  Methow to the Westside for an evening of food, fun and prizes. For all of you in the greater Seattle area who have a special place in your heart for the Methow, enjoy an evening of friendship and conservation with interesting booths, news from our Executive Director, free raffle prizes, membership gifts, and much more! RSVPs (by 9/25) appreciated but not required. Contact us at 996-2870 or info@methowconservancy.org for more information.
October 13th: Methow Conservancy monthly program – Wild Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest 7:00 – 8:30 p.m. at the Twisp River Pub. Mick Mueller, a mycologist (mushroom expert) with the Wenatchee/Leavenworth USFS Ranger District, will give a presentation on the huge variety of mushrooms that live under our feet and come out for daylight in the fall. Mick is highly regarded in the mushroom world and gives a great presentation – don’t miss this one! (This event is on the 2nd Monday because our Methow Mixer is on the 1st Tuesday.) The pub will open at 6:00 p.m. for attendees who would like to purchase drinks or something from the light menu. The event is free and open to everyone. Contact Mary at 996-2870 or info@methowconservancy.org.
November 4th: Methow Conservancy “1st Tuesday” program – Medicinal and Edible Plants, 7:00 – 8:30 p.m. at the Twisp River Pub with Rosalee de le Foret. More details to come.
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