Salmon!

I have had my antennae tuned to the Elwha River for many years now, ever since there was some hint at an ever-so-improbable program for removing these dams, which totally block salmon migration in the river.  I was sensitized to salmon and fishy business early-on through overhearing exchanges between my folks and their UW fisheries friends, also on the topic of nitrogen narcosis on the Columbia.

If you attend to these things, you know that the dams are coming down.  The complex actions involved in removing the huge structures began last year - the planning and logistics stretch back a good deal longer of course.


In sway of spouse with time off last year, I suggested Port Angeles as a destination, thinking the time auspicious to see what these-here dams looked like.  The result was a great long weekend.  You can't get there easily w/o a ferry, which plants you in Kingston, home apparently of one of Marg's favorite fabric stores.  I concur.

I actually started this post last year after our visit.  In a way I'm glad it languished.  But I was inspired to learn there is a locally-produced PBS special this Wednesday, April 18 on the subject and wanted to encourage you to view that.  This is a pretty tremendous accomplishment, claimed to be the largest such dam removal to date.

(For the record, we found our way to several other fabric stores along the way, GPS and word-of-mouth both interestingly playing a part..)

But it was that river connection that was special for me.  I've crossed the Elwha numerous times without paying much attention, including (in)famous "survival" hike that several highschool classmates and I engaged in out at Cape Alava, a story for another time.  And we used that road when climbing Mount Olympus more than a few years back.  But you don't really notice or gain any appreciation for the river while traversing the area in a car.  You have to care and make a point of it.
 
And that's what we did.  We tracked down and traipsed around both of those very intriguing dams.  A lot of history.  And remarkably photogenic.

I subsequently dragooned my hiking partner Marshall into investing our alas only mountain expedition last Summer in the same locale.  Not that anything had changed much, but it was fun to reinforce what we had seen back in the Spring.

I've been a regular visitor to the web-cams set up at the two dam sites on a nearly daily basis. You can achieve somewhat the same effect via the historical photo logs and time-lapse options there.  Intriguing to see how differently the two dams are being disassembled.  It has been an astounding process, moving more quickly than the naturally conservative schedule projections suggested.

Whee-haw!