Scramble

One of the field trips on my summer bucket list was a hike to Racehorse Falls. Today, we made it happen! Dan was helping a friend build a fence, but it was a beautiful day and the kids and I just couldn't hang out at home... so off we went...

Three years ago, we hiked to Racehorse Falls and had a very different experience. Back then, there was a nice path through the forest. Today was a bit more challenging. And the reason?

From the NW Geology website:

"On January 5, 2009, a ‘pineapple express’ storm smashed into the Pacific Northwest from the subtropical Pacific, and began delivering a deluge of rain and warm temperatures to the deeply snow-covered foothills of Whatcom County, Washington. The resulting accumulation of water in saturated snow and heavy runoff resulted in hundreds of debris flows and slope failures across the region. The largest landslide occurred on the afternoon of Jaunuary 7th in the Racehorse Creek drainage, a west-running tributary of the North Fork Nooksack River. Unlike virtually all other landslides associated with this weather event, the Racehorse Creek landslide involved deep bedrock failure, releasing around 500,000 cubic meters of rock. The slide left behind a 90-foot-high vertical wall crosscutting bedding planes in Chuckanut Formation sandstone and shale. Debris from the rockslide tumbled 800 feet down the south valley wall of Racehorse Creek, and temporarily dammed the stream. Two debris flow slurries were spawned at the base of the landslide; these entered Racehorse Creek below the debris dam. A flood of water, ice, rocks, and logs scoured the channel of Racehorse Creek, an important salmon spawning stream, stripping vegetation from stream banks and eroding bedrock walls to several meters above normal high water levels."

I expected the landscape to be different, but.... wow! Check out those logs.

The kids were troopers and just kept on going, trail or no trail. At times it was a bit of a scramble up and over logs and rocks, but that didn't stop us.

The trail ended in a pile of debris.

After that, we bravely crossed the stream.

And we were rewarded with our first view of Racehorse Falls!

Flashback! The next two photos are from June 2007.Ahhh...
Okay, back to 2010...

It felt like such an accomplishment to make it to the Falls. Over logs, under logs, over boulders, around boulders, up a steep hill with sliding rock and dirt, and we made it.

While I was busy taking photos and enjoying the area... Henry was over there! Hey! What? How did that happen? He's an adventurous boy.

Alice and I couldn't resist and we joined him on the other side of the pool.

It was worth it.

We played around next to the Falls before I went across for another photo of both of them.

I'm so proud of these two. They did a great job and had so much fun on the hike.

After lunch by the Falls, it was back down the riverbed to the trailhead.

Along the way, we took the time to explore some rocks by the water... Not just any rocks, but fossils!

According to the NW Geology website, these are "50-million-year old plant fossils from the Chuckanut Formation. The Racehorse Creek landslide, which occurred in January of 2009, has left a lot of small, fossil-bearing rock slabs in the rubble." We found just a few near the creek.

Then we left and drove up the logging roads. Up, up, up!

Out of the car, and off on another hike. Poor Alice - the fireweed was taller than her, but she never complained.

Fortunately, the hike wasn't long and we were rewarded with a whole mountain of fossils!

These are Eocene plant fossils in Chuckanut formation.

It was so cool. All three of us were beaming.

We couldn't quite believe how easy it was to find the fossils. Our predecessors left little stacks of fossils on logs for us to enjoy, and we found others easily with some digging around.

I'm not an expert when it comes to geology, but I'm pretty sure this is from some type of palm or fern. Others were obviously leaves, needles, and wood.

Our neighbor's son is a Geology major at Western Washington University and I know his class has taken field trips to this site. Might have to invite Aiden over for a beer and a geology lesson some day soon!

The slide area was quite steep and we scrambled all over it to find fossils.

Our geological finds! The site is on DNR property; collecting plant fossils is permitted, but it is illegal to take any vertebrate fossils from the site. No worries - we only found plant fossils.

What a fantastic field trip! Henry and I decided it was our favorite one of the summer. When I asked Alice what her favorite field trip has been, she wisely replied, "All of them."