The Pile

I wish I had remembered to take a photo of my office this morning. After a good dose of field work this last week it had become a pile of wet outerwear, surveying equipment, our cobbled together rock-tracking RFID reader, rubber boots, and random cameras, ropes, and instruments waiting for download. A true mess, and one that had me dreaming of things like storage rooms and lab spaces. I am feeling quite a bit more balanced after wading through it, putting everything back in its place and getting all of the data downloaded and backed up.

Yesterday was an almost full day working with a Huxley student on a project that is an out-growth of my graduate research tracking rocks. Here is Chris digging in the beach - so much fun on a rainy day...





Its been a good couple of years since I last tracked rocks, and yesterday I was reminded that it is both really fun and really trying at the same time. As always though, there is a surprising bit to learn about how beaches work by watching things move around. Yesterday was pretty interesting because the wave energy, which normally approaches the Elwha from the west, didn't behave. In the morning, just before the water level dropped, a BIG east wind swell cropped up. Here is the timelapse of the tidal cycle. Note the big waves at the end - you are looking west towards the Pacific Ocean.










And finally, a new game I call find the tracer:

Views from the Aldwell delta

As the removal progresses the delta is spreading out along the reservoir. Stumps logged off in the early 1900's are exposed for the first time in 100 years, looking like they were just cut...a few views from a walk around the Aldwell delta from this morning:












































and a view of the dam...I've zoomed in on the original channel canyon, where the dam once stood - its totally gone, with the river looking pretty ready to re-occupy its original channel for the first time.