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Mud, mud, mud. Then, after the mud, there was more mud. After a little more mud, there was a short trail along the "shoreline". Then we got on top of the first dike. Easy sailing after that. There was actually a couple of recordable features, including a concrete boat ramp. The first dike lead to a second dike, even longer, leading back to Hwy 532. Mostly there were things to see, not so much to record. Osprey, a large school of small fish, bird houses, many many pilings. Oh, yeah, did I mention the mud. | ||
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GPS Survey: English Boom County Park to Hwy 532.
Friday, June 14, 2002. -2.3 tide at ~2:30 p.m. Walk time: 1:45 p.m. to ~5:00 p.m Change in plans. Due to an inauspicious conjunction of Venus and Mars (or maybe it had something to do with the satellites) Don changed the afternoon route at the last minute. We parked one vehicle by a strawberry stand along Hwy. 532 near Davis Slough and headed to English Boom to start the survey. It was a breezy day. Partly cloudy which must imply partly sunny. Don and I spent most of the afternoon tramping carefully through a vast sea of grass followed by a march along a dike. (See photos.) Initially we proceeded along the beach past clumps of Spartina and picklegrass and Fucus spp. but beach mud and deep muddy channels turned us inland toward the base of the cliffs and hopefully higher or at least drier ground. (Don brought along a pair of long-handled pruning shears in case an escape route had to be cut up the hill. Always prepared is GPSMan.) Along the way we passed a old, but still used, duck blind and dozens and dozens of ancient pilings, one of which had a feeding osprey on top, another had an nest box complete with osprey too. We walked through a mile or two of beautiful, lush,tidal meadows quartered by a northern harrier and criss-crossed by muddy-sided channels. Natural drainage channels. Some were a dozen feet wide. Uncrossable but readily apparent. Others were 2-3 feet deep with vertical sides and an opening no more than 6-8 inches wide at the top, a top nearly covered with grasses. We kept our eyes on our shoes to avoid becoming one with the marsh. It worked this time. Eventually we got to a very large dike that runs about 6000 feet all the way from the cliff back to Hwy 532. It appears that most of this dike borders Davis Slough which connects Skagit Bay and Port Susan Bay and makes Camano an island. At some point Davis Slough heads off north through the marsh grass into Skagit Bay. (Note: for you kayakers this could be an interesting trip at HIGH tide, if you can find your way through the anastomosing channels. Take Don and the Trimble along.) We saw not a single soul. No shots were fired. John |
