A Beautiful Place

[Steven@HumboldtHerps]

I had to write a paper in my English class this semester about a favorite place, a beautiful place. Naturally this was a place that would harbor garters!
So.... here it is... Please feel free to share your favorite story about a beautiful place... It doesn't have to be an essay like this one, nor does it have to include any of the darker elements which were integral to this essay.





Steven Krause

English 1A, 4:00

A Beautiful Place
The road towards our destination and its signature across the map leads to a realm of unsurpassed beauty, a place of darkness and light. Yes, darkness. For what is beauty if not for the existence of some underlying, historical shadow or some inevitable, looming threat? That which is pleasing to the senses is often only a thin veil draped over a much larger reality, a more telling truth. How often do we look only at the surface? Are we perhaps blind to the beauty of such things as death and decay? Thus, are some of us deaf to nature’s calls for us to realize the beauty, the necessity of renewal, reinvention? I have traveled to many “beautiful” places. At fifteen I experienced my first totally nude beach at the small German port of Travemuende. Need I say more? Okay, yes. I have seen the sand-drip castle architecture of the Koelnerdom. I have watched in Salzburg how the Alps deepened the reds of the tulips in Mirabelle Gardens before sunset. I have been absorbed by the depths of the Grand Canyon, and I have been humbled by the coastal redwoods here in Northern California. None of these experiences and so many others, however, has come close to the beauty, the real beauty, this x-rayed taste of nature in the raw, bestowed upon me by the snaking lengths of the Salmon River. Welcome to the beautiful, the dangerous, and the changeable; welcome to the “Slammin’ Salmon”!
In late July of 2006, after a short drive upstream from where the Salmon enters the Klamath River my wife and I were greeted with the first tantalizing tease of this river’s promise of refreshment for a hot summer’s day. This came from below in random glints of serpentine blue flowing through bedrock. The urge to get wet in such unspoiled waters was quenched only by the fact that all eyes were on the treacherous, single-track mountain road, and there were few turn-outs, and the banks down to the river were guarded by poison oak. The journey to a place must be a part of the beauty of a place. For what is the meaning of the view from a mountaintop without the memory of the struggle it took to get there? Tempting fate, we continued and cautiously glimpsed more distractions: swinging bridges and endless tailings, reminders of the gold rush days, dilapidated, weathered by time and nature; falling rocks; crossing quail, chipmunks, and lizards. Where we there yet? We were already enjoying ourselves.
Our destination was Matthew’s Creek on the South Fork of the Salmon. The grounds were near empty and we found a site with a terrific view on a fenced ledge right above the river. Camp was pitched in a hurry, so the rest of the afternoon could be spent splashing in one of two great swimming holes the river had to offer. Is the beauty of a place what it is you can do there? I enjoy herpetology, so I was enthralled to discover so many reptiles and amphibians here! My wife Kim found these waters most delicious and liked to don a mask to spy on fish and crawdads. Kim spent so much time in the water; the Sinuous Snake-tail dragonflies began using her head as a perch!
The day was hot and humid, but as the late afternoon crept towards evening an eerie, thick wind began to blow. Above, burnt-orange mammatus clouds swallowed the sky and began to drop large, heavy, widely dispersed raindrops upon our being. This was the prelude to a heaviness we would never forget. Is there a sense of foreboding in beauty? The rain dispersed, and all went calm again. At night we awoke to the slicing sound of dry thunder, and, later still, a loud, crashing sound upstream. The next day was a blue sky with a few lingering, cottony thunderheads; a smell of smoke from nearby ignitions – the first onslaught for fire season 2006; and a river silted with a tale from the early morning hours. A landslide upriver had tainted the water’s clarity; this was the crashing sound. We did not have long to see if things would clear up. We had to go “home” again.
As we drove home we decided to pit-stop at every river access along the way for future consideration. Our last stop along the Salmon invited us to a taste of human reality neither of us had ever experienced. A man at the riverbank was looking for his friend, and eventually left to report him missing. Kim was swimming with her mask, and less than a minute later she found the missing swimmer in the clouded river. Along with the help from another visitor, we pulled the man out of the water. I was left alone to face the situation. The man was dead with opaque eyes and pink foam coming out of his mouth, yet I was sitting there mind-raking myself with guilt for not wanting to give this dead man mouth to mouth; I did not know what pink foam meant at the time. We were then left to answer the question, “Have you seen him?” when the victim’s friend returned. After the police report Kim and I drove home completely numb. The Salmon River had shown me death for the first time in my life. Is there tragedy and sorrow in beauty?
This particular experience did not thwart our efforts to appreciate this river further in the years to come. The fact that this place is a canvas for the dramatic has been engrained into the core of our being. We try to go at least once every summer. Each year the course of the river changes ever so slightly. Does beauty last forever? It was here that I saw my first ring-tailed cat, a beautiful animal, for a span of about 10 seconds. Is beauty fleeting? In 2007 I witnessed an Oregon Garter Snake attempting to eat a sucker fish; this fish was far too big to stuff down that sock of a snake! Is beauty grotesque? This year we discovered an old bear skeleton; its bones told stories about rodents foraging in winter. Does beauty dissolve, fade?
I can not guarantee that anyone journeying to this magical place will find all the answers as to why I believe it to be the most beautiful. My memories of this river are deep and somewhat recent. My experiences here have formed perceptions that now branch out to encompass the whole, understand its inner and outer relationships; visualize its cycles, seasons, its beginnings, its endings, and the impermanence of it all. The Salmon River has a beauty within it which transcends color, shape, form; the superficial. The mysteries of this place unravel via the stories it continues to share of its past, present, and potential future. It is a rejuvenating and destructive place; peaceful and predatory; exciting and terrifying; it is an active portrayal of biodiversity, a unique web of nature in action.
I have traveled to many “beautiful” places. The Salmon River, however, is beauty in the raw, beauty in motion! In all selfishness, I can not, will not reveal the exact location of “our” little piece of heaven.

[GarterGeek]

Wow - That was both sad and beautiful! Thank you for sharing. Do you write poetry? It's a moving piece of writing, the experience with the drowned swimmer must have been horrific.

The combination of beauty and danger in nature, which you seemed to be pointing out in your essay, is one of the reasons I think snakes are so amazing. They are beautiful and graceful, but are at the same time, ancient predators designed to be the most efficient survivalists possible.

Keep writing!

Perhaps I'll write about my beautiful places tomorrow.

[ConcinusMan]

My favorite local place to visit in the spring. It's full of nesting birds, basking turtles, trillium blooms and Thamnophis sirtalis concinnus and it's called...

Salmon Creek!

Once, not so long ago, (1960's) you could walk on the backs of salmon to reach the other side. By the 1980's the salmon were all gone as were all the native frogs and turtles. The garter snakes, hardy folk, clinged to their existence living on worms and non-native frogs.

Today is better. The salmon are returning, the water pollution is waning, the native frogs and turtles are back, and the concinnus' are rebounding. Bigger and strong as ever. Oh joy!

Never again will this place be closer to dead. Laws have been passed, money has been spent, land has been protected, and people now care. The healing process has been slow but steady. Now my favorite garter snakes are assured many generations of prosperity.

Some friends of mine from the University of WA who have been working for decades to restore this wild area once told me "when the snakes are gone... it's too late". They actually used Thamnophis sirtalis concinnus populations and health as one of the indications of the health of the wetland area as a whole.

This beautiful place will never be as it once was. Nor will it ever again be on the brink of total destruction. It's a bittersweet victory.

[Steven@HumboldtHerps]

Salmon Creek? Salmon River? Hmmmm? Salmon anyone?

Actually, the name of the place is Matthew's Creek on the So. Fk. of the Salmon River. I just used the omission as a tease for my class.

One of these days I am going to find the time to go herping up in Oregon and Washington; I would love to sight some concinnus.

[ConcinusMan]

And I would love to go herping once again in NW CA too. Most memorable find was a huge mess (dozens if not more) of very large, very red coast garters having a party on the beach north of Monterey. Man that was a cool find.

For concinnus, the first sunny days above 70 degrees in spring (before 11am) is the best time. Usually April. NW Oregon or extreme SW WA. (Oregon has prettier ones than WA) Any place where there is fresh water and plenty of vegetation (especially where there are drying pools of water full of amphibian larvae) Once summer really gets going and things dry up, they get very hard to find. It's all about timing. I'll take plenty of video and pics this coming spring to share. I know, it's not the same as being there.