Geomorphology
After a serene night sleeping under great trees, with the sound of Lookout Creek sluicing over rocks below, I joined the Bretz Club gathering on their all-day Field Trip to see various hydrological, geological and vulcanological sites in the surrounding McKenzie River system, just above/outside the Andrews system. We hiked in to a secretive “lost” spring (large, cold, pristine) nicknamed “hobbit-land” and then up to the Collier Cone lava flow, hiking onto it and beyond, to see dry stream channels (complete with stream-rounded cobbles amid the broken landscape of the larger flow) and the absolutely stellar “Proxy Falls” — a waterfall which cascades down from a high ridge drainage area, forms a large clear pool, and disappears! It is like an inverted spring, flowing down *into* the ground, where it escapes under the lava flow.
During our hike we frequently stopped to hear the fluvial geology comments of Gorden Grant, as well as current research findings (with lots of fascinating and as-yet-unanswered questions!) about the lava flows by researchers Natalia Deligne and Sarah Lewis and comments from world-renowned vulcanologist and professor Kathy Cashman. Often the group hiked with (or started by consulting) large LIDAR images, which are revolutionizing landscape research/scientific mapping, or we passed around small xeroxed copies showing the locations of numerous lava flows of various ages. Some flows are hidden by moss and old growth forest, while other flows are young and easily visible, lying black and broken atop the terrain… new research is showing, among other things, there are far more flows of distinct ages/events than previously understood.
Kathleen Heideman recorded her residency at the Andrews in a series of blog posts, photos, and watercolors. Explore them, here.
