Carkeek
Where was I this afternoon you ask? Here.
Not in the creek, mind you, but on a trail that accompanies it downhill to a forest/wetlands/beach park on Puget Sound . It’s easier to get to by bus than I thought, so I got to it.
There are railroad tracks between the park and the beach so there is a pedestrian overpass. Looking south from the overpass:
Very pretty. The stream banks don’t look high. When that thing floods it must go everywhere.
The good news is that the area where it can go is small – the trail is basically the bottom of a ravine. Also there are culvert pipes. It’s quite a managed creek.
That creek looks like well maintained salmon spawning habitat. Lots downed trees, and a good gravel bottom.
Yes it’s very salmon-managed. There are information thingies about it in several places.
The funniest information thingy says No this [a large building in the middle of the park] is not a salmon hatchery, this is a sewage treatment facility. Not word for word but that’s the gist. You’d think people would know, because you can smell that that’s what it is.
Looks lovely. I can imagine the sounds and the smells were delightful. (Well, maybe not the sewage treatment facility.) I might have to brave the winter and do a little nature walk myself. The ravines around here are beautiful and I miss exploring them, but I hate the brutal cold temperatures. I basically lock myself indoors for half of every year. (It doesn’t help that I’m connected to a massive subterranean network of shopping concourses, so it’s possible to get the basics done — grocery store, bookstore, drug store, barber, dentist, random cellphone repair place. etc — without the need for so much as a windbreaker. It’s extremely convenient but to be honest it’s very unhealthy, living indoors and underground for half the year every year. I feel like a Mole Person from November ’til May.)
Most of the smells were indeed delightful, and the sewage smell isn’t all that bad – it’s not full-on ripe excrement, just a trace of that particular brand of funky. The comparative mildness of winter here is indeed very conducive to getting out. That plus two coasts plus a million hills & a million ravines…it’s good stuff.
@5: Nice. :-)
We have a few similar places I can find by hiking off the beaten path, but they never have that much water in them. Though the Dismal River is a lovely place, and possibly the most misnamed river in the world.
It’s been a rainy winter so far. The creek will be MUCH smaller in July. That’s part of why it’s fun to go there in January, along with the relative scarcity of other people.
Re: the sewage treatment plant.
Lots of people do angling in the part of the Bow River that passes through Calgary. Apparently the best fishing is *downstream* from the sewage plant. It does a very good job of cleaning things up. However, there is a bit of nitrogen & phosphorus still in the outflow water & that fertilizes the plant life in the river making it better for the fish. My understanding is the sewage treatment plant *could* remove more N & P, but the amount left is about optimum for the fish.