Squamish Question for Dru

[Peter_Puget]

In the Squamish guide there is a picture showing the Grand Wall with (compared to today) little brush trees and moss growing on it. I was looking at an old issue of Mountain (63) and it had some pictures from the 70's of the Malemute and I was shocked how clean the cliff was. Have you seen picture of the Chief throughout the [ast century? If so, was there a burst of plant growth just recently?

[murraysovereign]

Plant growth is an ongoing problem in Squamish. We're trying to stop it, but it's a formidable task

 

I know the photo from the Guidebook you refer to, and I think it's partly explained by fire. On the backside trail between 2nd and 3rd peaks, there are a couple of large burnt stump remnants that would seem to be from a fire sometime early in the century (?). If a large fire managed to sweep the entire Chief, it would take quite a while for trees to get re-established due to the limited opportunities for natural re-seeding. That would explain why pictures taken in the 40s and 50s show a thinly vegetated Chief - those trees would have only just recently got themselves established, and would still be quite young. Today, 50 years later, we're looking at a fairly mature forest that's spread to all the ledge systems over the past century, so the difference is quite dramatic. Kevin notes in his guide that there are no burnt snags on the face of the Chief, and concludes from this that there was no fire. I suspect that any trees on the face of the Chief that were killed by fire 100 years ago are all long fallen and rotting at the base. Given the steepness of the terrain and the volume of rainfall - to say nothing of the local winds - I would be amazed if any burnt trees had been able to hang on for more than a few years after the fire. The stumps on the backside, however, are from huge, well-rooted trees on moderate slopes that are sheltered from the worst of the weather, so they've survived to give evidence of a major fire sweeping the area sometime in the early 1900s.

 

Something similar could be responsible for the Malamute photo you cite. It was probably logged early on, being right beside the water and easily accessible. Or it, too, may have been burned off.

 

Dru will no doubt have more information than I, but that's my theory.

[jordop]

On p. 262 of current McLane: cause of recent forest growth is speculative, most likely climate change/global warming.

 

I think it was an ill-advised Chamber of Commerce idea in the 1970s to brighten things up a bit. All that cold-looking stone . .

[murraysovereign]

jordop said:

On p. 262 of current McLane: cause of recent forest growth is speculative, most likely climate change/global warming.

 

I think it was an ill-advised Chamber of Commerce idea in the 1970s to brighten things up a bit. All that cold-looking stone . .

 

But McLane may be trying to answer the wrong question. He is assuming that the Chief was always bare, and the forest only recently started to grow, so he's trying to explain the seemingly sudden appearance of forest since the 40s. I think the more likely explanation is that there has always been forest on the Chief (this is the West Coast, after all), but for some reason it was briefly interrupted in the early 1900s and is now re-establishing itself. Fire is the most likely explanation, and there is evidence of exactly that. McLane overlooks that evidence, and chooses to speculate instead.

 

And far from wanting to beautify the Chief, the Squamish Chamber of Commerce of the 70s/80s tried to quarry it. And don't for a second think that the danger has completely passed. The Chief is protected, but other nearby crags are still under threat of being blown up for fireplace facings and patio paving stones, not to mention Highway expansion.

[Norsky]

My friend from Vancouver who is in Ski Industry management says that the train going by Squamish will not continue because sections of it will be paved over for road expansion for the Olympics. Has anyone else heard of this? Will this negate any closure issues?????

[murraysovereign]

Norsky said:

My friend from Vancouver who is in Ski Industry management says that the train going by Squamish will not continue because sections of it will be paved over for road expansion for the Olympics. Has anyone else heard of this? Will this negate any closure issues?????

 

There is a possibility that some sections of the BCR right-of-way will be paved in order to allow single-lane alternating traffic to by-pass some sections of highway in order to minimize delays during construction. Vehicle traffic would only be allowed passage in between trains, which will continue to run uninterrupted. The pavement would probably be left in place through the Olympics in order to allow for emergency by-pass, but it isn't seen as an integral part of the overall transportation plan for the games - if it's there, great, but they're not planning on needing to use it.

 

The only thing that will stop the trains running through Squamish will be a corporate decision on the part of whomever buys the company (we should know who in the next 4-6 weeks). If CN is successful, they have many reasons for not running trains south of Lillooett, and very few reasons for continuing to run them. If that were to come about, then yes, the main reason for the closure of the Lower Malamute would disappear.

 

But, there are applications pending to run tourist/passenger rail services between Vancouver and Whistler, and if that operator has safety concerns regarding climbers on the right-of-way, then we could be right back to square one again.

[Dru]

The Little Ice Age ended in 1886 and vegetation has been recolonizing barren ground ever since that time. Given the colder weather of the 1800's a vertical cliff may have been just too harsh a niche to exploit.