JC McCormack CA

The air was dead still and the fog was thick. This morning was the MMN trip to Squaw Creek NWR- I woke late and did not attend because of the low clouds. There are about 20 swans, 250 geese, 100 eagles and 20500 mallards on the area but I cant imagine that there was that much to see. At 9am I had about 300yds visibility at the top of the CA- the clouds lifted and the ground was clear by noon.

In the parking lot I found mounds of saw dust and chopped wood sitting on top of the inch of snow that had fallen over night. The wood had been cleared last night and this morning and was left over from the large ice storm that occured several weeks ago. The damage was horrible and widespread. I climbed the steep loess road carefully- my own breathe and the crunch of snow dominating over all other sounds through the area. A thick layer of ice- more than two inches- acted as a slick under the powdery snow and I landed on my back several times. The trail is wide and depressed between the hill that was carved through to make it. Limbs, trunks and powerlines created a carpet for and canopy over the trail- the timber supported by the natural topography and suspended over the trail. The broken trees and snapped branches in the woods were swarmed by woodpeckers and flickers and the brush by wrens, chickadees and sparrows. When I stopped moving to absorb my rare environment I enjoyed their music.

I hiked up the trail and discovered a murder scene. The coyote tracks and rabbit tracks seemed to tangle and a small spot of the freshly disturbed snow had been dripped with blood. Tan, soft fur had been left all over the trail and the coyote had laid in the brush after the game. I did not find where he ate the critter, but the whole thing was pretty cool to see. I remember last year on the area- when the snow was much thicker and the sun was bright. Near the same area was a carving in the powder- a pristine mark of a broad tail and two wings spread wide. Two feet had struck deep in the snow where the hawk had found his meal. After a struggle, I summited the area to find a 360* view of cloud. It was kinda cool! I looked down to see Squaw creek frozen and covered in snow. There was little traffic on the Hwy and only a small caravan of MMNs? traveling through the NWR.

I spent the rest of my day clearing debris from the storm from my grandparents property in Big lake village- just a bit further down Hwy 159. The community seemed to be devastated by the ice storm - houses were destroyed by the fallen branches and trees. My property was incredible lucky; Many large trees had fallen, some several feet in dia., but only a few gutters and a tiny windchime died. A neighbors home had a large sycamore fall THROUGH the roof and another's windows had been broken by the trees. I cleared the roof and garage area from the branches, and found no major damage. The property had locust, sycamore, maple, elm, pear, pine and juniper- in most areas throughout the village the sycamore had been damaged the most, but here it was the maple and elm. The elm, which was ~50ft tall and 3-4ft in dia. had split down the middle and only half had fallen. The scenes were awesome and powerful and I experienced a major ice storm (though well after the fact) for the second time in my life.