Thursday: 24 December 2009
A Merry Christmas Eve and Day to everyone. Hope you all are where you want to be doing the things you’d like to do. For us, we’ll have a cold wet one, starting this afternoon, with wind and rain throughout the night.
Here’s a panorama of four photos, with only a slight jarring stitch, of an interesting seventy foot stretch of Goulding Creek. I’ve been observing this area where the old roadcut ends for 24 years now, since we bought the property in 1985. Somewhere there is probably a photo taken back in the days when you had to get photos developed, for even then that treefall fascinated me. At that time we only owned the section from center rightward, upstream; now we own midcreek leftward (downstream) another 2000 or more feet.
The complexity in the center is due to a major treefall more than a quarter century ago, since it was there, much fresher, when we first laid eyes on it. It has changed the features of this part of the creek many times.
The image is clickable for a larger version on a new page:
While there has usually been a locklike damming of the creek upstream (to the right) of the treefall, this is probably the greatest difference in water height, about a foot. The treefall has acted as a dam, accumulating debris, sand and silt until it effectively blocks the creek from flowing under the treefall. Instead it’s diverted to the back and around, widening the creek as it has eaten through the far bank. We now have a quiet deep pool that you can see in the center. There is some outflow from that pool through the curving arm of the white sandbar you see at center left.
The original treefall is marked by the sweetgum growing out of the debris that has collected at center. There has been an extension, at right, of the near creek bank into the creek. Barely visible in the right foreground is a rivulet over large rocks. The heavy rains of the last four months have rapidly configured this so that the creek runs through it when even a little high. At some point it will run through all the time, and we’ll have a nice little island in the middle of the creek.
None of these details is important - they’ll all be recast again and again, and someday when that old treefall finally disintegrates, washed away entirely. But they’ve been fun in the meantime.
Here’s a panorama of four photos, with only a slight jarring stitch, of an interesting seventy foot stretch of Goulding Creek. I’ve been observing this area where the old roadcut ends for 24 years now, since we bought the property in 1985. Somewhere there is probably a photo taken back in the days when you had to get photos developed, for even then that treefall fascinated me. At that time we only owned the section from center rightward, upstream; now we own midcreek leftward (downstream) another 2000 or more feet.
The complexity in the center is due to a major treefall more than a quarter century ago, since it was there, much fresher, when we first laid eyes on it. It has changed the features of this part of the creek many times.
The image is clickable for a larger version on a new page:
While there has usually been a locklike damming of the creek upstream (to the right) of the treefall, this is probably the greatest difference in water height, about a foot. The treefall has acted as a dam, accumulating debris, sand and silt until it effectively blocks the creek from flowing under the treefall. Instead it’s diverted to the back and around, widening the creek as it has eaten through the far bank. We now have a quiet deep pool that you can see in the center. There is some outflow from that pool through the curving arm of the white sandbar you see at center left.
The original treefall is marked by the sweetgum growing out of the debris that has collected at center. There has been an extension, at right, of the near creek bank into the creek. Barely visible in the right foreground is a rivulet over large rocks. The heavy rains of the last four months have rapidly configured this so that the creek runs through it when even a little high. At some point it will run through all the time, and we’ll have a nice little island in the middle of the creek.
None of these details is important - they’ll all be recast again and again, and someday when that old treefall finally disintegrates, washed away entirely. But they’ve been fun in the meantime.
