Ike Kinswa, Mount Rainier, Mount Saint Helens

Ike Kinswa State Park is fairly quiet in early May. Situated on a lake surrounded by hiking trails and also near the big 3 mountains: Rainier, Saint Helens, and Adams … it seemed like a good choice for a few days to rent a cabin, kick back, bring our musical instruments, a good book or two, some watercolors… a nearby mini-vacation.

Native Land

I think it is important to acknowledge and respect that this is Cowlitz country. It is amazing to me that the Cowlitz Tribe, which was once one of the largest and wealthiest tribes in what is now Washington State (despite pandemics of the 1830s that nearly wiped them out), did not gain federal recognition until the year 2000!

Also appalling to me was to learn that while Abraham Lincoln was freeing the black slaves, he was eradicating the rights of Indigenous peoples.

So who was Ike Kinswa?

Ike Kinswa was a Cowlitz member who jumped through the hoops of the system to obtain an Indian Homestead patent on the 76 acres he resided on (finally approved in 1890) — only to have it taken away again. Of course, this was land that his people had lived on for thousands of years, but which colonists had felt justified in claiming as their own.

The Cowlitz people have a rich and varied history over which they have overcome many challenges. Cowlitz means “Seekers of the Medicine Spirit.” To learn more about their story, go to Cowlitz Indian Tribe, the Forever People. To learn more about the history of the park, go Here.

Lake Mayfield in the morning
A gorgeous day. Mayfield Lake is actually a 2,250 acre reservoir created at the confluence of the Tilton and Cowlitz Rivers by a 250-ft high, 850-ft long hydroelectric dam built in 1963.
Forest path along Lake Mayfield
Forest path along Lake Mayfield. Ike Kinswa State Park comprises 454 acres bordered by the lake and surrounded by farms and forest.
Morning light glows through moss on trees
Morning light glows through moss on trees. Something about walking through a forest by the water… it’s a good place to take your time.
Tall green ferns
Tall green ferns give the entire understory a soft glow.
Fern Unfurling
Fern unfurling – amazing what details you see everywhere you look. I might have to try to paint this. Plants and animals are so much alike in how they express themselves!
Salmonberry flower + bug
Salmonberry flowers were full of promise. A bug found it a convenient place to land. It looks like a mosquito, but I’m not sure what it is.
Sky Reflections on Lake Mayfield
Sky Reflections on Lake Mayfield – a perfect spot to watch the light change in the morning; a perfect spot to reflect on the day in the evening.

Mount Rainier and Mount Saint Helens

We took two side trips, since the mountains were so close by. There is so much to explore at each of these areas, a quick day pass to each one hardly does them justice. But it was still early in the year, and we will be back again.

Mount Rainier, covered in snow in May
Mount Rainier, covered in snow. Early May and many of the roads were still closed. However, we were able to get to Paradise, which was truly, all around us.
Mount Saint Helens
Mount Saint Helens, 45 years after eruption, still going topless, but the foothills are turning green with new growth and the succession to taller trees and dense undergrowth is evident all around. A bit hazy this particular day, but still spectacular. The view from this side clearly shows the eruption basin.

According to an article in Nautilus, “Though mountains cover only 25 percent of all land on Earth outside of Antarctica, they’re home to some 87 percent of all species of birds, mammals, and amphibians.”

Is this not amazing?

I thought about this – how the Earth is a dynamic planet, with volcanoes erupting, landslides tumbling, shelves shifting … as the world turns, the seasons change, the climate rises up or descends into an ice age … all the changing rivers, tides, and storms that shape a landscape — it is all these interconnecting systems from the very large to the microclimate that determine whether a place is habitable or not and to what.  

During all this upheaval, no matter where you are, a variety of life forms are managing to find food, shelter, and raise the next generation, often under radically changing circumstances. Whether survival depends on being able to leave,  or remain while escaping some tumultuous event or surviving extreme conditions, or arriving someplace new – whether plant, animal, fungal, microbial – finding food and surviving – the diversity in a location is shaped by all these changing physical and geologic forces.  

This complex interacting web of connection seems so obvious – but for some reason, I haven’t always thought of how much the ecology is shaped by the changing forces in the geology. Ahhh, but stand at the foot of a volcano years after the fact…


More Info:

Valentine, Syris. April 23, 2025. As Mountains Rise, Biodiversity Blooms, Steeper, faster, and higher peaks make more species

Marder, E., TM Smiley, et al., Science. 387:6740, pp 1287-1291. “Direct effects of mountain uplift and topography on biodiversity.” March 20, 2025. DOI: 10.1126/science.adp7290.


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