Dickman Mill

This mill in Tacoma's Old Town was the last of the lumber mills along Ruston Way to close. It shut down in 1977 and burned down in 1979....

Point Defiance

While Owen Beach was broad and stable and seemed well stocked with sediment, the situation changes as you walk north toward Point Defiance i...

Owen Beach

The shoreline of Point Defiance offers some interesting contrasts - as this and the next post will show.  On the east side, Owen Beach is a ...

Penrose Point

Pulling out seawalls has become pretty popular in the last few years around Puget Sound.  I guess we've discovered that many of them are...

Chambers Bay

I think this beach is where I'll bring the class in May, since it's close to the classroom (which looks down on it from the top of t...

McNeil Island

We spent most of the day mapping our way around McNeil Island.  As a result of its prison status, the island has actually avoided the intens...

Hyde Point

This little pair of spits is located just north of Hyde Point on the east side of McNeil Island.  Most of our mapping was from the boat, but...

Gertrude Island

Gertrude is another small island just offshore of McNeil, this one on the north side at the mouth of Still Harbor.  It's off limits to f...

Pitt Island

Pitt Island is pretty small - a hectare or so of madrone and fir and poison oak sticking out of the narrow channel between the Key Peninsula...

Foss Waterway

Tacoma, the City of Destiny, was destined to be built on the hills that rise above the western edge of the Puyallup Delta. The Foss probably...

Kamus Drive

The wet conditions that led into the winter of 1998-99 must have exceeded some region-wide threshold.  Deep-seated slides reactivated all ov...