Since Providence is clearly overwhelmed, how can the region divert some of this patient load to other hospitals?

I know location and insurance are important factors in choosing where to go for ER care, but it doesn't make sense if Providence is consistently overwhelmed for such large numbers of patients to keep going there.

I'm thankful it's not worse.

I can see the dead trees on the flanks of Baring Mountain, but fortunately a lot of trees still alive closer to the location this photo was taken from. Most of that is burned area, too, but fortunately the fire mostly stayed at lower intensity after the first two days, so the underbrush burned through there, but a lot of the trees should have survived.

There's a nice map of the burn severity here. I'm hoping to go hike up there soon to get a better sense of what this really means on the ground, but I haven't checked the current status of forest roads in the area:

https://inciweb-prod-media-bucket.s3.us-gov-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/%5Bdate%3Acustom%3AY%5D-%5Bdate%3Acustom%3Am%5D/BoltCreek_SoilBurnSeverity_Public_8x11_land.pdf?VersionId=lXlc.KbasSDVqBMS6LIfmb2g_q8M0KY0

> Likewise, if you don't want to be attacked by a grizzly, either feel free to not hike in grizzly county

Yes, that's my primary plan. But apparently your plan is to make that more difficult for me by promoting their reintroduction to the places I normally hike.

If you want to convince me it's a good idea, you need a better argument than sentimentality.

> Bears aren’t interested in attacking you.

They aren't usually interested in hunting people, but it does happen from time-to-time.

Once they've established a home range, however, they can be very interested in defending their territory, especially during mating season. Having read a variety of stories about bears attacks as part of trying to be an aware hiker, they always make me relieved we only have black bears in our area.

Reading a book on the Lewis and Clark expedition in particular made an impression on me. When the natives were telling them stories about grizzlies, they could couldn't wait to encounter one to show off how much braver and better hunters they were.

Actually encountering grizzlies cured the party of that enthusiasm, and Lewis actually almost died in one of the encounters.

https://lewis-clark.org/sciences/mammals/bears/grizzly-bear-encounters/

Blizzards are part of nature, too, but you don't want to encounter those, either. We don't have control over blizzards, though.

Somewhere in between when you spot the bear and when the bear rips your jaw from your skull, because that's a grizzly's instinctive fighting technique, is where nature probably stops being pleasant. I don't know the exact line, but it's definitely before it switches to tearing open your abdomen to enjoy your liver.

I don't have an absolute opinion on whether grizzlies should be reintroduced to the north Cascades, but I do have a very strong opinion that if we do so, there had better be an overwhelmingly compelling reason to accept the increased risks of having a far more aggressive species of bear in an area where human activity has increased by leaps and bounds over the last century.

My view is similar.

I visited Sol Duc Falls this summer, and easily concluded that as a highly trafficked area, it was not the place to explore. The traffic volume would affect the off-trail area heavily, and lot's of other people around who might not be as careful as I would. And most of the area around that particular waterfall is not forgiving.

Plus I had my kids with me.

> Apparently bodies (human and animal) that go into the hot pools simply dissolve from the heat and high acidity.

I've heard a couple related stories. Here's one from July:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yellowstone-foot-found-in-abyss-pool-hot-spring-linked-to-death/

I guess the shoe helped protect the foot.

Another case was in 2016 when a couple of adult siblings went looking for a hot springs to soak in. The brother climbed down to a pool to check the temperature, but slipped and fell in. His sister was filming him climbing down, and reportedly still had the video running as she tried to help him out.

In the end, there was nothing she could do but run to the nearest ranger station for help. By the time rangers arrived, he was, unsurprisingly, not responsive. They could not recover his body that evening, and when they returned the next day, there was no sign of him. They believed his body had already dissolved. They recorded the temperature of the pool as right around boiling. The park service thankfully declined to release the video his sister took.

That's a pretty grim reminder to respect the signs. He died a terrifying and painful death, and his sister undoubtedly had that scene burned into her memory.

Every so often the lake gets low enough you can see some of what was flooded. Mostly it is tree stumps, but I remember exploring one year when I was in high school, and seeing an old bridge that was collapsed (I think the story is they demolished it prior to completing the dam), and some foundations.

Here's some similar photos (not mine). I think the first one is the bridge I mentioned:

http://www.ghosttownsofwashington.com/kosmos.html

Seattle's drinking water doesn't come from glaciers. The entirety of the Cedar River Watershed and the South Fork Tolt River Watershed are below 5500 feet. There's no glaciers there. Most of their area is below 4,000 feet. They typically have completed melting out by late May or early June, and the remaining inflows are from percolation through the ground.

These supplies last through the summer primarily based on storage behind a couple small dams on the upper reaches of Cedar and South Fork Tolt Rivers.

Seattle has had great success with conservation efforts delaying the point when demand from the growing population exceeds that supply. I think it's been pushed back literal decades, if I remember right. Climate change may accelerate it slightly again because the spring snowpack is effectively additional storage.

Regardless, whenever it happens, the response will be to raise the dams on either or both of those lakes to increase the storage capacity.

I've taken my Civic up a lot of forest roads in the area, and that would be similar to a Prius. Since my wife got an Outback, we usually take that instead, but out of convenience, rather than necessity.

I have not tried the road to the Pilchuck trailhead. There are only two forest roads we've done in the Outback bad enough that I might consider turning back if I tried them in my Civic: the roads to Ashland Lakes (FS 4020) and the road to Evergreen Mountain Lookout (FS 6550).

I actually think I could do both in a Civic. It would just be slow going to pick lines around and through all the giant holes and erosion ruts.