Since I live across the continent from most of my family, I’m obliged to return east periodically. During my time in Alaska I flew almost exclusively on this migration, primarily because it was the most expedient way to get to where I needed to go. If I have the time though, I’d rather travel by other means. With some time to spare before my summer job at North Cascades National Park begins, I traveled by train from Bellingham, WA to Pittsburgh, PA.

I’m not a train fanatic, but the railroad allows me see a good deal of the landscape and perhaps some wildlife without the risks involved with highway driving. On the train, I could sit in my seat and gaze eagerly out the window to watch the landscape pass by. My first wildlife sighting began even before I stepped onboard.

While waiting for the train in Bellingham, I watched a crow land in a parking lot with something large in its bill. This was nothing unusual as crows are fond of scavenging garbage, but as soon as the crow landed I noticed its prize was moving. I hurriedly yanked my binoculars out of my daypack to get a better look.

The crow had caught and was killing a semi-neonate cottontail rabbit. After it dispatched and partly consumed its prey, the crow returned to catch and kill another kit. With more than it could eat, the crow cached pieces of the rabbits in nearby trees and shrubs. It was a fairly gruesome death for the rabbits, but crows gotta eat too.

Life and death struggles happen even in city parking lots.

Once onboard the train and traveling from Bellingham to Seattle, I witnessed no more battles between predator and prey. The rest of the ride, in fact, was quite pleasant. The Cascade route provided plenty of views of Puget Sound, where many birds lounged and fished in the water near shore. I enjoyed glimpses of birds like blue herons, cormorants, gulls, more crows, and brant.

Puget Sound is a glacially carved trough. The boulder in the middle foreground is likely a glacial erratic.

Where I couldn’t see the water, the route often passed through rich farmland where large rivers like the Skagit and Snohomish have deposited broad floodplains.

After transferring to the Empire Builder in Seattle, my route reversed north before it turned east up the Snohomish and Skykomish rivers valleys toward the Cascade Mountains, which were quite showy under clear skies.

This section of rail, besides letting me enjoy scenes of lush forest, provided a conspicuous example of habitat changes due to climate, particularly the Cascades’ rain shadow effect. When moisture-laden storms from the Pacific reach the Cascades, the rising air cools and drops a considerable amount of its moisture on the west side of the mountains. Far less remains to wet the mountains’ eastern slopes.

Skykomish, WA at 900 feet in elevation, for example, receives a whopping 91 inches of precipitation per year. The forests of this valley, except where recently clear-cut, are lush and thick and moss hangs prominently from stout big leaf maple branches.

Lush forest cloak the western slopes of the Cascades.

Around 2900 feet in elevation, the train entered an eight-mile long tunnel and passed underneath the Cascade crest. When the train exited the tunnel on the east side of the Cascades, the forest was noticeably different. Trees were sparser and included a higher proportion of drought tolerant species like ponderosa pine.

Many mountainsides east of the Cascade crest are noticeably drier and less forested than equivalent areas to the west.

As the train descended the Wenatchee River valley to the Columbia River, the climate became drier and drier. Soon enough, sagebrush and bitterbrush mixed with widely scattered trees as we approached Wenatchee around sunset. About 780 feet in elevation, Wenatchee receives only 11 inches of annual precipitation. Along the Columbia River, as night fell, the route crossed a dramatically drier environment compared to the lush forests not far to the west. I could see few trees except those planted by people.

Darkness concealed central and eastern Washington’s landscape, which I knew would happen but was still disappointing because I missed viewing any of the unique and spectacular channeled scablands. I went to bed looking forward to more sightseeing.

In a future post, I’ll describe days two and three on the train where the land continued to offer more reasons to be glued to the window.