Fern Cove and Lower Shinglemill

Shinglemill Creek is one of the most pristine drainage areas on Vashon. It flows from Fisher Pond (among other reaches along the top of the island) to its mouth at Fern Cove on the northwest corner of Vashon. It is one of the few salmon bearing creeks on the island with small runs of Coho and Cutthroat Trout.

Fern Cove: Fern Cove is comprised of 13.5 acres with 750 feet of shoreline with two year-round streams, an estuarine system, a paulistrine system, and riparian forest. Both Shinglemill Creek and Baldwin Creek empty into Colvos Passage at Fern Cove creating the extensive estuarine system and the distinct delta when seen from the air. A community group called Friends of Fern Cove orchestrated the purchase of Fern Cove in 1994. It was then transferred to the Vashon Park District.

Lower Shinglemill Creek: The lower part of the Shinglemill Creek Salmon Preserve lies in the deep canyon of the Shinglemill Creek which is a Class-2 anadromous fish-bearing stream. The stream bed is gravel/pebble/sand with numerous pools and riffles, and woody matter. The understory is predominately salmonberry and sword fern. The canopy is typical lowland forest of alder, maple, willow, hemlock, fir, and cedar. Standing dead trees of mature age and layered organic and sand substrata testify to numerous flood events and stream channel migrations. The steep canyon slopes are heavily forested.

ACCESS
Lower Shinglemill can be accessed along the old road that takes off toward the south from the bottom of the hill along Cedarhurst Road. There is parking for several cars at the gate and on the shoulder. The preserve is open during daylight hours. Walking up the old road, there are several paths down to the creek. One item of interest is is the "seven hemlock stump", which is an old growth Western Red Cedar stump with clearly preserved springboard holes, and seven sizable hemlock trees growing from it. After crossing the wooden bridge to the old Oswalt house site, the trail ends.

Fern Cove is best accessed at the clearly marked driveway about 600 feet to the north of the creek. The public should park along Cedarhust Road and walk in. At Fern Cove public access is limited to daylight hours and non vehicular traffic. The resident and personal guests are normally the only ones permitted vehicular access. Just inside the gate, there is a footpath off to the right that follows Baldwin Creek downstream. The footpath rejoins the driveway about halfway to the residence. From there, proceed down the driveway, past the "carriage house" (now a garage), past the carport, and along the cedar fence down to the water. The small stream to the right is Baldwin Creek, and the larger stream on the left is Shinglemill Creek. Walking in the tidelands here is sometimes tricky, and rubber boots may be useful.

Salmon Observations
Salmon returns in Shinglemill Creek have been documented every winter since 1998 when the Land Trust sponsored Salmon Watcher program was started in cooperation with King County. Lower Shinglemill was divided into five reaches, and five individuals or pairs agreed to walk their respective reaches regularly and report salmon sightings. These sightings confirmed that there are both Chum and Coho returning to spawn, and in the spring there are salmon fry in the quiet pools in the vicinity of observed salmon redds.

The fate of the naturally hatched fry is not well known. For many more years than there has been a Land Trust, there has been sportsman-sponsored salmon stocking in Shinglemill. Indeed it may be that all of the returning salmon are descended from fish in stocking programs. It is known that sportsmen obtain Coho fry from a Green River hatchery and release them into Lower Shinglemill. These are well-fed, healthy fry which are larger than the naturally hatched Coho fry that were observed earlier. The newly planted fry will naturally compete with the existing for the food supply. What is not known is how each group fares in this competition. It is presumed that predation may take a heavier toll in the stocked population. In at least one spring when the stocking was done cooperatively between the stockers (sportsmen) and the stalkers (salmon watchers), there seemed to be distinct schools of fry identifiable as natural or hatchery for several weeks after stocking. As time went on, fewer and fewer fry were observed. The declines may have been partly due to fry migrating upstream, fry becoming more wily, fry starving for lack of appropriate food or successful predation. There are more opinions than facts on what is healthy and what is unhealthy in all of this. On the one hand, some would like to leave it all to nature, and take our chances on the population dying out for lack of restocking, and others would like to help nature heal Shinglemill salmon runs.

Whatever their ancestors and place of hatching, there are returning salmon every year, and there are proposals for programs to help nature to improve their habitat, their diet, their competition with hatchery salmon, and of course proposals to leave everything alone. No clear course of action is indicated at this time, so it is likely that several more years of passive observation along with regular stocking with hatchery stock will continue.