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Date:  August 3, 2002

Location  Iron Mt. Weed Pull

Where:  Sweet Home Ranger District, Willamette National Forest

 

 On this Saturday I drove to the Sweet Home Ranger Station to participate in the Iron Mountain Weed Pull. Alice Smith, botanist with the Sweet Home Ranger District, annually directs this weed-pulling event on Iron Mountain. Willamette National Forest staff and volunteers drove to the upper parking lot on Iron Mountain and spent the day pulling up the noxious St. John's-wort. The idea is to try and prevent this invasive weed, a European import, from over taking the less aggressive native plants.

Volunteers pulling St. John's-wort

St. John's-wort

For me, after years of dutifully staying on the hiking trail, it was quite fascinating to clamber up the mountainside off-trail while in search of St. John's-wort. While bent over pulling up the yellow flowered weed, I spotted a black shiny object, I thought perhaps a scrap of black plastic, but no, it was an obsidian point. After showing the group and photographing it, it was returned to its ancient resting place.

Obsidian point