Puyallup River

But, um, I remember hearing stories a lot about people seeing bears around the campgrounds, but I never did.

You know, we saw the one on the Puyallup River, and that's the only time I saw one growing up.

Um, they must've been in the area.

But you know, the problem with that region is it's, the brush is so thick, is the animals could be there and you wouldn't see 'em.

Okay.

We are in Washington State, specifically at the Route 509 bridge, which crosses the Puyallup River.

And, well, a train derailment occurs right beneath span number eight.

Right.

So the story there is that I have a colleague, Pat Pringle, who lives in Washington and was a professor at Centralia College.

And he's a geologist and had been out driving the area and noticed that there were excavations happening in the Puyallup River Valley in this town of Orting.

where there were new housing going in and saw that as our sites being excavated for the houses, that the trees were being exposed and that these trees were buried in Lahar material.

And so he was able to go get his chainsaw and sample these trees.