tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14073741105678572822024-02-16T02:17:10.002-08:00Borrowed TimesWords & WildernessJason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.comBlogger119125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-76588474478794786472014-02-24T21:15:00.000-08:002014-02-25T00:46:24.389-08:00Salmon River Journal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOqrtFQqFVT_5mb6JizAL5MPHGunE7CFbGd_nx-scXQBZCyTnyVZITWValqdbNU5a2lgxfSjlFfjgewIOffeTxxTZnf5jX4kBPpzuMTluLzUm4AHVc7jPxHwErAbVc9Hn65XFV3IyptsbM/s1600/DSCN0536.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOqrtFQqFVT_5mb6JizAL5MPHGunE7CFbGd_nx-scXQBZCyTnyVZITWValqdbNU5a2lgxfSjlFfjgewIOffeTxxTZnf5jX4kBPpzuMTluLzUm4AHVc7jPxHwErAbVc9Hn65XFV3IyptsbM/s1600/DSCN0536.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
I.<br />
<br />
At the bank of the Salmon the river’s mind is evident. So
too is its subtlety. Boulders attend the shores and hunker in the current,
carving the water into channels, into deep green pools where trout hide and
pebbles are smoothed. Moss on the larger rocks holds wildflower seeds safe
until spring. The stripped boles of trees lie across the stream, or jut from
the brush out over the water, and holding it all is the white-noise voice of
the current itself, come down from the mountains with soft syllables that sneak
up on you when pronounced. For a few minutes I stand in silence – not a true
silence, but the silence of my own kind – and listen. It helps to think like
water, constantly moving, never settling, exploring every stone and every hole
and every eddy, every pool, every little rapid now contributing to the
conversation taking place, and it takes time to sort them all out. <br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I don’t know if I can.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhRSkeLaU_e5NlsEshCbkTQ0Am-6MdwByTy3XYLavSGCcOSBLlr7wvXF4_ug5nFyR_dmbsWd6HAAJwS1TLpH23_xR8nLvIxXGeAdRHcyOukKGKNb3q8IYassLIi6mu6OdRmjBAK0qu-tl0/s1600/DSCN0568.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhRSkeLaU_e5NlsEshCbkTQ0Am-6MdwByTy3XYLavSGCcOSBLlr7wvXF4_ug5nFyR_dmbsWd6HAAJwS1TLpH23_xR8nLvIxXGeAdRHcyOukKGKNb3q8IYassLIi6mu6OdRmjBAK0qu-tl0/s1600/DSCN0568.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
II.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I haven’t listened much to rivers lately. My thoughts tend towards
mountains, towards alpine meadows and tiny tarns, towards heather and bent fir,
and ridges between glaciers. Towards the source. But down here, in valleys
thick with ancient trees and ancient communities and truly wild growth, there’s
wisdom more fecund and more creative and more entrenched than that of the
seasonal blush of the windy heights. The wildflowers of glacial till and volcanic
ash are beautiful and strong, but their tenuous grip is diminutive and
sentimental, compared to the deep rooted hold of cedar and mycelia and
rhizomes, among the mushrooms and the ferns.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
But I can’t compare. Sentimentality is just an emotion I
assign, unconnected to reality in the way these mossy Doug firs and red cedars
are. There are bear and cougar in the shadows that don’t care about my
sentimentality. The river itself would drown me if I let it. Voles that never
come down from the top branches don’t care where I step, and if I step on a
fawn lily will the fawn lily care? The trees have seen many people like me stop
and look up at the wild light filtering through the boughs. But every lily on
the floor is unique.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXtHjKSKi8Dd0Xy5e97o4SqIX3j9C79Hvhyg1AyDEQa7oC8kIB8DCG3S5p_qG5JHgZ84DNE4loRkZUt54l_VRSodfD2SHB8oL92MablxMbAKiqJ07vL72s5jOiRPDvt5y-Ict-Zt5x99SM/s1600/DSCN0530.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXtHjKSKi8Dd0Xy5e97o4SqIX3j9C79Hvhyg1AyDEQa7oC8kIB8DCG3S5p_qG5JHgZ84DNE4loRkZUt54l_VRSodfD2SHB8oL92MablxMbAKiqJ07vL72s5jOiRPDvt5y-Ict-Zt5x99SM/s1600/DSCN0530.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
III.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Life down here by the river has been at it for centuries,
promised in the soil and stream, and angling for the sky, rain, and snow,
trying again and again. Life at the tree-line may be equally as old – skeletons
of white pine and rings of lichen on the hardest outcrops, growing an inch
every hundred years – but it is as rarified as the air, perched upon an arête
where chance landed it and gave it a single summer to make it or die.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
How comforting, then, to see this shrine survive in such a transient
perch. I clasp my hands before it, say “Delightful is the place where the
sprits dwell” five times, and like the river, I flow on to another rocky beach,
where the wet stones are the product of a different sort of sentience, one that
investigates river and mountains thoroughly.</div>
Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-34139362210894271712014-02-06T11:00:00.000-08:002014-02-06T15:09:08.758-08:00Spirit of Winter: The Benson Bridge Closure<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIJv6QUI9N-2PzryFc5219jWwLJ_cjdTmqLxO0-aTifo4ToPfyDHXMHekEwiPZ0VTasPUEC82C-2f3leUpLfjYLYEm4gSNq-fVwGMz7Kub6GfOQl6cZm2oHgvNABy2_91fvJ_JY_DoNkor/s1600/12+December+A.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIJv6QUI9N-2PzryFc5219jWwLJ_cjdTmqLxO0-aTifo4ToPfyDHXMHekEwiPZ0VTasPUEC82C-2f3leUpLfjYLYEm4gSNq-fVwGMz7Kub6GfOQl6cZm2oHgvNABy2_91fvJ_JY_DoNkor/s1600/12+December+A.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
“For many summers the white water has dropped </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
from the cliff into the pool below. Sometimes in winter </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
the spirit of the brave and beautiful maiden comes back </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
to see the waterfall. Dressed in white, she stands </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
among the trees at one side of <st1:place w:st="on">Multnomah Falls</st1:place>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
There she looks upon the place where she made </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
her great sacrifice and thus saved her lover </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
and her people from death.”</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Ella Clark, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Indian Legends of the <st1:place w:st="on">Pacific Northwest</st1:place></i></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Here’s something you can’t get to right now: the splash-pool
on the first drop at Multnomah Falls, as seen from the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Benson</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Bridge</st1:placename></st1:place>.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
A few weeks ago, rock-fall damaged the iconic bridge, and it
has been closed since. It could be Memorial Day before the bridge is repaired and
hikers can easily access the multitude of trails above the falls, which include
the popular Multnomah-to-Wahkeena Loop, the Elevator Shaft, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Benson</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Plateau</st1:placename></st1:place>,
and the Larch Mountain Trail. Except for the loop, these trails aren’t closed,
but access is more difficult. As a hiker, I find the lengthy repair incredibly
frustrating. As an Oregonian, I consider it an affront.<o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p>The Benson Bridge is a major tourist attraction, and a crown jewel of Oregon. It belongs to the people, and its repair should be a priority.</o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Frankly, I don’t understand why it isn't. The reason must lie in bureaucracy, and the red tape always
attached to regulations governing maintenance and repair of historic landmarks.
And while the <st1:placename w:st="on">Benson</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Bridge</st1:placename> is perhaps <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Oregon</st1:place></st1:state>’s most recognizable architecture,
it’s also made from concrete and rebar. Once the red tape is cleared away, the
actual fix should be straightforward and quick. The damage is to the rail and
part of the walking surface, and the structural integrity of the bridge is
intact and undamaged.</div>
<br />
Aside from reopening access to the area’s trails, there are
other good reasons to hasten the repair. Two and a half million reasons, in
fact. Multnomah Falls is <st1:state w:st="on">Oregon</st1:state>’s most visited
natural attraction, drawing more people than <st1:place w:st="on">Crater Lake</st1:place>.
Not being able to walk up to the bridge is like going to the natural history
museum and finding out the dinosaur exhibit is closed. Sure, there’s still a
lot of cool stuff to look at. But there are no dinosaurs.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
On the other side of the bridge, the trail climbs to a
viewing platform at the top of the nation’s second highest waterfall, at 620ft.
That trail and viewing platform are effectively closed, unless you hike several
miles and descend from trails above the falls. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Yet, the thing that probably irks me the most is the fact
that Simon Benson, a lumber baron and philanthropist, donated the land and the
falls to the people and state of <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Oregon</st1:place></st1:state>
more than a century ago. The bridge was built in 1914. That means this is the
100<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Benson</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Bridge</st1:placename></st1:place>, and it will
likely be closed for almost half of the year.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Ella Clark, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Indian
Legends of the Pacific Northwest</i>, relates the story of a Multnomah wedding
feast stricken by plague, and saved only through the sacrifice of the bride,
after she discovers plague marks on her lover’s face. It’s a beautiful story
befitting one of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on">Oregon</st1:state></st1:place>’s
natural treasures, and it resonates all the more now because part of that treasure
is denied to us. When the maiden stood at the top of the cliff, preparing to
leap, she said to the Great Spirit, “If you will accept me as a sacrifice for
my people, let some token hang in the sky.” Just then, the moon rose, and she leapt.
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
There’s snow in the forecast this week, and the maiden in
white will stand again at the side of the falls. What will she think of that
silent bridge hanging broken in the sky?</div>
</div>
Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-38480659139279457902014-01-26T17:39:00.002-08:002014-02-06T00:41:25.081-08:00Rime and Reason: Wind Mountain, January 19th, 2014Somewhere near the summit of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Wind</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Mountain</st1:placetype></st1:place>,
I realized that I was pushing myself too hard. Not because this was my first
hike of the year, and my conditioning isn’t great. And not because of the steep
trail, still crossed by multitudes of trees that fell in the ice storm last
winter. Instead, it was a realization that I wasn’t really <em>there</em>. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNV8qZaeifvisdtKw4EK47vqAzXL3hrzYl-0UQfvP_8txGVO7dOyeMrNrnSFXIe3kK5Tp-gVeOgcwariN0i8lFK7FQ2ssIbuTvKpoBoPUEIH358JsyhyphenhyphenS4uiEP-9heWKRaHhXi0IyUzNDt/s1600/DSCN0119.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNV8qZaeifvisdtKw4EK47vqAzXL3hrzYl-0UQfvP_8txGVO7dOyeMrNrnSFXIe3kK5Tp-gVeOgcwariN0i8lFK7FQ2ssIbuTvKpoBoPUEIH358JsyhyphenhyphenS4uiEP-9heWKRaHhXi0IyUzNDt/s1600/DSCN0119.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
The first, uphill part of the hike focused my attention on
my breathing and the lactic acid in my quads. After the switchback halfway to
the summit, frost became visible on the trees, then on the understory, and
finally on the trail and talus. I slowed to take photos and enjoy the sun and
blue sky and white rime.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I kept climbing, and soon passed into the protected, quiet
forest just below the summit and talus slopes. The forest was decked out with
ice and a soft glow. I followed the trail to the western viewpoint, ducked
under some tree branches, and found my way out to a very un-January-like view
of the Columbia River Gorge. Here in the sun, out of the eastern wind, it was
warm, although flakes of rime fluttered down from the trees. But there was
almost no snow to be seen, just a little visible on the summit of <st1:placetype w:st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype> <st1:placename w:st="on">Defiance</st1:placename>,
and in the gap between clouds to the north, where <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype> St</st1:address></st1:street>.
Helens</st1:place> was a white snow-peak in a band of sky. The view stretched down-river
west past Beacon Rock, just visible in a narrow haze below the floating outline
of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Table</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Mountain</st1:placetype></st1:place>. The <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Oregon</st1:place></st1:state> side of the gorge was silhouetted by
the sun, a deep blue wash with a thin layer of cloud breaking over Shellrock
Mountain Two thousand feet below, the highway ran past lumber yards and green
fields and small communities of houses and road-side businesses.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzY2pKgz7NEQvBvQnNcpkAcRHj8eEm-Mwb1qGNegsl0BfYNd6ETehQhCY8A8hwtRRMwCn4WkQHfn96hgHp7CcUy8Vq64d2hdH3hyphenhyphenGPsL5ErMr3yUjqfyZ2Y67zKSQPUN_itcwYS1AovHzo/s1600/DSCN0229.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzY2pKgz7NEQvBvQnNcpkAcRHj8eEm-Mwb1qGNegsl0BfYNd6ETehQhCY8A8hwtRRMwCn4WkQHfn96hgHp7CcUy8Vq64d2hdH3hyphenhyphenGPsL5ErMr3yUjqfyZ2Y67zKSQPUN_itcwYS1AovHzo/s1600/DSCN0229.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I explored a small ridge on the south side of the summit
before heading back up and to the eastern viewpoint, at the top of a large
rocky slope filled with native vision pits. On this side of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Wind</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Mountain</st1:placetype></st1:place>,
the wind was fierce and cold, and I gladly put on the gloves my brother gave me
at Christmas – the tips of the thumbs and pointer fingers fold back and secure
with magnets, which allowed me to take photos and spend a lot of time in
comfort despite the elements. Ice coated the summit trees and shrubs, and grew
in feathery patterns on the rock. <st1:placename w:st="on">Dog</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Mountain</st1:placetype>, snowless, filled the view, and a thin
sliver of the river was visible between Dog’s base and the featureless shore of
the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on">Oregon</st1:state></st1:place>
gorge. The sky was filled with thin bright cloud, and the almost total lack of
anything man-made – aside from the vision pits – finally succeeded in breaking
my feeling of being elsewhere.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
My plan was to hike up <st1:placename w:st="on">Wind</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">Mountain</st1:placetype>, then drive east to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Catherine</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Creek</st1:placename></st1:place> to inspect a shrine some friends
had built on a trail-less ridge overlooking the river. I’d hurried up <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Wind</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Mountain</st1:placetype></st1:place>,
taking photos and viewpoints in a rush, with my mind occupied by the physical
demands of the year’s first hike and the need to get to the next hike with
enough time before the winter sunset. <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Wind</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Mountain</st1:placetype></st1:place>
is small enough that a few other hikers can crowd the summit quite easily, and
I knew my time at the summit alone was limited and precious. In short, I’d
forgotten to be in the moment.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCA4d5vvdhtevFPl_zg9l5xMv1qfDmxpudT_qp_eA9VrQ-AzB_cLa1_20S1tv18JwiYdBm2U0UFzxmzzrpoStmZMp1XD_T6ePGuiS9082dZ7683YjhsBuf9ecaNyTqz2rzMmMnD1OdhZ-J/s1600/DSCN0253+A.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCA4d5vvdhtevFPl_zg9l5xMv1qfDmxpudT_qp_eA9VrQ-AzB_cLa1_20S1tv18JwiYdBm2U0UFzxmzzrpoStmZMp1XD_T6ePGuiS9082dZ7683YjhsBuf9ecaNyTqz2rzMmMnD1OdhZ-J/s1600/DSCN0253+A.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Looking east, into the cold wind, at the summit of one
mountain and surrounded by more, I finally shed the distractions I’d carried
with me since leaving <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Portland</st1:place></st1:city>.
I was suddenly <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">present</i>, in a subtle
yet powerful shift of perception, the embodiment of Keats’ negative capability
– “<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">when a man is capable of being in
uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and
reason” – and </span>I held all those opposing thoughts to hurry up and to slow
down in my mind without apparent contradiction. Shit, I thought, I’m on top of
the mountain. Keep climbing.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I poked around for a while, enjoying the expansive view and
sun solitude until I heard voices, and I stepped out of the frozen wonderland
and headed back down the trail, nodding to some hikers who were enjoying the
balmier view west. In my lightened mood it didn’t take long to reach the
trailhead, and I made it to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Catherine</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Creek</st1:placename></st1:place> with plenty of time
to spare. The shrine and the nearby prayer flags were intact and keeping the
peace among the moss and basalt, and I enjoyed the change of pace by stretching
out on the thick winter grass with a beer in hand, watching raptors circle
overhead in the overcast sky as if I wasn’t really there.</div>
Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-87058031045226086322014-01-16T01:35:00.000-08:002014-02-06T00:41:42.525-08:00And the Seeds That Were Silent All Burst into Bloom<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipBQC2EEetSFRxkgxBtty_zfsNZUYm2XO2pZlRATUFqbnrxi1YLI7XqGgMUfJDPNfwqjR5MtvJVpWvy64WjoRhgSOnPxl7irhxeDNNSkkeF1I_OtEWAYpfJIUQ0AoYWHFIIWQa6qZ-Us9v/s1600/DSCN0631.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipBQC2EEetSFRxkgxBtty_zfsNZUYm2XO2pZlRATUFqbnrxi1YLI7XqGgMUfJDPNfwqjR5MtvJVpWvy64WjoRhgSOnPxl7irhxeDNNSkkeF1I_OtEWAYpfJIUQ0AoYWHFIIWQa6qZ-Us9v/s1600/DSCN0631.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
I have yet to go hiking this year. It’s driving me crazy.
I’m getting older and heavier, and work is stressful. I like to sleep in, but
the sun sets early. There’s no excuse. City life can be hectic and uncertain,
bordered by mundane regularity, and it’s nice to get away from that and soak in
some of nature’s cycles and rhythms. One of those cycles is coming around again
now: Grass widow is beginning to bloom again at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Catherine</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Creek</st1:placename></st1:place>,
and I need to go reintroduce myself. <br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<st1:placename w:st="on">Catherine</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Creek</st1:placename> rises from the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Columbia</st1:city></st1:place> with miles of rolling hillside cut
by streams, meadows, stands of oak, solitary ponderosa, mixed forests, and
towering basalt cliffs. Abandoned dirt roads and a wild profusion of bike and
hiking trails run everywhere. There are a thousand hidden places to discover,
yet the views stretch far upriver and down. It’s possible to spend an entire
day in solitude by a burbling creek or lichen-encrusted outcrop of stone,
sitting on soft moss surrounded by wildflowers, watching raptors ride updrafts
and listening to meadowlarks sing. Tilting fence posts strung with rusty barbed
wire are reminders of a recent past when these hills were grazed by cattle, but
now deer file through the grass at dusk to browse the meadows, and in spring,
the thin soil swells with water and luxuriant moss.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilVX-c_1iVDt_NTrw_uW-GjP3iYdM2-bb9qqrGJXzxzFA4B1C1uD03aBXFH_OCb-5vsyFCOQ5C632XyasW-5kziIE6wGw4pN5bMUNKsG466NmINdxrFin6rYxjSslkRclJFLCOyG9pgasD/s1600/DSCN9988.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilVX-c_1iVDt_NTrw_uW-GjP3iYdM2-bb9qqrGJXzxzFA4B1C1uD03aBXFH_OCb-5vsyFCOQ5C632XyasW-5kziIE6wGw4pN5bMUNKsG466NmINdxrFin6rYxjSslkRclJFLCOyG9pgasD/s1600/DSCN9988.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Grass widows begin to bloom in January, but really get going
in February and March, when they cover the rolling hillsides in clusters of
vibrant green stems and blossoms that range from purple, violet, and pink to
deep magenta. They do best in wet soil and moss, and blossom in grass as well, often
near fallen trees where the soil is held together by additional organic matter.
Grass widows are perennials, and when they die back, they relinquish the
meadows to wave after wave of wildflowers deep into the heat of summer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Like hundreds of other species, grass widows were named
after David Douglas, the Scottish naturalist who first described them
scientifically at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Celilo</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">Falls</st1:placetype></st1:place> in 1826. Years
later, scientists classify grass widows as two separate species. The first, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Olsynium douglasii</i>, is distinguished by
petals with rounded tips (formerly <i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Sisyrinchium
douglasii</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">). </span>The second species, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Olsynium
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">inflatum</span></i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">, has petals with
pointed tips and inflated filaments (formerly <i>Sisyrinchium douglasii</i> var.
<i>inflatum</i>). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Thankfully, you don’t have to be a botanist to enjoy acres of blooming
Grass widows. You don’t even need to get on your knees and study the petals to understand
them (although it’s recommended). But it’s critical to a real, deep, ecological
and ethical sense of place to know something about the flora and fauna living
in that place. If you love something, you owe it respect, attention, and a
receptive mind, at the very least. This is a fair trade. There are different
kinds of sentience and your presence in a place does not go unnoticed, just as
you should not let the presences in that place go unnoticed. Do not deceive
yourself into thinking that the earth stops observing you when your eyes are
closed. As the song goes, you are the eyes of the world.</span></div>
Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-28495995919928342042014-01-10T01:14:00.000-08:002014-01-10T01:14:38.216-08:00Peering Into Stumps<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-wtExj58rF1GN19dGxYzMctNFysEc6jafd_10V5l-xF-1ZZcO2-jltaElGRPlDx_ddkMyaeJcWfEWa59aR0Y_DQjBRcZpYVmWeEOG0UlyioJc_NW5gLemzyOnuXR_LF0FWhdp_s_ZGf3n/s1600/02+February+B.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-wtExj58rF1GN19dGxYzMctNFysEc6jafd_10V5l-xF-1ZZcO2-jltaElGRPlDx_ddkMyaeJcWfEWa59aR0Y_DQjBRcZpYVmWeEOG0UlyioJc_NW5gLemzyOnuXR_LF0FWhdp_s_ZGf3n/s1600/02+February+B.JPG" height="640" width="512" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">
<strong><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Dew and Spiderweb, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Silver
Falls State Park</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Oregon</st1:state></st1:place></span></strong></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Taken March 11<sup>th</sup>, 2013, with a Nikon P100 (cropped from original). </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Used for February in the 2014 Borrowed Times calendar.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have written before about my fondness for stumps. There’s
always something going on with them, and I can’t resist looking inside them. This
photo was taken at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Silver</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">Falls</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">State
Park</st1:placetype></st1:place>, on a rainy day in March, when very few of
the almost one million annual visitors were present. Their litter, however, was
left behind, and I cleaned up a ton of trash on the trail. The park service was
actively thinning trees while I was hiking there, and trail maintenance
prevented access and photography at several of the park’s ten namesake waterfalls.
All in all, it was a disappointing day in the woods, and I had to look
elsewhere for something resembling “an area where the earth and its community
of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not
remain." I found such an area, and it was in a stump.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I don’t recall what this stump looked like. I believe it was
a cedar, not too old, not too big, but there memory fails me. Part of the
problem with my memory of this stump is the fact that I didn’t look at it as a
whole. Rather, I looked inside it, and on it, and found a spider web that had
collected rain in a sheet of drops suspended between a vertical gap in the
decaying wood. The web was a net of silver threads anchored to sepia cedar and
a veneer of rich green lichen. Rain drops weighed it down, and sparkled, and
under them hung odd bits of rotten heartwood that had fallen and been caught in
mid-air. As a scene, the web and rain and stump were compact, hidden, and entirely
weather-dependent – I happened on it by chance (and a habit of peering into
stumps), when it existed in that exact combination of elements, and before the
rain collapsed the web, or dripped off the spider silk, or dried up. Of the
spider, there is no telling.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Although the web was smaller than the size of my hand, there
was room to get the camera underneath the web and shoot upwards towards the
rain. Getting the focus right was difficult, and water kept landing on the
lens. It took some time, but what else was I out there for? </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I quoted above part of the Wilderness Act of 1964, and while
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Silver</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Falls</st1:placetype></st1:place> is a state park and most
definitely not a wilderness, I was happy to find a small part of nature that
had not been dominated by man and his works. In that stump, nature went on
doing its thing – decomposing, raining, spinning webs, and creating beauty. I took
a few moments to appreciate that beauty, and study it through the lens of my
camera, and then I walked on down the trail, feeling a little bit more
untrammeled by the works of man.</span></div>
Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-43517572050309610582014-01-06T12:21:00.000-08:002014-01-06T12:21:16.845-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3RwTVXpC9Zl85j2LDRM5Nit2yUiZjD6PCj6Qg61hGAtcYvKb3xDl_QfEc_siaMX52IISLKPldAqOfOuKecqOgdGyUoIAQqWMMrvFPdH0veqZ3UsGEpL8LDv8hvEMqK6uiZgjdM8rvoc2c/s1600/01+January+B.JPG" height="640" width="480" /></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong></strong></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>Short Sands, Oswald West State Park, Oregon.</strong>
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Taken March 25th, 2013, with a Nikon P100.
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
This photograph snuck up on me. I didn’t realize how much I liked it until months later, well after I got home and had gone through the day’s photographs a few times. I like the oxide bleeding from the black stone, the intensity of the green sea-slime (or whatever it is), and the strange framing and sweep of the rock. I’m drawn to patterns and abstraction in nature, in the way that things line up with wild purpose and yet lack intent. A cliff-face like this one can be hidden in plain sight, simply being the way it is. At Short Sands, the attention is often held by surfers and waves, on the waterfall at the end of the cove, and in the swampy Sitka and cedar rainforest on the cape above. All of those things are active, moving, evolving. Yet, here’s some stone, a splash of color, some zen – slow, dawning, unhurried – and somehow in its simplicity more varied and evocative than the other images I brought home that day.</span>
</div>
</div>
Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-11207098312149235882013-01-25T10:51:00.001-08:002013-01-25T10:51:09.176-08:00Hiking with TamanawasFor my first "hike" of the year, my brother and I sought out icy waterfalls along the old Columbia River Highway in the Gorge. Every year, there's a period of cold, dry weather that allows the many waterfalls, streams, and seeps in the gorge to freeze, with patterns of ice decorating the rock and building up in splash-pools. I've written about this before, and wanted to write about this trip, but it took a while to figure out what to write about. The entire time was subdued, from the music in the truck to the last-minute mellow decision-making to the white noise of waterfalls and falling snow. Nothing stood out as a subject; I had to look for the little beauties in the day. And I found them, to a degree: an empty snail shell, a brightly colored ginger leaf covered in frost, a fern frond frozen in ice. Also, time in the quiet, the spaces between the trees. <br />
<br />
We started at Latourell Falls. Something about that stark amphitheater, with its black rock columns and incandescent yellow-green lichen and tall thin column of water, makes me feel spiritually and aesthetically at ease. It was one of the first solo hikes I ever took, up above the falls to another fall and back. But because it’s such a short hike, I’ve rarely been back, until I rediscovered Latourell in winter. Now it feels comfortably beautiful, like meeting an ex lover years later and becoming friends again, only without the heartache or loss or what-ifs or attraction (although she’s still gorgeous). Maybe that only happens in books, but it could happen – and if it did, it would be a good metaphor for Latourell Falls.<br />
<br />
It’s definitely my favorite waterfall in the gorge. <br />
<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibZco2yTXXCCMLg5hlvowIWxlNFHpKtaZIxlOcCxTvKm-pNSicCVgAEcxju_LVzXq7eDMTiAf5Kx1PIFPU964n3gfgbQZtDEBLqkHI-qo9n7EcLRWEnrJM97NpGE4m04CnrWiEvhknfJ-R/s1600/DSCN9391+A.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="300" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibZco2yTXXCCMLg5hlvowIWxlNFHpKtaZIxlOcCxTvKm-pNSicCVgAEcxju_LVzXq7eDMTiAf5Kx1PIFPU964n3gfgbQZtDEBLqkHI-qo9n7EcLRWEnrJM97NpGE4m04CnrWiEvhknfJ-R/s400/DSCN9391+A.JPG" /></a></div>
<br />
Before we arrived at Latourell I mentally drew a connection to my last hike, in November with my friend Mike. That day, on our hike to Tamanawas Falls on Election Day, we hiked around a corner along the creek and saw a coyote. It stood in profile on a green log, and for a second or two we all froze – Mike behind me let out a brief “whoa” – then the coyote leapt down towards the creek, jumped across the stream onto a mossy boulder, and jumped again to the opposite bank before vanishing in the trees. <br />
<br />
The entire encounter only lasted about five seconds, and was the highlight of the hike. I see deer quite frequently, elk occasionally, but this was only my third coyote, and each time it’s been a memorable and moving experience.<br />
<br />
What made me remember the Tamanwas hike on the drive to the Gorge was the neat symmetry between the end-of-season hike to a gorgeous waterfall with the start-of-season hike to another gorgeous waterfall. This was fairly unplanned; Eric and I intended to visit Latourell, but we hadn’t made up our mind to start there, or somewhere else in the Gorge. And because this symmetry, I found myself a few nights later reading Ella Clark’s <i>Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest</i>.<br />
<br />
Clark selected over one hundred native tales from oral and written records (including her own interviews with native storytellers) and in 1953 rewrote them for a general audience. She looked for stories that were authentic and interesting, and she freely admitted that her approach wasn’t “sociological or anthropological.” She was, however, a strong storyteller, and the book covers a lot of territory. I opened it for two reasons: first, to find a definition for the word Tamanawas, and second, to look for a myth I barely remembered that involved Latourell Falls. <br />
<br />
Clark states that the word Tamanawas comes from the Chinook jargon, a trade language shared and spoken by tribes all along the Columbia River and eventually throughout the northwest. As a shared language, Chinook jargon was quite adaptive and many English and French words found their way into the jargon, which was spoken well into the 20th century. Some of these words – potlatch, for example – are still in use in the Pacific Northwest today, and many are familiar as place names (such as tyee, skookum, and cultus). <br />
<br />
Tamanwas is difficult to define because it is more of a concept than it is a noun or adjective. Clark provides several shorthand definitions, including “supernatural,” “one endowed with supernatural power,” and “anything beyond human understanding.” Lewis “Tam” McArthur, in his essential <i>Oregon Geographic Names</i>, specifies that Tamanawas means “friendly or guardian spirit” (he also notes that Tamanawas Falls was named by the USFS). I’ve seen Tamanawas elsewhere defined in much more complex and nebulous terms as having to do with spirits, which are themselves as shifting and unpredictable as language and meaning – or coyote, for that matter, who makes an appearance in the Latourell Falls myth in <i>Indian Legends of the Pacific Northwest</i>.<br />
<br />
In Clark’s telling, three Beaver sisters had built a dam across the Columbia that prevented salmon from swimming upstream. Because of this, the people living above the dam were starving, so Coyote went to break the dam. After breaking the dam, he kidnapped the youngest of the three Beaver sisters, made his getaway by running across the backs of the salmon swimming upstream through the break in the dam, and made the youngest Beaver Sister his wife. She bore him two sons, but Coyote was afraid that she’d run away, so he locked her and their sons in a cave. Eventually they escaped, and ran towards the river. Coyote caught his wife, scooped away out part of a mountain, and pinned her to the rock – she became Latourelle Falls. Then he caught his sons, who he changed into standing stones – the Pillars of Hercules that now stand by the side of the river.<br />
<br />
And at this point, the symmetry between the hikes was complete and utterly fitting, as though designed. Tamanawas Falls, a place of spirits where I saw Coyote on my last hike of 2012. Latourelle Falls, unexpectedly the first stop of 2013 and associated with Coyote in myth. Two hikes, two beautiful waterfalls, two connections with Coyote and the electric sense of the Other.<br />
<br />
Eric and I spent the rest of the day visiting other waterfalls, photographing ice formations, and wandering trails in gently falling snow. It was good to get out, good for the body and mind, and good for contemplating little beauties and hidden connections. Tamanawas indeed.<br />
<br />Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-1782990534876646572012-05-20T23:21:00.001-07:002012-05-20T23:21:09.263-07:00How'd ya like the island, eh? Hiking Vancouver Island's Forbidden Plateau<em>Last September in Nanaimo, on Vancouver Island</em>. Mike and I are in the checkout line at the Country Grocer. The clerk weighs corn on the cob and white potatoes, scans individually wrapped Babybel gouda and vacuum-sealed packages of locally made Grimm’s Hot Pepperoni sticks. Looking up, she gives us a motherly warning wrapped in a strong Canadian accent. “We have bears and stuff. Cougars, too.”
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2okbAMy5BZTWi-OZ9tkBVwVq6WJ9UcI-w1I2RjnhPriQv2Il0ldPPQF3eJ1ypREaRRv0EyrAQc0u0lSoym20DgTeciIiBD1D2g8AcPLGqGrr7_w41znehE6RN6p_Ze0sgRMSqUO3SSdwg/s1600/Forbidden+Plateau+Sign.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2okbAMy5BZTWi-OZ9tkBVwVq6WJ9UcI-w1I2RjnhPriQv2Il0ldPPQF3eJ1ypREaRRv0EyrAQc0u0lSoym20DgTeciIiBD1D2g8AcPLGqGrr7_w41znehE6RN6p_Ze0sgRMSqUO3SSdwg/s320/Forbidden+Plateau+Sign.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
We have bears and “stuff” in Oregon, too, but the clerk has a point: Vancouver Island is home to one of the largest and most dense populations of cougar in the world, and we were about to backpack deep into the thick of things, into the Forbidden Plateau, right in the middle of Strathcona Provincial Park and the some of the wildest country on the island.
<br />
<br />
Forbidden Plateau is a high rolling country of lakes, meadows, and forests below a ridge of mountains that separate the plateau from the rest of the park. It’s reminiscent of Indian Heaven Wilderness in Washington, but wetter at the same elevation, with a tangled understory and a more complex rain-forest filled with hemlock, cedar, and fir. The trail gains and loses a surprising amount of elevation a it follows tree-lined mountain lakes set in bowls – and there are a lot of lakes. We planned to spend four days and three nights in the park, with hikes to the summit of Mt. Albert Edward (6,866ft) and other surrounding peaks. It didn’t turn out that way, but then, things seldom turn out as expected when Mike and I get involved.
<br />
<br />
Our trip to Forbidden Plateau was incredible, but it was hard to plan. In part that’s because resources in the US are scarce, and in part it’s because we made assumptions based on experience backpacking in the US. Canada is different, in minor but important ways (don’t confuse meters and feet on a topo), and our trip was on a budget as well as a timeline. I originally posted this report on <a href="http://www.portlandhikers.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=9589">Portland Hikers</a>, but I’ve edited it to be – hopefully – more accessible for the interested reader. At the bottom of this post are links for resources we found helpful.
<br />
<br />
<em><b>D</b><b>ay #1 and Day #2</b></em>
<br />
<br />
We left Portland in late morning and drove to Seal Rock campground on Hood Canal. Seal Rock has become a regular car-camping spot on our trips near the Olympics, and provided a good opportunity to drink beer around a camp-fire and celebrate having a week off. After darkness fell, we walked down to the bay and watched the moonlight on the mirror-clear water. The sky was bright and small waves lapping gently against the rocky shore seemed auspicious omens for the days to come.
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5BG-Qcr6AZAfhi9hQn42KL3zvBUYqPoqG9GxPgHcNplX22s1g_9j0Dx4iOzA8WsHwwGx-0DtBxkmHgQwdVyO2Aqk5GXny1WXPfNI5lqo8sO__90MIkLZq6CbUIWJk2IRhf-i92x5CP0lN/s1600/Hot+Toddies.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5BG-Qcr6AZAfhi9hQn42KL3zvBUYqPoqG9GxPgHcNplX22s1g_9j0Dx4iOzA8WsHwwGx-0DtBxkmHgQwdVyO2Aqk5GXny1WXPfNI5lqo8sO__90MIkLZq6CbUIWJk2IRhf-i92x5CP0lN/s320/Hot+Toddies.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div align="center">
</div>
<br />
The next day, we caught the 12:30 ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria, and after arriving, we realized it was too late in the day to drive north and car-camp as planned. We booked a room at the fantastic Oceanside Inn, the hostel we’d return to after backpacking, and spent the evening wandering downtown Victoria, generously sampling local beers at Swann’s, and taking in the buskers and shops along Government Street.
<br />
<br />
<b><em>Day #3</em></b>
<br />
<br />
In the morning we stopped at Crown Bookstore to get a map, and drove north on Highway 1, which splits into Highway 19 and Highway 19A. My touring map showed campgrounds along 19A, which winds through small towns and resorts along the Strait of Georgia.
All the campgrounds marked on our map turned out to be RV campgrounds, but eventually we found a public campground at Lake Comox, close to Courtenay. The campground was conveniently only 40 minutes or so from the trailhead at Mt. Washington, but was expensive at $28 per night. That money, however, pays for clean restrooms, showers, and firewood delivered to your camp. The host was a delightful Irish man, armed with information and self-published books about the history of the area and the wealth of nearby mountain biking and rock climbing opportunities.
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOXgBR_JzZKlml08hWSEZrAh-cKV20CFfFm2J9NYt4YbC9Ey0Pg83AXvVscKiS1dy5NK672wJufXSEgTC0w3D4H8wNtQrie2SealG5sCYRBdU2eDeVLgOrRW2d6g-3-uRY04GqyJmUZl1a/s1600/Comox+Lake+CG.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOXgBR_JzZKlml08hWSEZrAh-cKV20CFfFm2J9NYt4YbC9Ey0Pg83AXvVscKiS1dy5NK672wJufXSEgTC0w3D4H8wNtQrie2SealG5sCYRBdU2eDeVLgOrRW2d6g-3-uRY04GqyJmUZl1a/s320/Comox+Lake+CG.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The campsites were very close together, right next to a public beach, and water-skiers raced past all afternoon long, blasting mindless pop music and endless techno beats. But we made the best of it, and hung out with the local guys in the site next to us: Joe, a painter trying to turn pro-snowboarder, and Josh, a laid-off sprayer at a mill. Both were young, more or less down-and-out, and trying to make ends meet in an economically depressed region that bears resemblance to Oregon in the early 1990’s. We talked for several hours around a campfire, stared at the stars, and crashed around midnight, hoping to get a good night’s rest before heading in to the wilderness the next day.
<br />
<br />
<b><em>Day #4</em></b>
<br />
<br />
Because of the extra night in Victoria, we were a day behind schedule, but that mattered less when we woke up to rain and heavy mist. All the forecasts had been sunny, so this was a surprise (note to self, when you plan to hike up a mountain on a rain-forested island in the Pacific in September, expect precipitation). We packed in a hurry, grabbed coffee at the Wandering Moose Café in Cumberland, picked up donuts at Tim Horton’s in Courtenay, and arrived at the TH around noon. The rain tapered to mist, and after paying $10 per person per night for a permit (ouch!), we loaded up our packs and set off past a “Caution: Bear in Area” sign.
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieEojqmDyZ8_U663lBNtCPX5jpFPwhpAHbfBnN3ntNSREvxHneUUjutHykcP-49_X7jHApYhQG5R-mh8GpAnfEIvqUTeuEcUtZXEJMHa1wPQecbOAbiBfe6tjAOveaptXxoG8B894BH_RR/s1600/Paradise+Meadows.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieEojqmDyZ8_U663lBNtCPX5jpFPwhpAHbfBnN3ntNSREvxHneUUjutHykcP-49_X7jHApYhQG5R-mh8GpAnfEIvqUTeuEcUtZXEJMHa1wPQecbOAbiBfe6tjAOveaptXxoG8B894BH_RR/s320/Paradise+Meadows.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The trail followed boardwalks through Paradise Meadows and hit dirt as it passed Battleship Lake, completely obscured by the weather. At times, we couldn’t see the water just below us – forest on one side, emptiness on the other. It was gorgeous in the mist: lakes faded out into the void, and subalpine flowers bloomed in green grassy fields that slipped away to a white horizon outlined by the silhouettes of trees in various shades of gray and deep green.
<br />
<br />
Forbidden Plateau is extremely popular and as a result, all the official trails were clear and intersections were well marked, with square posts holding placards with directions and distances. At various intersections, there were signs with simplified maps showing trails and distances between intersections and campsites. Because of heavy use, camping is allowed only at designated sites (lakes Helen MacKenzie, Kwai, and Circlet). Each CG has bear-proof food caches and a covered pit-toilet, and tents must be pitched on low wooden platforms. Knowing that it might be crowded further in, we camped at the first available site, which turned out to be a completely deserted Lake Helen MacKenzie.
<br />
<br />
The sites at Helen Mackenzie are very close together and connected by boardwalk, but we had the lake and the rain to ourselves. The first order of business was figuring out how to tie down tents on top of the wooden platforms; regularly placed eyehooks helped. The weather helped keep the mosquitoes down to a tolerable level, and thankfully it didn’t get cold, except for a damp chill just before dawn, and the temperature during the day was decent under layers.
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLx6z-EfApuB0QXL0HUmogCqz0CfpMkwT-r8nOCljegp4SNI7IZbmxWfCiCxTpVAytZKzbPAIhhck7MOdW0il0rFOhF54_uBsKIQMmSvNAKC7f_Ib5iPUNwYjAbdKFMfYyvOQSAUI47Omr/s1600/Night+at+Helen+Mackenzie.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLx6z-EfApuB0QXL0HUmogCqz0CfpMkwT-r8nOCljegp4SNI7IZbmxWfCiCxTpVAytZKzbPAIhhck7MOdW0il0rFOhF54_uBsKIQMmSvNAKC7f_Ib5iPUNwYjAbdKFMfYyvOQSAUI47Omr/s320/Night+at+Helen+Mackenzie.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Since campfires are prohibited in Forbidden Plateau and everything was damp, we spent the evening playing hackey-sack and hoping the weather would change. A few hot toddies with Canadian whiskey helped enliven the mood. I’d brought a sturdier two-man tent instead of my ultra-light solo tent, and had plenty of room to figure out how to get comfortable on wooden boards. We were in our tents shortly after 9pm, trying to fall asleep in the early darkness and steady drip of rain.
<br />
<br />
<b><em>Day #5</em></b>
<br />
<br />
I rose by 8am to overcast skies with blue showing in streaks, and a golden light falling in ribbons on Mt. Elma across the mirrored lake. I grabbed our food from the bear cache, sprayed on insect repellent, and started coffee by boiling lake water. Water access at Helen MacKenzie is difficult, at the bottom of an 8ft cliff. There might be better shore access, but I didn’t feel like hiking and bushwacking through thick, wet brush to find it.
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaEkRpFy6bYrfEdpMXZdUMHevv1UNsWbTb4KoQDJL4cu2QKBnS-5tSpO5xRh49irFO8Pyxa5kp4E7U1CgbPi4rRImzNg3Wh-mzRmkhAbV2JoKAvzYeJqSUEzxEIAdQEjxvIo6YtTZZK2lS/s1600/Morning+at+Helen+MacKenzie.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaEkRpFy6bYrfEdpMXZdUMHevv1UNsWbTb4KoQDJL4cu2QKBnS-5tSpO5xRh49irFO8Pyxa5kp4E7U1CgbPi4rRImzNg3Wh-mzRmkhAbV2JoKAvzYeJqSUEzxEIAdQEjxvIo6YtTZZK2lS/s320/Morning+at+Helen+MacKenzie.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The sun made a good effort but just in case, we made another “scale it back” decision to camp at nearby Kwai Lake, and day-hike from there towards Mt. Albert Edward. We intended to camp at Circlet Lake, closest to the Albert Edward summit route, but we weren’t sure if the weather would hold and we were leaving the next day, so Kwai seemed a good alternative – closer to the mountain, but not as far from the TH.
To get to Kwai, we took a trail past Croteau Lake, where we stopped for a snack and battled aggressive gray jays. They swept in overhead, buzzing us from trees with their eyes fixated on our food. And for the first and only time, the clouds opened up enough to see the long tantalizing ridge leading to the summit of Albert Edward.
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAv4KhnNScVy8P9gjoWGjdEL5ow6Wxz5pcPbQQ3Ipqz2kpUMSzBC2rfZb9TF2SFoREddMpmjKuyY4tS540RbxM097Kh7RL50o665nQNVhAbsF1vnfhZnKJuynBMg6-mMx20cu3G2ZW_R9F/s1600/Albert+Edward+Ridge.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAv4KhnNScVy8P9gjoWGjdEL5ow6Wxz5pcPbQQ3Ipqz2kpUMSzBC2rfZb9TF2SFoREddMpmjKuyY4tS540RbxM097Kh7RL50o665nQNVhAbsF1vnfhZnKJuynBMg6-mMx20cu3G2ZW_R9F/s320/Albert+Edward+Ridge.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Pushing on, we arrived at Kwai. It’s small but beautiful, deep green and ringed with trees, and once again we had our pick of campsites.
After we ate lunch, a group of teenagers with a few adult guides hiked past on their way to Circlet Lake, and paused for a break on the trail below our camp. After watching the kids feed the ever-present gray jays from their hands, Mike tried it out – known locally as Whiskey Jacks, the jays are quite habituated to humans. The jays swept down to perch on his hand with no hesitation at all.
<br />
<br />
That afternoon we took a short hike towards Circlet Lake but weather turned us around before we arrived at the lake. Just after we got back to Kwai it started to drizzle, but the rain largely held off until after dark. Camping here at night was kind of spooky – I really felt the solitude, the darkness, and the elements, and the tension arising from needing to stash food in a bear box. And once again, it was hard to fall asleep “early” at 10pm – but what else was there to do with no campfire, at night, in the rain, miles from anything else? Oh yes, finish the whisky, and dream of bears among the mossy hemlocks.
<br />
<br />
<b><em>Day #6</em></b>
<br />
<br />
Woke in the rain, slept a little later, and packed up quickly during a drier spell. For variety’s sake and a shorter hike, we chose a different return route, one that led past a ranger’s cabin in the mist back to Helen MacKenzie, and the return trail to Paradise Meadows and the trailhead.
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNC0EVM5Yt_jn1nS8whTWnQWrPkW2vasgimRgTki2k4TuQcF2N6zivjY4qW4P4Rd3H5lJ7dWZtgx8I_OuoV1jllLfLwIXIr1jxVp3b37ksLwVdUl6fme1_KTLmo3IHeTPQHonDd4YGKAjG/s1600/Ranger+Station.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNC0EVM5Yt_jn1nS8whTWnQWrPkW2vasgimRgTki2k4TuQcF2N6zivjY4qW4P4Rd3H5lJ7dWZtgx8I_OuoV1jllLfLwIXIr1jxVp3b37ksLwVdUl6fme1_KTLmo3IHeTPQHonDd4YGKAjG/s320/Ranger+Station.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
From Kwai, the trail lead uphill then leveled out in meadows before dropping to Helen MacKenzie. The ascent and descent weren’t much but the trail was wet, slick, and filled with roots. We both slipped a few times and I took a spill that injured my pride far more than anything else. The only really sketchy section of trail we encountered was here, where erosion at a steep downhill switchback forced us to cross exposed bedrock slick with rain and clay-like mud.
<br />
<br />
On the way, we met a hiker from Victoria who was attempting to summit Mt. Albert Edward in a day. That’s a pretty ambitious plan for the average hiker, who, I think, could make it to Circlet in a day, summit Albert Edward the next day, and even hike out on the summit day. That might work for locals, but after driving up from Oregon, it’s worth it to spend more time. Circlet Lake is the most popular CG, and as sites are first-come first-serve, you run the risk of having to backtrack to Kwai on busy summer weekends. But all in all, Forbidden Plateau is worth a few days exploration, and while it might be heavily used, it doesn’t see nearly the same number of visitors as do Oregon’s Columbia River Gorge, or Mt. Hood.
<br />
<br />
After changing into dry clothes at the truck, we walked over to the volunteer nature center and had a fun conversation with the staffer working there. She was genuinely interested in our trip, in learning what trail conditions we encountered, and in sharing enthusiasm for hiking and backpacking.
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUY4EVw4VcZ7V3b_Bb3Svr1pq-15G2071OiVDdb1jA2zNwKvaQpciMBpYvKEwmvj_BNeBrJ0hPf-Yib3C-RYpaIGfBDFKFoie7jZNqwr1WA4Bp-JSHe8COChwjBYz15FmKjbQqciqfXsQn/s1600/Bear+Sign.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUY4EVw4VcZ7V3b_Bb3Svr1pq-15G2071OiVDdb1jA2zNwKvaQpciMBpYvKEwmvj_BNeBrJ0hPf-Yib3C-RYpaIGfBDFKFoie7jZNqwr1WA4Bp-JSHe8COChwjBYz15FmKjbQqciqfXsQn/s320/Bear+Sign.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
All told, our total mileage in Forbidden Plateau was about 12.7 miles, with 2300ft of gain, but that’s a rough guess. If the weather had been nice we would’ve doubled or tripled that, and spent another day up there. After leaving, we drove down to Courtenay, had coffee and donuts at Tim Horton’s again, and then sped down 19 back to Victoria and a few nights of urban adventure.
<br />
<br />
Never did see any bears and stuff, though.
<b></b><br />
<br />
<b><em>Thoughts on Wilderness on Vancouver Island</em></b>
<br />
<br />
At first glance, it would seem Forbidden Plateau is well maintained. We met two young rangers doing advance preparation for helicopter-aided pit-toilet service; the boardwalks and tent platforms were in good shape; the trails were well graded and very well marked; and the depth of knowledge and enthusiasm at the nature center was refreshing. But in reality, Forbidden Plateau probably gets a lot of attention because the trailhead is so close to a ski resort, accessible by paved road. The rest of Strathcona Park has few trails, many of which are accessible only by permission or advance notice on gated logging roads in actively logged areas, and the forests directly outside the park’s boundaries have been decimated by logging. Commercial interests continue to try to operate within the park, and funding is abysmal – the nature center is maintained by donations, many of the campsites and trail signs were installed by local mountaineering clubs, and BC Parks doesn’t have the budget to hire more than one ranger per ten parks on the island. It’s both sad and enlightening to compare conservation issues and challenges in another country to those in the US.
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5csHTf7hnCp3lTAkUKmM82rlTCfy8V2azOdo0ek8yADg9kJYQJBovjt5pGe5wOK__xAQvzoIlmlg3s5KqG7AwXfEhdftq9BpHfGASs8uMDlwGOmS4gtMhKdMnp1Eo1xcJ0W2mUYE8o2BR/s1600/Kwai+Lake.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5csHTf7hnCp3lTAkUKmM82rlTCfy8V2azOdo0ek8yADg9kJYQJBovjt5pGe5wOK__xAQvzoIlmlg3s5KqG7AwXfEhdftq9BpHfGASs8uMDlwGOmS4gtMhKdMnp1Eo1xcJ0W2mUYE8o2BR/s320/Kwai+Lake.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Vancouver Islanders also appear to approach their wilderness somewhat differently than Americans do theirs (barring the very public resort/family-style campgrounds we both have). Feeding Whiskey Jacks seems accepted, but they take protecting Forbidden Plateau so seriously that they built miles of boardwalk and designated tent platforms to protect meadows and campgrounds from erosion. Car camping seems uncommon, perhaps due to a shortage of public lands, and on Vancouver Island, pure backpacking appears to be uncommon as well. Canadians appear to backpack in order to do something else when they get into the woods, like climb, ski, snowboard, or fish – and the fishing in Forbidden Plateau is great, according to a guy floating in misty Battleship Lake who had earlier caught a few 16” trout. As an aside, there are stricter rules for wilderness travel in popular Forbidden Plateau than there are in the rest of Strathcona, which has far fewer established trails and more “routes,” and sees much far fewer people. But on Vancouver Island, everywhere north of Victoria is rural and increasingly remote, with economies dependent on natural resources or tourism. The island is caught in time, facing the same challenges rural Washington and Oregon encountered when their logging and fishing industries collapsed. I’d expect there to be a different approach to the outdoors, one that viewed the land as a commodity as much as a familiar place to escape the pressures of the city, the town, and outside forces.
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvz420eutQmbjR5UOUGTbP7Vx3PwzjhtDhkpOavwL63m82jvyPvT5sOafdmvISocKksusPQRtBG45vvsrEycF7FQmZ_O_VMWnx1NLNSKVexPk2Xon3XnvtMwTFw3TJG1oeTTKefSjhEvbZ/s1600/Kwai+Albert+Edward+Sign.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvz420eutQmbjR5UOUGTbP7Vx3PwzjhtDhkpOavwL63m82jvyPvT5sOafdmvISocKksusPQRtBG45vvsrEycF7FQmZ_O_VMWnx1NLNSKVexPk2Xon3XnvtMwTFw3TJG1oeTTKefSjhEvbZ/s320/Kwai+Albert+Edward+Sign.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<b><em>Recommendations and Resources</em></b>
<br />
<br />
Spend at least one night in Victoria or in a town along the coast. That will give you a day to get to Canada and time to buy supplies and explore the coast before hitting the trail. Vancouver Island has a lot of neat history – logging, mining, First Nation culture, etc – that deserve a closer look.
<br />
<br />
<u>Online Resources:</u>
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.summitpost.org/forbidden-plateau/550669" target="_blank">Summit Post</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://www.clubtread.com/" target="_blank">Club Tread</a>
</li>
</ul>
<u>Maps, Gear, Guides:</u>
<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://cumberlandbc.org/assets/Forbidden_Plateau_Map.pdf" target="_blank">Free map</a> (not much detail)
</li>
<li>We used this map: Forbidden Plateau and Campbell River (92f11), ISBN 9781553418115, available from <a href="http://www.crownpub.bc.ca/bookstore.aspx" target="_blank">Crown Bookstore</a> in Victoria.
</li>
<li>Guidebook: “<a href="http://www.orcabook.com/productdetails.cfm?PC=587" target="_blank">Hiking Trails 3</a>,” by Blier
</li>
<li><a href="http://www.robinsonsoutdoors.com/" target="_blank">Robinson’s</a> - In my opinion, the best gear store in Victoria
</li>
</ul>
<u>Lodging & Essentials:</u><br />
<ul>
<li>Lodging in Victoria: <a href="http://www.oceanisland.com/" target="_blank">Ocean Island Inn</a>
</li>
<li>Backpacking Booze: <a href="http://www.fortycreekwhisky.com/barrel_select.html" target="_blank">Forty Creek Premium Canadian Whisky</a></li>
</ul>Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-60896966106286007252012-05-15T13:43:00.001-07:002012-05-15T13:48:50.397-07:00The Calendar Explained: March<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGMavmyoaZbrD96QSYyR7BKwO5OR_EZSV_Hv5GJA6umrowzy5mURku5R_jL-YdLlJ_s9kJj6Y269Z83uUv73kdOlDjFpDU6uGGFgurxoezMVGdUyej5H8UyyepQaJjzQ7h0rGRIZybDcJn/s1600/March.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGMavmyoaZbrD96QSYyR7BKwO5OR_EZSV_Hv5GJA6umrowzy5mURku5R_jL-YdLlJ_s9kJj6Y269Z83uUv73kdOlDjFpDU6uGGFgurxoezMVGdUyej5H8UyyepQaJjzQ7h0rGRIZybDcJn/s400/March.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Catherine Creek in the early evening on the Summer Solstice, with my Nikon CoolPix P100.</span>
</div>
<br />
Ah, summer solstice. I placed this photo into March because it has an odd, subdued quality that feels old-timey to me, and more suited for a month more usually noted for rain. This photo was taken at quarter to six, on a hike when three friends and I stayed out until dark on the longest day of the year. I took this from the inside edge of an oak grove near Catherine Creek at a thousand feet above the Columbia, with the sun still a few hours from setting. Mosquitoes were biting in the shade and my friends were all ahead of me, but the combination of lupine, grass, oak, and mountain was too good to pass up, and the absence of middle distance made framing easy. The light was perfect, too: a soft, warm glow with strong shadows and backlit flowers and grass.
<br />
<br />
One of my photography goals is to take a photo that exactly looks like what I saw. This is one of the few times where I was successful in capturing both the subject and the mood, and it’s also one of the few times that required nothing more than pointing an expensive gadget at the scenery and pressing a button.
I’m not saying this is a great shot, but I’m happy with it. If I’d had more time, and more knowledge, I’d have taken a better photograph. Anyone could’ve taken this – the camera did most of the work – but still, it was one of those moments where everything lined up, where the light and the mood were matched, and where all I had to do was click the shutter.
<br />
<br />
It all fell into place – just like the day.
<br />
<br />
2.
<br />
<br />
I was lucky with this one, but I set myself up to take advantage of it, in part because I was still learning about and playing with my camera (I’d only had it a few months) and I’d already set up the camera to shoot in that light. All I needed to do was adjust the exposure.
<br />
<br />
A snapshot doesn’t take much preparation or thought. There’s usually not much preamble, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes a snapshot is all you want or need. That’s what the auto setting is for.
<br />
<br />
When I hike, photography isn’t usually my main objective. But sometimes it is – a tremendous viewpoint, or a sunset from camp, or a scene in poor light all require a bit more from the photographer, and that’s where knowledge, skill, and effort come into play.<br />
<br />
Effort is what gets you to the shot – the hike, in this case. Knowledge and skill are what allow you to take a good photograph. I don’t really have either. All that f/ stuff is mumbo-jumbo to me, but I do know how to make certain useful adjustments on my camera, and I know how to frame a photograph (when I bother to remember). The more complicated things get, though, the more distance I feel there is between me and the subject. Lots of things can go wrong in that space.
But that space can be bridged. <br />
<br />
Taking a really good nature or landscape photograph (and I’m not claiming this photo is one) requires a different way of observing and approaching to wilderness. It requires hiking for a different reason than I do – the interaction with the subject is different, but just as intense as with a hiker, backpacker, or hunter. It’s deeper than the casual hike with a few snapshots. It goes beyond the surface to touch on subtle things and profound things, things with emotional and psychological and spiritual meaning. The photograph isn’t just gifted to you. You have to be prepared for it, and be ready for it. And then you have to pay attention for a long time.
<br />
<br />
As I said, photography isn’t my main reason for hiking. But it does bring with it a bit of that different approach, and it adds variety and nuance to my experience. And sometimes, I take a photograph I really like.Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-72041534837368102892012-04-18T10:49:00.001-07:002012-04-18T10:49:31.983-07:00Catherine Creek Journal: April 10th, 2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuIyEMh5u7Ho9neGZgt_XtPzcGniIy2Pl6a-JOu8YyBoEIz0vlmqs5vrBWYjusl5V6omQAXqNr2WkQ_1O-MOp3bpkRDCqs0Vd0TERG0aV0gVtMoiY9qRozNBTU_lvy1hsmyBGo1GTB_e7g/s1600/DSCN0099.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuIyEMh5u7Ho9neGZgt_XtPzcGniIy2Pl6a-JOu8YyBoEIz0vlmqs5vrBWYjusl5V6omQAXqNr2WkQ_1O-MOp3bpkRDCqs0Vd0TERG0aV0gVtMoiY9qRozNBTU_lvy1hsmyBGo1GTB_e7g/s400/DSCN0099.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
Two days after Easter and I find myself back at the ponds at Catherine Creek. I hiked to the top of Tracey Hill and down the west side. Now I have time to fill, and the sun, which has been muted and shadow-less for hours behind thin cloud, has burned through. Still a few hours from sunset, but warm, in the sixties, and aside from a sometimes cool and always intermittent breeze, it’s been a fine day. <br /><br />
It’s been very quiet most of the day, and still – silence filled with darting birds and birdsong. Meadowlarks and startled killdeer, black crows and blue jays, buzzards, hawks, eagles – going up Tracey Hill I turned for no reason and a northern harrier swept low across the massive meadow, wings held in a motionless v, and looped around a stand of ponderosa before disappearing from sight. Coming down into Catherine Creek valley, a bald eagle lifted from the ground and perched for some minutes in a tree, then flew away with slow wing-beats when I approached. <br /><br />
I hiked past the bathtub and past the deer-kill I found last March. Not much remains but a skull in the flowers, a segment of vertebra with thick green grass outlining white bone. Hard to believe anything is left of it. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAGA0WX1QgzdvBMHxOpLCHy5gTzr1GQ_B2OKZH4HJGY9zNTtpT31Su19ItWNeFeXe13uWArXrRb0meb_QDUZFzZ6zVbljdy3qw3kpl4dgZb4AONX_5E6yGbPlev-yfTtGzA0Za85dNtmF0/s1600/DSCN9956.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAGA0WX1QgzdvBMHxOpLCHy5gTzr1GQ_B2OKZH4HJGY9zNTtpT31Su19ItWNeFeXe13uWArXrRb0meb_QDUZFzZ6zVbljdy3qw3kpl4dgZb4AONX_5E6yGbPlev-yfTtGzA0Za85dNtmF0/s400/DSCN9956.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
No deer, but sign everywhere: tracks, droppings, paths made for hoofs in the moss and stone. I haven’t been in the right place to see them, I guess, but it’s a warm day and only 6pm. Time yet. Grass widows are mostly gone but other flowers have taken their place. Buttercups are everywhere, alongside oaks toothwort and blue-eyed mary in the duff. There are shooting stars in the hundreds by the Dharma tree, and a carpet of glacier lily in the gully above the arch Yellow and purple desert parsley turn basalt crags and gnarled solitary oak into refined oriental gardens. Hound’s-tooth attracts bees and saxifrage fills the lower meadows, while lupine is everywhere about to bloom, and deep green bitterroot leaves are waiting. A few balsamroot brighten the cliffs. <br />
<br />
After saying hello to some hikers near the arch, I didn’t speak again until almost back at the creek crossing several hours later, when I told a circling bee that “I am not a flower.” <br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidH5rv5mfu4K7j_jp_88BEd99gOzS02o8i8tSfLeppTJCDxGmDQzWrvMtK98vNGd0fB9sisp5HaKtY7grMgfRPpopqGXeAgN90IZ8GOI4FE_r84cO981ucu4N1cgb6ZwALZXfhhzpnvbF1/s1600/DSCN2455.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="300" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidH5rv5mfu4K7j_jp_88BEd99gOzS02o8i8tSfLeppTJCDxGmDQzWrvMtK98vNGd0fB9sisp5HaKtY7grMgfRPpopqGXeAgN90IZ8GOI4FE_r84cO981ucu4N1cgb6ZwALZXfhhzpnvbF1/s400/DSCN2455.JPG" /></a></div>
Things are drying out and the oaks are beginning to bud. Everything is stirring. Up on Tracey Hill, coyote scat – gray, filled with hair and fragments of bone – lines the trail between labyrinths of gopher tunnels and dirt upturned into patterns like gopher writing. <br /><br />
Another change: above the corral, the ponderosa limb with that unusual growth has died and fallen; no sign of the growth left among the limbs and twigs in the grass. The tree looks healthy. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgieFkVqXpEXpHrtg-u4nR4RHMlUQOMpQyK78STW1-9_QwbgueG0utDojhiM3N-pQuoJMKtIK_qmTMdz_hy6KiQzcCxLDjFAFndB1LZEaT-7Vm5PSHpvZPlt39xXNxIA3Rc9kOSSJQeL9n6/s1600/DSCN9969.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgieFkVqXpEXpHrtg-u4nR4RHMlUQOMpQyK78STW1-9_QwbgueG0utDojhiM3N-pQuoJMKtIK_qmTMdz_hy6KiQzcCxLDjFAFndB1LZEaT-7Vm5PSHpvZPlt39xXNxIA3Rc9kOSSJQeL9n6/s400/DSCN9969.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
Almost to the end of this journal. Almost two years… Started at Crater Lake in 2010. Looking back makes me wish I’d written more. It also makes me realize how many miles I’ve traveled, how much I’ve seen, how much there is to come. <br /><br />
Mallards zip by overhead, a pair. Just a chuckle in greeting and they’re gone over the river. A good day for birds. <br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi13-nmNsPp2KXKAQ4OKIFnh1kXBv2PKgP3OeQR95atMmFQY6nLyqaLhtb9fFmkWhb8ljzsVwi2nLqUQ6J5Ot4s98LF_5S3t8IksTxZIkagcUVZCtEPeNDVUS_gFuTaftjvDUBBggAbKxsj/s1600/DSCN2477.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi13-nmNsPp2KXKAQ4OKIFnh1kXBv2PKgP3OeQR95atMmFQY6nLyqaLhtb9fFmkWhb8ljzsVwi2nLqUQ6J5Ot4s98LF_5S3t8IksTxZIkagcUVZCtEPeNDVUS_gFuTaftjvDUBBggAbKxsj/s400/DSCN2477.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
When I saw the harrier, it was because I felt I should turn around at that exact moment. It was different from stopping to catch my breath, or to look at the view. Irrational, but knowledge nonetheless. How much goes on behind me, when I’m not looking? <br /><br />
My thoughts have ranged up and down these trails with no order. But a natural order, a wild order. It’s a good day to sign off in this volume and move on to the next, with more looking behind and more looking ahead: next weekend, wherever it finds me. But first the drive home, a tick-check and shower, a beer and music while I look through the photos I’ve taken. <br /><br />
I’ll bet none of those photos will do today justice. None of them will last like that harrier on the wing. <br /><br />
Finis.Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-77184374086659687692012-04-14T10:37:00.000-07:002012-04-14T10:37:01.859-07:00The Calendar Explained: February<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuK-Neq2HA8jE1uAbxlqzPoOtDWsQ55d4WAs0W8FQQwO9YrlctklozxYX9gk5ULYMr08lx-7MCmWPVUH0cL3bv6M7WYAOfqAEpk5wCMrqRRDdAh8GU5MRP_orrBxti1P-XHVhzmh0cWQOo/s1600/February.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuK-Neq2HA8jE1uAbxlqzPoOtDWsQ55d4WAs0W8FQQwO9YrlctklozxYX9gk5ULYMr08lx-7MCmWPVUH0cL3bv6M7WYAOfqAEpk5wCMrqRRDdAh8GU5MRP_orrBxti1P-XHVhzmh0cWQOo/s320/February.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">
<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Taken November 15<sup>th</sup>, 2011. Camera; Nikon CoolPix P100.</span></em></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">
<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">f/5.6, exposure time 1/278 sec., ISO 160, exposure bias -1, focal length 76mm, aperture 3</span></em></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
1. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I posted this image online shortly after I took it, and even after cropping and adjusting for its rougher qualities, I still like it. Sunset comes early in November, and despite the pink sky and sunlight glinting in the waves, there was tension flowing through the day. The tide was high and the breakers at sunset thundered against the rocks. Terrible Tilly hovered above a heaving sea, with seagulls and light filling the space between. I remember actually feeling and hearing waves break against the rocks and reverberate through the ground. It felt like any minute the sea would reach in and sweep away the few people on the beach, myself included. As a hiker I love days like this, when nature presents such an impressive and unending emotive and thought-provoking display. The juxtaposition of sea and stone, light and space, and tension and release made for a memorable day, and that hopefully shows in this photograph. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
2. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I’ve always loved that Dizzy Gillespie said “I don’t care much about music. What I like is sounds.” His words hold true when translated to any artistic medium, including photography.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Like writing, photography is a method of re-creating experience. A good photograph will do that better than a snapshot, and the way to get a good photograph is to be in the right place at the right time, and to be looking the right way.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
This photograph, I remember, didn’t take much effort at all. That’s not actually an arrogant statement. I drove to the coast and walked down the beach. I made myself comfortable and stayed on the beach for hours. I slowed down and grew attuned to what was going on around me. In other words, I did the work and was looking the right way. I only needed to see the photograph before I took it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I’m sometimes guilty of letting the camera dictate what I see. Before I took this photograph, I spent a long time taking photographs of waves crashing against rocks and splashing high in the air. That time might have been better spent just watching. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Truth be told, I took 250 photographs before this one, and my camera battery was almost dead. When I finally stopped taking so many pictures, my experiences became richer. It took the absence of photography to get this photograph. And after taking it, I only took nine more. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
That entire day, I didn’t get a single photograph I liked as much as this one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-43017852451033054532012-04-06T15:31:00.000-07:002012-04-06T15:31:14.676-07:00The Calendar Explained: January<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Towards the end of 2011, I put together a calendar for a small number of friends and family. One of them hangs above my desk at work, and recently I flipped the page to April and decided to write about each photograph and the story behind it. This is the first of those stories.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirrfk24QE9HTfbz-21QQPVd-ZzeafcrsutYxTdFHBrcDMK7pM1LaoWzn_zTSxVjpxE06-1W5Al7prSKRyKwHoJf1aai4jHxHkCe-XDNdijM2bdO2DHRtloqvLPmE4kAEAO3DNTOH0s1mKM/s1600/January.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="240" nda="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirrfk24QE9HTfbz-21QQPVd-ZzeafcrsutYxTdFHBrcDMK7pM1LaoWzn_zTSxVjpxE06-1W5Al7prSKRyKwHoJf1aai4jHxHkCe-XDNdijM2bdO2DHRtloqvLPmE4kAEAO3DNTOH0s1mKM/s320/January.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<em><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">
<em><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Taken January 4<sup>th</sup>, 2011. Camera: Canon PowerShot A480</span></em></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">
<em><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">f/3, exposure 1/160 sec., ISO 125, focal length 7 mm, aperture 3.15625</span></em></div>
</div>
</span></em><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Timing is everything with winter hiking, and I’ve been fairly successful at getting out in January to see the Columbia River Gorge’s frozen waterfalls. It takes a set of cold, dry weather and some traction devices for your feet, but it’s worth it to drive along the old highway and stop at ice-coated falls such as Horsetail and Ponytail, Oneonta and Latourelle. Other falls may be more impressive, but the lower tier of Multnomah Falls under the <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Benson</placename> <placename w:st="on">Bridge</placename></place> has an understated quality. Partly this is because the main drop on Multnomah is so huge, falling hundreds of feet down basalt cliffs spackled with patterns of frozen water. Partly it’s because the main splash pool just above the lower falls is coated with ice inches thick, and freezing spray turns the <place w:st="on"><placename w:st="on">Benson</placename> <placename w:st="on">Bridge</placename></place> into a skating rink. When I took this photo, there was so much ice on the bridge it was closed, and the upper pool was a monochrome definition of winter: black stone, white ice, and bitterly cold wind and spray. The lower pool, however, wore a more delicate, less severe mood, with bright green moss and winter fern adding warmth and contrast to the cool ice and blue water. The patterns of ice were accents, not the main theme, like a piano solo in the middle of a brassy jam: less abstract and elemental, they invited contemplation. Water still poured over the falls and winter still held the water in its grip, but there was melody in the rocky foliage and a note of passage. This photo scarcely captures that, but of all the falls and all the photos I took, this is the one that stands out to me emotionally, although I’m certain that quality is only evident if you’d been there.</span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-5430966396832293352012-03-15T10:45:00.001-07:002012-03-15T10:46:06.853-07:00Mountains Walking<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
<em>If you doubt mountains walking you do not know your own walking.</em></div>
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: right;">
Dōgen, <u>Mountains and Waters Sutra</u></div>
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
<br /></div>
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
In February I was in a head-space filled with moss and mud that sucked at my ambition. Better the real thing, I thought, so I went to Cape Falcon, where rain whipped over cliffs and the sea foamed and thundered in rocky coves. By the time I reached the tip of the cape, my pants were soaked and stained with mud to the knees. My hands were cold and my glasses misted with salt, and gray clouds hung over the beach and nearby Neahkanie Mountain. Out there, it looked and felt like the Pacific Northwest is supposed to – a rain-battered rugged coast dark with misty forests, swept by a steady wind and the occasional cry of a gull. Imagine a Chinese landscape scroll, with a solitary figure in the corner – laughably small, but necessary.</div>
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6WgX_HZCrFk2R6jeo9rZPhKaGcsR9587021XCxKOWsJW29Tj6O-nSSaE8Y0ot14GZ5Yu1Lqk8AsZWMZG2LjkvHHOIiTL0e2x2ff_9L0B-F5-wSmhfKTugl3TdXaR2vcwvuxlXg3F575bL/s1600/DSCN1374.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6WgX_HZCrFk2R6jeo9rZPhKaGcsR9587021XCxKOWsJW29Tj6O-nSSaE8Y0ot14GZ5Yu1Lqk8AsZWMZG2LjkvHHOIiTL0e2x2ff_9L0B-F5-wSmhfKTugl3TdXaR2vcwvuxlXg3F575bL/s320/DSCN1374.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
I almost didn’t go - bleak weather, laziness, and so on - but by early afternoon I was lacing my boots at the trailhead. Fifty yards later, the forest swallowed the noise of traffic, and I began to hear thousands of drops of water. Rain fell gently through the trees, splashed against leaves and spruce needles, dripped from glossy salal, and gurgled in flowing puddles. Dense, moody, and a hundred shades of green, the old-growth trapped the air and hushed sound. Mushrooms and ferns grew in the shade of sitka spruce eight feet in diameter, and old-man’s beard hung from colonnades of young trees rooted in decayed nurse logs. Time means little in these pockets of coastal forest, which seem endless and ancient and unhurried. The air is rich with loam and hummus, a heady conifer scent, and the salt of the ocean breeze. Even in daylight there are places where it stays dim, and February clouds only accentuate the atmospherics. Where the forest opens up, the light becomes voluptuous: moss and lichen cover everything in a soft carpet of green, and the light appears from everywhere at once, silvery and shadowless.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwV9iyquWOR6Eoisv1lsT5XRIoaISVpV5_A3NUv_azKg78oUmzkkBwL5F0uSs7F3GIEc6zvPFfihC-YafEahpPY44jUOi0gSlDSHeMnYEPk92tH9M2zYOi5tzsceWMaUlF18VwgNLxNsf2/s1600/DSCN1222.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwV9iyquWOR6Eoisv1lsT5XRIoaISVpV5_A3NUv_azKg78oUmzkkBwL5F0uSs7F3GIEc6zvPFfihC-YafEahpPY44jUOi0gSlDSHeMnYEPk92tH9M2zYOi5tzsceWMaUlF18VwgNLxNsf2/s320/DSCN1222.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
Eventually the forest opened onto a headland covered with dense thickets of salal and studded with wind-warped pine and spruce. Tunneling through wet brush to viewpoints on the south side of the cape, I looked south to Nehalem Spit and towards the ancient vision sites on the cloudy summit of Neakhanie Mountain, and ate lunch beneath a bonsai-shaped spruce above a steep cove. For an hour, I watched ocean swells slowly moving towards land, rising in sea-green waves that curled and exploded on a black gravel beach. Gulls drifted over the spray, and reddish-brown sea-weed drifted like bruises beneath the waves. Twice, more than a mile offshore, a puff of white and a dark comma of black showed where gray whales were feeding – year-long residents, maybe, or following their whale-roads north or south. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijRgAks970Rcl4ldSBky_7eJAWe92CBS7LyZghJAr1fYqXDgEvCT07vyXc3-skiGceh-evv6vPG4_x_gWdurhzBDs_L8vKv-WiWZ1fwtKr6wR1nPtyCGIzhZdQs73LkkOzPwAUivpsOXcU/s1600/DSCN1323.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijRgAks970Rcl4ldSBky_7eJAWe92CBS7LyZghJAr1fYqXDgEvCT07vyXc3-skiGceh-evv6vPG4_x_gWdurhzBDs_L8vKv-WiWZ1fwtKr6wR1nPtyCGIzhZdQs73LkkOzPwAUivpsOXcU/s320/DSCN1323.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
By this point I’d become so wet that I simply decided to stay wet, and wandered out towards the tip of the cape, trying to keep my camera dry and staying warm by moving. I came around a corner and encountered another hiker with his back to me, dancing slowly and grooving to headphones under a hood. </div>
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
<br /></div>
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
I said hello and he didn’t hear me. I tried again to get his attention, but couldn’t. This was getting awkward, and annoying – this guy was stationed exactly where I wanted to be, at the best, most remote viewpoint on the entire cape. I backed off and approached one more time, finally getting his attention. After a polite exchange I passed him, but came back quickly from the steep, slick, exposed trail at the end of the cape. When I returned he offered me a smoke, and so for the next half-hour we talked about things common to people who meet in February rain at the end of a cape jutting into the Pacific Ocean. I told him about seeing whales, and we talked about the migratory habits of grays. He pointed out bald eagles on a distant cliff, and I recommended he visit the Klickitat River to see their winter nesting grounds. We talked about mushroom hunting and rumors of Spanish gold on Neahkanie. We talked about Native Americans and Chinook Jargon, smallpox and Lewis and Clark, John Jacob Astor. And of course, we talked about hiking.</div>
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
<br /></div>
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
In Portland, if I’d passed this guy on the street, I probably wouldn’t even look at him. And he wouldn’t look at me. But just the fact of being out on the cape meant we had something in common, had something to talk about. We both get it.</div>
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
My initial annoyance with this interuption of solitude had turned to enjoyment of the conversation we shared. Solitude while hiking is a wonderful thing, but it’s not the only thing. We can’t truly “get away” in nature without losing ourselves. We carry our selves into wilderness, and wildness includes other people, actually can’t exist without people – not because we define its boundaries semantically or on a map, but because nature necessarily includes us. Most of us are simply too far removed to even be aware we’re removed. But the rain that falls in Portland is the same rain that falls on Cape Falcon. And the wild forests I walk in at Cape Falcon are just as wild and real and vital as those in my mind when I walk garbage out to the dumpster by my home in the city. That’s what Dōgen was getting at, and what Gary Snyder meant when he said <em>“To know the spirit of a place is to realize that you are part of a part and that the whole is made of parts, each of which is whole. You start with the part you are whole in.”</em></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrEbB3c-Rn0EXxR0I13WDbhsQvjsuFxM5NdG5F0VAFkvBrey-vyhetg6CIOOFqCSPkHHBpD47ZMaL1cJvQ0UeYvUx7gzUU9fhk0yL7N-XRU098mv4hBzeFqNx3THSTd3Fjgd2ERWF6JoYt/s1600/DSCN1328.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img aea="true" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrEbB3c-Rn0EXxR0I13WDbhsQvjsuFxM5NdG5F0VAFkvBrey-vyhetg6CIOOFqCSPkHHBpD47ZMaL1cJvQ0UeYvUx7gzUU9fhk0yL7N-XRU098mv4hBzeFqNx3THSTd3Fjgd2ERWF6JoYt/s320/DSCN1328.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
Before I left the end of the cape, I took one long last look at the sea crashing against the cliffs. Low clouds drifted among the shore-pine and spruce, and swells rolled in towards Short Sands beach and surfers in the scroll of waves. A gull flew overhead, and I heard in the wind the sound of it laughing.</div>Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-76042339881445217252012-03-07T23:07:00.006-08:002012-03-07T23:39:34.462-08:00Wildlife Sightings<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKOutekNqL3iIvD1eL7KXWFCLXzoqaw2-D7tDMhgk9hOyffkWWM0W_dhi_C92OVIeM6-56nW3gWyd_8ySRV3pzDwn5c83sBxFH9eQONoLytSxxCkYoXQZX887hWzxu3CIwoF-qsJXVmkuv/s1600/DSCN1824+Compressed.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717422798204131602" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKOutekNqL3iIvD1eL7KXWFCLXzoqaw2-D7tDMhgk9hOyffkWWM0W_dhi_C92OVIeM6-56nW3gWyd_8ySRV3pzDwn5c83sBxFH9eQONoLytSxxCkYoXQZX887hWzxu3CIwoF-qsJXVmkuv/s400/DSCN1824+Compressed.JPG" /></a> <span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><em>“If one is patient,” he said, “if one is careful, I think there is probably nothing that cannot be retrieved.” </em></span><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="right"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Barry Lopez, <u>The Orrery</u></span></p><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">The crowds dismay me as soon as I arrive at the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:place st="on">Multnomah Falls</st1:place> trailhead. It shouldn’t be a surprise how many people are here on a very nice Sunday in early March. But I haven’t been on a solid hike with a bunch of elevation and distance since last October, and a lot of my favorite trails need extensive maintenance to open, or are too deeply covered in snow. So I pass through frustrating groups of tourists sipping coffee and taking photos, cross the narrow Benson Bridge, “put on the afterburners” and climb past day trippers, slow hikers, families with strollers and babies on their backs, running kids, and leash-less dogs. At last I reach the top of the falls and the paved trail turns to rock and earth, thinning the crowds. I can finally catch my breath.</span></p><br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">A mile later, at the intersection with the Wahkeena trail, a sign says the bridge further up on the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Larch</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Mountain</st1:placetype></st1:place> trail is damaged and unsafe. I walk up to look. A couple in their 50’s is on the other side, dressed in rain-pants and knee-high gaiters, with snowshoes strapped to their packs. “Crossed it six times since they closed it,” says the man after he strides across. “You’ll find snow on Devil’s Rest.”</span><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I stop for a break at the top of the Wahkeena trail. Two trails drop down to <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Wahkeena</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Canyon</st1:placetype></st1:place>, one heads west to Angel’s Rest, and a third climbs up to Devil’s Rest. I look up into the trees – tall second-growth doug fir, old branches draped in moss, crowns of deep green needles against a clear blue sky. A shadow sweeps by – a crow chases another in and out of the canopy, darting around trees in a game of tag, cawing in the forest.</span><br /></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I don’t prefer blonds, but the one with her friends a little distance away is unbelievably stunning, with rosy cheeks and a contagious smile, in her mid-twenties, and wearing hiking clothes that excite my imagination. It is not too early in the season to find flowers in the wilderness. She and her friends hike on, leaving no trace.</span><br /></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Below Devil’s Rest, I put yaktracks on my boots for extra traction. An older woman descends the trail and stops to chat. She tells me the trail ahead is filled with snow, and beautiful. She recently had surgery, but since her recovery, she's has hit the trail every weekend. She says her doctor probably wouldn’t agree with her climbing to Devil’s Rest, but she can’t help it. I’ve been in her position, and we part with mutual words of encouragement.</span><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717422796274768242" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwJg3BJ5Q8B_AhfoNHLjISiEiKiMkEJz32mw7Pn_B06j_P0TUn4h8E_iMo-xhjgmUU0pMG8CjSKq2FMHp-TzYaWHu6FeL8Lr3o97cjcQRd1Sccj5vQZ4Doff00PTf68-9Xux9mSf9WYS02/s400/DSCN1837+Compressed.JPG" /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">In the snow, just before the summit, a man in a t-shirt and ear-buds asks where the overlook is. He seems lost, but competent. I send him down the trail a half mile. Another man passes me, dressed to climb Hood. He’s almost running down the trail in crampons. He’s Japanese, speaks broken English, and seems lost in his own good way.</span></p><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Finally at the summit, I take off my pack and pour green tea. There’s no view, just a jumble of mossy green boulders in the sun. Movement catches my eye: a large crow glides past at eye level, and with a single caw and a flap of its wings, it disappears into the trees. Voices rise up from the trail below.</span></p><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">It’s a very fit man with a bushy moustache. His daughter follows him to the summit. “Here we are,” he says. “Now you’ve seen it.” They stay a few moments, and depart.</span></p><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Next come two women with a black lab and two whippets. One of the whippets whimpers with cold. A young man follows close behind. He has a GPS and seems to be the hike leader, a loose designation because all three hikers seem to be exploring the network of trails around here without definite plans. One of the women asks Jason for the time; I look at my watch and almost answer. Then, laughing at myself, I pack up my thermos and put on my pack.</span></p><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I don’t take more than a few steps when two trail runners arrive in shorts and light windbreakers, carrying water bottles in their hands. They stay just a minute before running off. Damn them. I struggled to get up here and they’re running ahead of me, hooting in the trees.</span></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717422784881803362" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEo3hb6wQ-oZUC9wxEFhp38wqkP6kM09yye_OyTpngtEa_3eHOsRyKP0nEHJkV3MMkg6wb3uuLqSYGTI0imaZVir1zXDeGD8HuWpuXiN3k0vHybnRt5Y4pdwuF52uVCFvkH-9oD3YlqUUA/s400/DSCN1857+Compressed.JPG" /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I take the Foxglove trail, a user-maintained path leading west and down from the summit of Devil’s Rest. It joins the Angel’s Rest trail going back to Wahkeena. Suddenly, there are two familiar faces, a younger couple dressed in t-shirts. I’d seen them on the way to Devil’s Rest, and remarked how great it felt to be able to hike in t-shirts. They happily agreed then, but they don’t look happy now. The man just looks tired, but the woman looks cold and frustrated. Without thinking, I say “Haven’t I seen you before?” They don’t respond, and I spend the next half-mile thinking how creepy that comment may have sounded. In the end, I decide it doesn’t matter.</span></p><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Once on the Angel’s Rest trail, the snow thins and disappears. I stop a few times to take pictures, and a young woman overtakes me by Wahkeena Spring. When I say hello, she smiles shyly back, and continues on. I let her get ahead and keep hiking, but soon she and I are in an unspoken race to stay ahead of a large group of loud, ill-equipped hikers carrying lap-dogs in their arms as they descend the steep, muddy Wahkeena trail.</span></p><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"></p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5717422784001748146" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDMaVJBQCdPuOon1iqCMm-3B4aRoqljfcJeUDvzQ4IbhTbqW3ozBDG51Q4WcftI2GI3EFbKw1qDyLkixlePL9zCVtCsXdxEvEDtjelwSo1xt3kst72KY7fY2bp-NHpZhggSMuZRchGJ1fb/s400/DSCN1864+Compressed.JPG" /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I’m getting hungry now. I haven’t eaten lunch, and in my haste to avoid others, I’ve passed by several good lunch spots. But I’m almost back to the trailhead. Just as the canyon narrows to allow only a steep trail alongside a falling white-water creek, I pass two overweight women struggling uphill. I can see by their gear and their faces that they’re determined and serious. I say hello and one of them beams a giant smile at me. It wins the smile of the day, for sure – this is their trail too, and I like seeing them enjoy it in spite of, or maybe because of, the challenge it presents to them.</span></p><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I’m giddy but tired while walking through the crowded old highway parking lot at <st1:place st="on">Multnomah Falls</st1:place>. An elderly woman in a group walks right at me, not moving out of the way at all. I step aside, right up against a line of parked cars. The woman continues forward. My trekking poles are stashed horizontally across my pack, and the tip is at this woman’s eye level. I can’t move out of the way, and she won’t move, so I give up. The sharp tip of the trekking pole misses her eye by about two inches. </span></p><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Back in the main parking lot, I walk past a bunch of bikers clad in leather standing around their Harleys, and I watch kids playing Frisbee in the grass. I feel great – sore, but in a good way, and peacefully energized. Pouring coffee from a thermos, I take off my boots and socks and join everyone else in enjoying the late afternoon sun. Devil’s Rest is out of sight above the steep, thousand-foot cliffs, and <st1:place st="on">Multnomah Falls</st1:place> is in shadow. One of the bikers starts his engine and the rumble sets off the car alarm in the Subaru next to me. Then a crow flies overhead, cawing in the clear blue sky.</span></p>Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-83179394174597817192011-11-05T10:39:00.000-07:002011-11-05T15:50:58.762-07:00Hiking Light at the Painted Hills<span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Hikers know all about traveling light. We look for the lightest gear that serves multiple purposes, and study ways to cut ounces without sacrificing comfort, safety, or durability. But there’s more than one way to travel light, and hiking the Painted Hills is one of them.</span><br /><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5671571840280302466" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4MYK2qTv7NTrVNoHfiWjma6yyGAuFSteZ6cCbbrD1uopJesDNp1OIv5fdskoQMzLmjMbC8O2yBeMPQIhtrhDcVy5zM6hpTgzfV6j623dLWZWBsBVc4mjt_hvBjMaRpI69XeNaiRknrc5G/s400/1.JPG" /><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I’d planned this trip for months, but something always got in the way. Then, in July, I found a short window of time and loaded my truck for two days of driving, hiking, and camping in the central <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:state st="on"><st1:place st="on">Oregon</st1:place></st1:state> desert. I left <st1:city st="on">Portland</st1:city> in the morning, drove over <st1:place st="on"><st1:placetype st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype> <st1:placename st="on">Hood</st1:placename></st1:place>, and continued on through the Ochocos, a beautiful range of ponderosa and deep grass. By early afternoon, close to the small town of <st1:city st="on">Mitchell</st1:city>, I turned off the highway towards the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Painted</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Hills</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype st="on">National Monument</st1:placetype></st1:place>.</span><br /></p><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I hadn’t done much desert hiking previously, and didn’t know what to expect. I ate lunch at the small park near the visitor’s entrance and studied a map of the monument’s short trails. On paper, exploring looked deceptively easy, but I knew that this would be more than the sum of miles and elevation gain. And it was.</span></p><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 277.1pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">If a deer leaps in front of your car when you’re driving, you react immediately – a jolt of adrenaline, a little fear, an instant decision between swerving and braking – followed, afterwards, by a little rush. When you first see the Painted Hills, it’s a bit like that.</span></p><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5671571542122565858" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIqasg1Yw4YGCTIH1PUlDlimAyA6PPw_fEBJQo7v5WeafabeHlhlyCpNgkmORsZlTyjizsHsB9z4-kh_Hpgq0XJnVDePEzMrjN4FM47nwVBMcU9EgSUnzrsNKaxfZNNifCAIO6QQs7EFwQ/s400/2.JPG" /><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I didn’t drive far before encountering the star of the show – a huge, exposed hillside of volcanic ash millions of years old, compressed into layers of bright red, yellow, gold, brown, and black. The hill rose above a dry sage-brush flat, and stretched beneath a deep blue sky over distant hills full of summer grass and juniper.</span></p><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 277.1pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">For the rest of the afternoon, I wandered in splendor. At the Painted Hills Overlook I walked up the short trail for close-up views. Colors shifted in scales, growing in intensity in the sun, or falling mute in the shadows of clouds. The hills were an orchestra playing a unique symphony, with measure upon measure of light built up and reflected from the banded ash. Strange scars from rock-fall led like lyrics through the gradations of color, and the longer I watched, the more I felt the hills were unbearably old, unfathomably subtle, wearing wisdom as a spectrum of ever-changing light.<img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5671571289393276530" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVrOyZ4HSXSE90d87mh_AFmfzDl3BtWPN647QwjVB8ebiughgJmRipK6mFpUfq_UuRyut435d4Tp74WGw3qLZEBcMv_QtJb1fIbaB7tdOqnc_qmq6-IsKyQyv8VkkCEwaOmgcN-GZrbLAv/s400/7.JPG" /></span></p><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 277.1pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Eventually I returned to my truck and drove on to the Painted Cove, where a short boardwalk winds around a single red painted hill. As the afternoon grew long, the depth of the color grew deeper, contrasting wonderfully with dark green junipers and bright yellow blossoms of rabbit-brush. </span></p><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5671570954752265698" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiESZsrng4l_F1fV0Y_r_DT3VEEQbBJYwBO8xfKVuDxE8OpUPkviisX8c7gmS2FOWK2gbUe_VjBNnbf3pBh6DWVyvPxB57VKjakkfZinSU7xj7lffbV_RiY8njlg4-PHr3nSPk9jQ5fmU9C/s400/3.JPG" /><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 277.1pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">After soaking in Painted Cove, I walked around Leaf Hill, an outcrop full of fossil leaves, then returned to the Overlook and hiked to the top of Carroll Rim for expansive views of the Painted Hills. The steep trail soon crested the ridge-top, passing through rim-rock and odd basalt formations. </span></p><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">The views changed constantly along the length of the rim, with patterns of evening light and shadow dancing on the hills. Basalt speckled with ancient lichen lent a timeless feel to the scenery. This was once a volcanically active region, with lavas pouring across the land and ash falling into tropical waters. I’d catch a glimpse of the inhabitants of this dynamic landscape later, but on top of Carroll Rim, in the sun, with the Painted Hills below, I felt part of something very old still moving towards some unknown purpose.</span><br /><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5671570655547202146" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjujenn91vx2mHbPOmex3v4oNpAhI1h8zQ5SaniLiaAoWc1vXgvsUNW7gubkOMtl3U06y6pb3UKBLBJkAWaO5uKWC9tBSTYDMi39NFzxo48ticOvcEKatQ-49zuNHycJR53xS02qSN8703S/s400/4.JPG" /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 277.1pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">T.S. Eliot may have felt the same when he penned “I should have been a pair of ragged claws / scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” </span></p><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 277.1pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">It was time to go – if I wanted to make camp, I couldn’t watch the sunset. I hiked back down the trail and left the Painted Hills. It wasn’t a sad moment. In fact, it was exciting. I was on my way to the <st1:place st="on">John Day</st1:place> river, where I’d sit at a fire, stare at the stars, drink bourbon, write in my journal, and remember the hills. I especially looked forward to remembering the girl.</span><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5671570325192385650" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7nWMpRwYNlRqjx72cQwYH8ZC6bGGYnvYnSgPFhnqHUH7JbNcmAv4HNV1srIWcpo1lEEDXOd1L3xzMyqRa6Lxek2upV6lOJjzQnAf_OMG85idbKAvE9hwlVZ_pYO2aZYA1yzdlOklVVDoz/s400/5.JPG" /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">If the Painted Hills were ancient and filled with light, the girl was youth incarnate and made of light. As I made my way through the Painted Hills, she and her family leapfrogged viewpoints with me. At the Overlook, she burst from the car and ran up the trail ahead of her family; she was eager and strong in the sun, with long black hair streaming from under a straw hat, and smooth tanned limbs flowing from a blue country dress. In her late twenties, she was beautiful, and if anything were more beautiful than the light on the hills, it was her.</span><br /></p><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 277.1pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">It was like a doe had leapt in front of my truck. </span></p><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 277.1pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">We have immense capacity for love. Many of us will fall in love many times. In all those different times, we carry an ideal in our hearts – a type, a perfect representation of all that we seek in love. That true life never mirrors this ideal hardly matters; what matters here is that this young woman was emblematic of my ideal. And as a symbol – because I never exchanged more than a few words with her – she remains that ideal, unobjectified but unknown, and still pure. I did not fall in love with her – I fell in love with the idea of her.</span></p><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 277.1pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">When I returned to the parking lot at the overlook, a Native American man with a long braid and strong features sat on a bench in the shade. As I approached, he asked, “Have you seen my tribe?” His family (I learned his daughter’s name) had passed me on the trail, and Donny (not his real name) and I began a long conversation. He was taking his family traveling and camping, getting back to the natural world. It was a healing trip. He’d flown his daughter home from a bad spot on the east coast. He told me all about her, about how when she was young, she’d wake him in the mornings, begging to go fishing on the Sandy and the Clackamas. Naming those rivers – for naming is a powerful spell – led to the discovery that Donny and I live near each other in the same city. It’s a small world.</span><br /></p><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 277.1pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Later we met again at Leaf Hill, and Donny introduced me to his family. His daughter was shy, her eyes dark and guarded, yet she moved with confidence, in her element. In contrast, his younger sons displayed outward annoyance and the look of wanting a television and a video game. I wished them all a good trip, and drove on to Carroll Rim for that wider perspective.</span><br /><br /></p><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 277.1pt" class="MsoNormal"></p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5671569632327956450" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtW482RQmtqftjoCu-RPrXeW9wn9Gz4o8K3j8lAJlp04sMxj9ZHIlnH1FoPALk6DLbsiIlESt-zBtIMz5lY9j7A4t__jQUrHvJREOV70Ufd9yoPx25lGNknzyhOxmOsqCFMJAIP_2gzda5/s400/8.JPG" /><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 277.1pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">None of this is a good explanation of how I felt at the Painted Hills, nor is it a good description of Donny’s daughter and why she stood out in such relief. As I said, I don’t love her. I can’t; I don’t even know her. And I can’t exaggerate or make this complicated, because it’s surprisingly simple. Donny’s daughter moved as if she belonged there, as if her presence was necessary. She was just one more beautiful aspect of a beautiful landscape. She was all-to-human, frail, and fleeting – and the world she moved through was stark, elemental and enduring. And there was power in that.</span></p><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 277.1pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Later, in the BLM campground at Spray Creek, by the shores of the <st1:place st="on">John Day</st1:place> river, I watched the sun set and the stars come out, and I tried to express my thoughts and feelings in writing. I still haven’t succeeded. I’m working as slow as the Painted Hills, and the light isn’t done with me yet.</span><br /></p><br /><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 277.1pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5671568251639840066" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ78GKQGsys9PQ3r-6ebi8d0reGOjwcvjABgMfsqUYSVXngZ97SmEJipVgdK5pNXGfhhg3TPrtYxGBocDpg1PsoinYoyaCiK7bZ-1Rf16okTaNYZzc-No9eVQls8qhfTXx8kIjGCryVcnL/s400/6.JPG" /></span></p>Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-53922396087215526692011-10-21T10:43:00.000-07:002011-10-21T10:52:35.890-07:00Cooper Spur Journal<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggSb5V5PK4IQXuPBcUtikqUl1joK_D2Xc9nMIKMGj959ymsoY-BUoUy5Z2eQ-QdVCc68DkCbK_C_9a0Q3shia7ry6lanmsH0XsQDuNfFf-fNvDWvu469HmdtcjSV1nPr_nAUAjn_WMPYuh/s1600/DSCN8993.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5666004731751876274" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggSb5V5PK4IQXuPBcUtikqUl1joK_D2Xc9nMIKMGj959ymsoY-BUoUy5Z2eQ-QdVCc68DkCbK_C_9a0Q3shia7ry6lanmsH0XsQDuNfFf-fNvDWvu469HmdtcjSV1nPr_nAUAjn_WMPYuh/s400/DSCN8993.JPG" border="0" /></a> <br /><div><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><em>October 17th, 2011</em><br /><br />Cooper Spur shelter. Went almost to the top, turned back just shy of last ¼ when wind gusted cold, cold, cold. Otherwise warm, should be wearing shorts – sunny, not a cloud in the sky except north over snow peaks [Snyder’s term]. Late start, northeast face and Eliot Glacier in shadow at 2:30pm – these short days…<br /><br />A lot of hover-bees… And green tea with ginger. Snowfall a few days ago, patches on trail – icy snow mixed with rock. Not much to worry about, more a fun challenge.<br /><br />The Eliot looks incredible from the edge of the spur. Footprints lead up snow slopes between huge piles of rock, which tower over splintering crevasses and ripples of fallen stone. Along the moraine, fluted edges, patterns of rock-fall – can hear it, sometimes see it, stones clattering down the face from high.<br /><br />I forget until it’s over the initiation – long approach roads, time, weather, then climbing, breathing, sore legs – how can I be so out of shape? – must quit smoking.<br /><br />In minutes the sun will sink below Crater Rock. This whole side of the mountain shaded and cool.<br />Will go out again tomorrow, maybe the last hurrah on the mtn. If this be it, it is a beautiful day. What a weekend to end the season – maybe now I can accept the rain, muddy trails, dark forests, full streams, salmon, slugs, moss, fern, the world reduced to green and gray detail.<br /><br />But not yet – I will sit on this rock for another 15 minutes or so – massive block of dacite speckled with lichen – how old the lichen, how old the stone? – what weather has this high alpine plain weathered?<br /><br />There are long passages of time beyond reckoning, beyond the seasons and the rock-fall, the cycle of snow and snow-melt. The shadows grow long.<br /><br />Down in Tilly Jane it will be dark soon – active canyon, heather, hemlock, tiny streams – things move faster there.<br /><br />Spiderwebs catch the last light, drifting in the long afternoon. Boulders. White bark. Also drifting.<br />Amazing how silent it is up here.<br /><br />The sun is about to go behind the mtn. Time to go – for now.</span></div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><br /><div><span style="font-size:85%;"><em><a href="http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.308547902494044.97502.302391516443016&type=3&l=768d5ffe4f">More Photos Here</a></em></span></div>Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-40886412406292375212011-10-02T17:18:00.000-07:002011-10-02T17:56:00.238-07:00Returning to Earth: Elk at Bayocean Spit<div><br /><div><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I've had some memorable encounters with elk. In 2005 I woke in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:placename st="on">Eden</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Park</st1:placetype> in September when the stream was frozen and my hands were numb, and before the sun rose I watched elk pound up a steep talus on the side of <st1:place st="on"><st1:placetype st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype> <st1:placename st="on">Hood</st1:placename></st1:place>. In 2006 my friend and I paused while hiking in <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Enchanted</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Valley</st1:placetype></st1:place> to watch a herd pass through the riparian forest, sun-dappled and brown. In 2010, another friend wrapped herself in firelight at the foggy coast and stirred the ashes shaman-like with an elk bone she found while scavenging firewood.</span></p><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">And last April, at the coast with my brother, we crept up to a herd of elk grazing on the dune-grass plain at Bayocean Spit.</span></p><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5659058820977755954" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDguCCWVUpP6QJ300iHtwjgXbNOjMYOPsK9hsh4sBpNgv0kv4Ul0C_NEChFGEv4GN44GSX0k86ewNsU2k_zUgqIgySwq4VO054p7ZN0tdx6JtBvO8V9lUVLm-AEpglKWoHODTmNDEg9Uxc/s400/DSCN2100.JPG" /> <br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">The morning was bright and cool from recent rain, with a fresh wind off the ocean. I was surprised to see elk in such open territory and so close to the beach. A forest of shore-pine and Douglas fir lies further north, and that’s where I’d expect to find elk, not out in the dune-grass. </span><br /></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">But there they were, twelve or fifteen cows in the sandy dunes to the south. In the sun, their tan backs and sepia heads blended perfectly with the landscape, looking at a distance just like tussocks of grass. Only when they moved could we see them well, well-muscled and tawny-rumped, with long dark hair hanging from thick necks.</span></p><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">We walked the beach south for several hundred yards and cut back inland behind the herd, so that we faced north, away from the sun. The herd knew we were there and slowly moved away while my brother crept closer with his camera. Eric and the elk slipped quietly through the grassy hollows, Eric with his finger on the shutter and the elk with cautious movements interrupted by grazing or the cast of a critical eye. </span></p><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5659055179663562178" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbTyvsQWTZo3wjOORpPKH9Pwuz3LNxaba648WcDzwLEsdNQqDQK1jFhbU4oYJtwrchoM4k4FE5_73F84_2GrAsfx16UX_1btXaSpRYVreIM8P7NSEd8JsyHcDiA6A5BFlIUfPMKidNd9nn/s400/DSCN2090.JPG" /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I watched from a tall dune: Eric, the elk, waves of heat above the grass, a patchwork of logged hills and billowing clouds across the bay. The elk disappeared into the land like ghosts returning to the earth, and Eric slowly headed back. I heard the sound of surf. I heard the cry of gulls. Taken together, it became a blessing.</span></div></div>Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-53683791676192202402011-09-28T23:52:00.000-07:002011-09-29T15:28:23.549-07:00South Sister Thunderstorms<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGNZOY88JAgwM5QP1g8kjbwUaineYzLtTTYqOzgt_g9ucN5CiHHDh6p7zoD4MPIfdNlp-dBDtCrQu4CXERebVlnPJ8nfqFGhGibB0vkgRWsKdTHWla3gveyWeeFuXjGSfyZ2KQXxUWFwgY/s1600/DSCN6989.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5657910772863445314" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGNZOY88JAgwM5QP1g8kjbwUaineYzLtTTYqOzgt_g9ucN5CiHHDh6p7zoD4MPIfdNlp-dBDtCrQu4CXERebVlnPJ8nfqFGhGibB0vkgRWsKdTHWla3gveyWeeFuXjGSfyZ2KQXxUWFwgY/s400/DSCN6989.JPG" border="0" /></a> <br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">In late August I drove up the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Cascades Lakes Highway</st1:address></st1:street> from <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Bend</st1:place></st1:city> and the weather turned from fire-ban hot and dry to lightning-strike thunder and rain. I barely had my tent set up at Soda Creek campground when rain began to fall, huge drops that pelted the ground and splashed mud over the base of everything. Lightning strobed through the trees and thunder exploded like a marching band of heavy metal drums. Soon my tent was staked above a puddle, and I was huddled under a tree, trying to stay somewhat dry as thunderstorms broke over <st1:place st="on"><st1:placetype st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype> <st1:placename st="on">Bachelor</st1:placename></st1:place> and rumbled overhead.</span><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5657910553609219090" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmtQAonnxpckwfHNMoJhnK2_tvXSaRErCEekeumzaKUU2ODQKRL0amCfm5l_W0FkXBlKjbJFWykApWKasSvhos8_LL_FuiH0DTJ7ZMstEqWvWchEIC2jRcoBG-g0JHoVARGVhCeO5mUTkP/s400/DSCN6956.JPG" border="0" /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Soda Creek campground is a beautiful place, on the edge of a meadow between <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Sparks</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Lake</st1:placetype></st1:place> and South Sister. The creek runs clear and strong through the meadow, and from its edge, there are superb views of South Sister and Broken Top, as well lava flows, stars, deer, and storms. The storms didn’t let up – even after I went to bed, my tent lit up with lightning, and I’d count the seconds for the thunder.</span><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5657910358662846770" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 266px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihUsTgQCqT_P4ysN4sDzqKxlabXFE7Jpuv6PseoSh1F8U3FWa5Bqfe-Yid4Y4APwJpBA7XeiK-uhU9vA4S2qHMsdh89lnb_08iX-5yj6nxpMCi_2L8yCj3m7L3NejchOYBcHQ4VpH0C23p/s400/DSCN6948.JPG" border="0" /></p><br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">When I arrived, I didn’t know that the storms would last all night. I kept a tidy camp and lit a small fire, but kept it hot enough to burn through the rain and cook dinner. The storms passed in waves. One moment the air would be clear, with no rain, and I could wander to the meadow to watch the cells collide over the peaks. At those times, the sun shone through cloud-breaks with rich warmth, drenching the grass and trees with light. The next moment, lightning would flash behind me and I’d retreat to the camp before the next bruising thunderhead raced overhead, bringing rain, darkness, and probing lightning strikes. </span><br /><br /></p><br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5657910122921088098" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTdqb1ZT-JQN9dTNcsN7lyiTwXQNcnnxKP4LyU11qgawTEBW21Ocsq1QRQzrhLFwzdJO8SE7PACVQI8TQelSvYJRch1diMwQjUgCX-5fmC4lAi0mqVYms-DGzxhaYeTXc_Lwj1fpmo7wTj/s400/DSCN6967.JPG" border="0" /><br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Flash. Boom. No time between them – and no sense of security huddled under a tree. At one point I sat inside my truck, but my wet clothes turned the cab into a sauna within minutes, and I went back out in the storm. I thought about the backpackers who were camped up on the mountain at <st1:placename st="on">Green</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Lakes</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype st="on">Basin</st1:placetype> and <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Moraine</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Lake</st1:placetype></st1:place>, and how it must feel to experience this trapped in a tent in alpine country. I thought about how people throughout time have been inspired by thunder and lightning storms, how those elements have passed into myth, how they’ve inspired gods. I thought about the possible weather the next day, and questioned my plans to hike high on South Sister.</span><br /><br /></p><br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Back in the meadow, the sun set in spectacular fashion. Nature was on display, modeling everything she had. Cells continued to roll through, from Bachelor to South Sister, from Bachelor to Broken Top. Between the storms, light poured through the gap where the highway turned south at Devil’s <st1:place st="on">Lake</st1:place>. The meadows grew golden in the low angled light, then fell into shadow as the peaks hoarded the last sun on their snowy flanks. Behind South Sister, sunset fires burned.</span><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5657909951873814530" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 266px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFIoAlqJmYTcSeTDi4ifjSFgTGNT7IxaaY5XDqsUelu8k9ir18z4CXel3ycBfA6ZqnC0VI3eofZX2YG7XLHSSPJb2TRGcxEABalXzE7M1mOHf3UnL7CW0tHZIOhbHN9FaAOzz1I2IiTf9I/s400/DSCN6984.JPG" border="0" /></p><br /><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Whiskey burned, too. If you’re standing in a storm you might as well drink right from the bottle. I didn’t have that much, but that’s because I also had beer. And a little liquid courage goes a long way in a liquid downpour. After nightfall I realized that as challenging as the storms had been mentally, they had pushed me to remain positive and to be accepting of the circumstances. And when the storms decreased in intensity, in duration, and in proximity, I started to miss them. I threw more wood on the fire.</span></p><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5657909697911942610" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 267px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb51Z3q5_1ILZFTkrrfIl2f8X83YH70Q28BWjUd8T0Zu-ilnvLZxDreOU60dLB_C3cCNvktXV-yqPUSY1Fvax1-InKUCCeZfz44EGTCGZsW6uMAxNiXcBNoAxL2cLjVrlirGMkNIG7eEn7/s400/DSCN6981.JPG" border="0" /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">The clouds began to thin, the storms became more isolated and infrequent. As night grew deeper, a few stars spackled the breaks between clouds. The Big Dipper, Ursa Major, ploughed through the clouds and poured some sort of cosmic energy onto South Sister. But lightning still flashed on the slopes of <st1:place st="on"><st1:placetype st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype> <st1:placename st="on">Bachelor</st1:placename></st1:place>, and far behind the jagged summit of Broken Top. I crawled into my tent, shed wet layers, laid out my dry clothes and slipped into my sleeping bag. This would turn out to be a very different trip than I envisioned if the storms kept up through the next evening. </span></div></div></div></div></div></div>Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-77909891347825952392011-09-25T20:03:00.000-07:002011-09-25T20:27:17.074-07:00Hikes Past: Memaloose Hills<span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I’m looking at the weather forecast and for the first time in a while, it’s supposed to rain throughout my weekend, all across the state. I’m sure I’ll go hiking, but it won’t be the clear, brisk fall weather I hoped for. Feeling nostalgic, I’ve been thinking about a warm, sunny hike from back in May. At the time, the Memaloose Hills near Mosier were in full bloom, with acres of balsamroot, lupine, and paintbrush splashing the spring grass with color. </span><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5656502233593653122" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitLBvQuG4Sr99j1HlJIuoVltukSsQnyaEiN7g1nes2_-8RG1mEM9UtAqzMciNFaU5qAJK5nx1ljrr528Qwjv4znAMLrkTApDHjaqGaOQ78zGrNJysSBpRPQk7RPThdJzZoPMZvxnH9GRRg/s400/DSCN2875.JPG" /> <br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Sadly, Russ Jolley, author of the incomparable <u>Wildflowers of the Columbia River Gorge</u>, recently passed away. Along with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Friends of the Columbia Gorge</i> founder Nancy Russell, Jolley successfully fought to preserve the Memaloose Hills within the Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area, and open the land to public access. Today the hills are owned by the Forest Service and yet remain little known, despite a superlative wildflower display without the crowds drawn to nearby Rowena Plateau or McCall Point. </span></p><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I hiked the Hills for the first time this year, and the wildflowers were incredible. The trail leaves the old <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Columbia River Highway</st1:address></st1:street> and meanders through oak to a stream crossing. A side trail leads to an open meadow filled with balsamroot and a view from McCall Point in the east to the cliffs of the Gorge in the west. Back on the main trail, the path approaches private land before heading uphill through flowers to the summit of the southern-most hill.</span></p><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5656502999759179826" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi180-hUFYWUE3UiQWSLNDUv-UoS7yzhcxGEm-yOaa99ELihmQKmuqsqqR76MGkIiL69BoHrqq6TGBePY6zIp_XxwEPO626b3xqAY2QUgn2njun7w1V9oMefnwBsjiPvKQhei0rS8s_z06P/s400/DSCN2923.JPG" /> <br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">The air was filled with the scents of spring, the hum of bees, and the shadows of raptors gliding above the fields. <st1:place st="on"><st1:placetype st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype> <st1:placename st="on">Hood</st1:placename></st1:place> stood on the horizon, mantled in snow. The sky was a dome of deep blue. And the wildflowers were as thick as I’ve ever seen. </span><br /></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">When I hiked in, just before the creek, I spotted movement ahead of me. Five deer wandered a nearby meadow, unconcerned with my presence. I watched them for a while, then continued on. On the way back, I walked quietly towards the meadow to see if the deer were still there. They were: four healthy-looking blacktail does, sleek with brown coats and big eyes and ears turned towards me. The fifth doe was sickly and thin with a matted coat, and traumatic eyes. It must’ve been a hell of a winter for that one.</span><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5656500646233166418" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH9Iz_3VucuVEECmMvXbZB8PaWQjwfXskAIYldBeU13g0GbaMOkgGjt2ZJcKMj5uhN6N9ew3_MA68p7Hkfv7dI-mqtRantEeHYCzJK69gd33MnLaoXZu5M26REhDkWvNCuaFK0h3K_o-5P/s400/DSCN2684.JPG" /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I spent a few hours among the deer and flowers and then jumped in the truck to head to an afternoon hike at Stacker Butte farther east. The weather stayed clear all day – not at all like the gathering clouds this evening. It feels like autumn now, with today’s rain, but though autumn is probably my favorite season, I’m not ready to give up the sun. Fall is a time for ritual and celebration, remembering and reflection. But I’d like a few more nice days in the mountains. There’s nothing quite like hiking Cooper Spur or Indian Heaven when the air is clear and crisp, there’s frost in the shade, and the meadows and alpine trails are lined with amber and scarlet huckleberries and mountain ash. Something to hope for, I guess - though, if it keeps raining, I can always go back to Memaloose, and hoist a beer for Russ.</span><br /><br /></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><u><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Trail Info:<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></span></u></b></p><br /><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="font-family:'lucida grande';color:#333333;">Distance: </span></b><span style="font-family:'lucida grande';color:#333333;">3 miles</span></span><br /></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="font-family:'lucida grande';color:#333333;">Elevation Gain:</span></b><span style="font-family:'lucida grande';color:#333333;"> 450ft</span></span><span style="color:#333333;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="font-family:'lucida grande';color:#333333;">Region:</span></b><span style="font-family:'lucida grande';color:#333333;"> Columbia River Gorge - East</span></span><span style="color:#333333;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="font-family:'lucida grande';color:#333333;">Information:</span></b><span style="font-family:'lucida grande';color:#333333;"> No fees, no facilities. Watch for poison oak.</span></span><br /></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="font-family:'lucida grande';color:#333333;">Recommended Guidebooks: </span></b><u><span style="font-family:'lucida grande';color:#333333;"><a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9780979923241">Curious Gorge</a></span></u><span style="font-family:'lucida grande';color:#333333;">, 3<sup>rd</sup> ed., by Scott Cook; <u><a href="http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=7-0875951880-2">Wildflowers of the Columbia River Gorge</a></u>, by Russ Jolley.</span></span><br /></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="font-family:'lucida grande';color:#333333;">Directions: </span></b><span style="font-family:'lucida grande';color:#333333;">Drive I84 to Mosier (exit 69) and continue west on the old <st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on">Columbia River Highway</st1:address></st1:street>. After 3 miles, park in the Memaloose Overlook pullout. The unsigned trail begins across the road.</span></span><br /></p><br /><p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><span style="font-family:'lucida grande';color:#333333;"><a href="http://redsasquatch.smugmug.com/Hiking/2011/Memaloose-Hills-May-10th/17368325_Zgq67M#1368683119_XLQZVD2"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;color:#0000ff;">More Photos Here!</span></a></span></b></p></div></div></div></div>Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-65525408330554260352011-04-15T15:15:00.000-07:002011-04-15T15:31:02.786-07:00The Day I Lived Through a Volcanic Eruption!<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5595938926228270610" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiycLvz0v12pEn4B-06nmy0-y3Yrg15frKL6eBsJxaSp_loSk4y_V6ojDagRHCeIC3s-G7pBTJDMYjTuIQ4LAEAUa88X09BpcF9LJvxBUCzWoKJdKQ_VuNHEs_v7dDhdoSX-WOI2zb1RGaj/s400/Mt+St+Helens+North+%252852%2529.jpg" border="0" /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span> <span style="font-family:lucida grande;">On clear days in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:city st="on">Portland</st1:city>, <st1:place st="on"><st1:placetype st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype> <st1:placename st="on">St. Helens</st1:placename></st1:place> is a truncated cone, snowy white in winter and spring and turning to a smoggy purplish brown in summer and fall. But looking at the mountain from the north, at Johnston Ridge Observatory, the volcano is alien and terrible, a chasm filled with steam and smoke rising from wreckage like a beast from Mordor. The spires of the crater rim overlook a breach that opens onto devastated fields, the scale of which distance magnifies rather than diminishes in power. </span><br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">In October, 2004, <st1:place st="on"><st1:placetype st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype> <st1:placename st="on">St. Helens</st1:placename></st1:place> came to life again. A series of small eruptions and lava flows formed a dome inside the crater, surrounded by Crater Glacier, the northwest’s youngest. Although these eruptions were confined to the crater, they continued for several years, prompting authorities to limit access to the mountain. Two years later, the volcano was still actively erupting lava, the dome continued to grow, and occasional plumes of steam and ash rose above the crater rim.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">October 21<sup>st</sup>, 2006 was a cool, clear day. Along with other students in <st1:placename st="on">Portland</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">State</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype st="on">University</st1:placetype>’s geology department, I was at the mountain, studying the debris flow along the <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Toutle</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">River</st1:placetype></st1:place> and witnessing the lingering destruction caused by the 1980 eruption. Our second-to-last stop was at Johnston Ridge Observatory, directly facing the crater and only five miles distant. From the paved trails at the observatory, we could see across a shattered landscape into the crater itself. </span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5595938817132624034" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyhnVcXimAmJ0bQTfz8fqUEEO78syLi0Po08jtYLxXpppI5owxhZWzySga0qOuywLjdMxK6cVPObokVPFQitKnt6atOlLJYFyeqTUTT0l1fu39JoFLsg7FNr8Bl68_-X_p2ooKprTAyFl6/s400/Mt+St+Helens+North+%252839%2529.jpg" border="0" />T<span style="font-family:lucida grande;">he land has something of a Shakespearean tragedy to it, suggesting “Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang.” Facing north and west, I looked over miles of barren hills where once a forest stood. Today there is nothing there but stones and stumps, and blasted trees lay against the ground in neat rows as in a cemetery. Deer and elk, bear and mountain lion once roamed these slopes, shaded by old-growth hemlock and fir. You used to be able to hear running water among the dappled forest sunlight. You used to be able to hear the haunting calls of spotted owls and listen to the insistent tapping of pileated woodpeckers. If you sat still long enough, you used to be able to catch the iridescent greens of hummingbirds and the yellow flash of tanagers.</span> <br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Now the land’s silence on a clear sunny day is unfathomable and deep. It does not draw tears or catch your breath, because it exists in long moments of untethered wonder. Listen, it seems to say, to the songs that are gone.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5595939138271538594" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSLItwmMKaKBzPFobUaPM78E2KZNgt1plYs-Jp-xt6zZ9eJC0PZrPokkxgZmKcnFOHlF20iQU7xBTs_aomdCj4HPjs29Lk2PPydZSPPEksthTCinUOJWOhJ-6uCuR0tGG2NgPA87PSVeWZ/s400/Mt+St+Helens+North+%252841%2529.jpg" border="0" /> <br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I looked away to the south, to the source of this absence lording over it. There was <st1:place st="on"><st1:placetype st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype> <st1:placename st="on">St. Helens</st1:placename></st1:place> like a tyrannical father in repose, wreathed in smoke and silence, full of brooding violence and swift judgment.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Steam rose from the dome and filled the crater – although I was too far away to see it, the slow eruption continued, with fresh lava pushing the dome skyward, melting the glacier and surrounding the crater rim with a gauzy haze. The valley before the breach was filled with hundreds of vertical feet of debris blasted from the guts of the mountain, a graveyard plain of pumice and pulverized rock scoured by mudflows and clouds of super-heated gas, layered with ash and split by stinking fumaroles. It was almost entirely lifeless, with only a few pioneering trees and hardy tufts of grass covering the slopes above tortured gullies and young river channels. </span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5595938534744187090" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-QATkLk9laQEWEFOtm7lv2Gr2pqjaSZ4oTcXap6ZWSPcCc6Guc1FqgCHsTlpKLbVKZ3mQ6KP-oxJg90flalk-rji-P-nV3v46N9T1u9rNQ6HCHXTAOmHB2Pe5S5oTA583zFe4mK_wVXBm/s400/Mt+St+Helens+North+%252844%2529.jpg" border="0" /> <span style="font-family:lucida grande;">It was a very different view that day in 1980 when vulcanologist David Johnston watched the entire north face of the mountain slide towards him, leaving him just enough time to radio “Vancouver! <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Vancouver</st1:place></st1:city>! This is it!” before the lateral blast of the eruption swept a thousand feet up and over the ridge that now bears his name.</span> <br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">It’s hard not to feel this landscape in your throat.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Inside the observatory, after viewing a film about <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Johnston</st1:place></st1:city>, the eruption, and the aftermath, the curtains in the theater rose to reveal windows with a direct view of the crater and the scoured landscape in front of it. It was a forceful moment, as my film-oriented academic understanding of the eruption was again replaced with a gut-level, instinctual comprehension of the scope of the event.</span> </p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">We left the observatory in mid-afternoon and drove to <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Coldwater</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Lake</st1:placetype></st1:place>, spreading out to hike along the shore. Even here, on the far side of Johnston Ridge, the power of the mountain was evident. Barren brown ridges, still covered in matchstick-like trees blown down by the eruption, surrounded the deep blue waters. Along the shore, alder and other shrubs – still the first wave of succession – grew thick and low, obscuring the view of <st1:place st="on"><st1:placetype st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype> <st1:placename st="on">St. Helens</st1:placename></st1:place> above Johnston Ridge. </span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5595938388099775138" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 267px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTIPmat-etHuVVUbMT_xQdRm4s37_urLf9dfk193nZVfLaxNODiyzQq1uEp8IbJxtVdOvZoibCOWqyUjmCyZTZa3ZOuc3WJEx60zSV74yY9JzTOX_RePsiVje7zCOJWnS6Z3_cyzb1O0St/s400/Mt+St+Helens+North+%252866%2529.jpg" border="0" /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I was near the front of the group with Professor Scott Burns when, at 3:13 pm, shouts filtered up from the rear: “Professor Burns, come quick!”</span> <br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Turning around, I expected to find out that someone had hurt themselves, or had seen something unusual. It was the latter. At a clearing near the lake’s outlet, the alder parted for a view of <st1:place st="on"><st1:placetype st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype> <st1:placename st="on">St. Helens</st1:placename></st1:place>, and from the volcano’s jagged rim a dirty white cloud expanded in the air like a time-lapse thunderhead gathering strength. The volcano was erupting.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5595938195838942530" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJRWpokznYq0DXXrKL_knSKtrPNxODxxVECflZYtOuDQ58TR74Gh3J9KzjxRfSebBHP0Th4Hr6vpJS_iltmzNAkXEG7o2uXC4D9hFHoqKxFb3Gfwi4JWV2xXshCE517fEIso8s0gDbtcpT/s400/Mt+St+Helens+North+%252854%2529.jpg" border="0" /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">A bus-load of geology students went into full geek mode. Professor Burns began an impromptu lecture as the ash-cloud gained height and spilled out of the crater. For the next ten or fifteen minutes, the plume – filled with gray ash and white steam – rose two thousand feet above the mountain and spread west in the wind. But the eruption was short-lived, and as the plume began to disperse, we wandered back towards the bus. </span><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">It’s hard to say what it was like to witness this. I found out later that a magnitude 3.5 earthquake shook the nascent dome, collapsed a spire of rock, and caused the small eruption. I never felt the quake, and I was never in danger; the eruption never truly left the crater and ejected only steam and ash. But it was exhilarating all the same – and yet, rather anticlimactic.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5595938023588012594" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYbm2CXdXcLu5t-JByZfTMZQ_QHIaQOZyMgED2Kf9kizj5YAaNt8McaH_QSg8mV1mGsTTJXScbU1LZEHBbXSfPwYAGWGRf7wtEdbVdtf8VDDnOyjCWRSTi45Iq1mitBE1oqUYX4gTX9lwW/s400/Mt+St+Helens+North+%252862%2529.jpg" border="0" /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I’d previously seen ash clouds from minor eruptions all the way from <st1:city st="on"><st1:place st="on">Portland</st1:place></st1:city>, but I’d never been so close. And while this eruption was hardly anticipated, it felt removed. I stood on the cool shore of a large lake, with a fresh breeze shaking the alder leaves, and watched what might as well have been a cloud for fifteen minutes. There was no explosion, no ash-fall, no tremor in the earth. It’s hard to feel endangered at such a distance, especially in a crowd of professors and college kids more excited to take photographs than to consider the rarity and meaning of what they were aiming their cameras at. To take a photograph is said to steal a soul; in times like this, I’d argue that it steals your own.</span> <br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">As a group, we’d grown up on the 1980 eruption. Even if we weren’t alive then, or weren’t living in the northwest, we’d still studied that event and had, just half an hour before, been at the edge of the precipice. That was fresh in our minds, but hidden somewhat behind ridges of stone and familiarity. My background knowledge somehow dulled the emotional impact of what I saw – it removed the mystery, the edge. I can’t speak for everyone, of course, and I’m not saying I wasn’t excited. All I can say is that my excitement was more of an academic sort, full of intellectual perambulations quite opposite the hysterical running a larger eruption would’ve produced. </span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></p><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5595937717211714866" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEz_dpfEv3Qu1VGU7BWm35GrJ3128TrPFU6P0S45HrCduiRYZ4J5bKYt36hgwXnt-jvcuC-1owie1ph85svS6YYlnIAxyzST2ZDj6-n5xyrFD-aiwnUQZhOdB9HeyhWxyHIcZU_gCHw_KI/s400/Mt+St+Helens+North+%252871%2529.jpg" border="0" /></span></o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">In short, and in retrospect, I’ve been looking forward to writing this story because it’s almost more exciting to tell it than it was to be there – I saw Mt. St. Helens erupt! I lived through a volcanic eruption! Have you ever lived through a volcanic eruption? I was just a few miles away as the ash cloud rose higher and higher! </span><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">It wasn’t any of that. To portray it that way is to live through the photographs I took, and embellish the story at the expense of the experience. My experience at Johnston Ridge was more powerful than my experience of the eruption, which was strange and significant precisely because of its lack of significance. And yet…“It would’ve been a trip,” Professor Burns said, “to have that happen when we were up there at Johnston Ridge.”</span></p></div></div></div></div></div>Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-72330770103816185172011-04-02T15:30:00.000-07:002011-04-02T15:55:12.513-07:00What Did I Just Crawl Through? Adventures in Mt. St. Helens’ Lava Tubes<div align="left"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">I’m only about six feet in. It’s dark, extremely dark, and I’m on my hands and knees. My knees ache from the rough surface and my elbows knock against rock. In the darkness, something clamps around my foot, and I hear the voice of a young woman behind me: “Sorry,” she says, “I can’t see where I’m going.” </span></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Ahead of me, I hear more voices, and the sudden strobe of a camera flash illuminates the narrow round walls of the tunnel and the dark silhouette of a man in front of me. We’re in a lava cast: a straight, cylindrical void formed when lava flowed over a forest and solidified, leaving behind the cast of a tree that burned away nearly two thousand years ago.</span> </p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591122133398990962" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCYBC70V4F3rg1sH8pg3Du_glMPHfCf8kqjugybUjrjJijy2rnhBfoz5zFe6jZZyL3wIud6-dv3RCTfcoB8JDa7oH8VcTBKCs0u9JSIRwFd9XWxhGU86ILSL90YVwfAFr46hM88kHfR0CT/s400/New+Photos+143+A.jpg" border="0" /> <br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">When I was a student at PSU, I signed up for every available geology department field trip I could. This particular trip, to <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:address st="on"><st1:street st="on"><st1:address st="on"><st1:placetype st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype> St.</st1:address></st1:street> Helen</st1:address>’s south side, took me underground through the tree casts of Trail of Two Forests, and in the eerie formations of <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Ape</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Caves</st1:placetype></st1:place>.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">A mountain known best for its deadly 1980 eruption, <st1:place st="on"><st1:placetype st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype> <st1:placename st="on">St. Helens</st1:placename></st1:place> is young, erupting repeatedly over thousands of years. About 1,900 years ago, the volcano’s only known eruption of fluid basalt poured down the south flank of the mountain and created a formation known as the Cave Basalts. This flow left two outstanding geologic features: the lava casts at Trail of Two Forests, and <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Ape</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Cave</st1:placetype></st1:place>, a short drive closer to the mountain.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591118686581619522" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYSklJjTvZCoBOmjrKttvCSpu3hRfag5Z-ZdWI3nOQG57MAXffyETNBqfdRvPS1lyILI-yxRwqNHpsZY7wMTfFtQp28DTn5P665UoeF8ejw_56TlgJQxSTlS5QS5SFRx7DFOLIDt-NWVUk/s400/New+Photos+126+A.jpg" border="0" /> <br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">The Trail of Two Forests is a brief, beautiful boardwalk hike that loops over a layer of moss-covered basalt. The lava that solidified here had the viscosity of molasses, and as it surged through the ancient forest, the surface cooled into a ropey pahoehoe texture visible through breaks in the moss. The flow cooled quickly enough to leave behind tree casts: from the boardwalk, you can peer into round wells where trees once stood, and crawl through the horizontal shafts where lava swallowed fallen trees. The smooth sides of these casts are etched with the impressions of tree bark and the contact between cooling lava and the burning, charcoal tree.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Dark, confined spaces make me nervous, and the narrow confines of the tunnel, just big enough to crawl through on hands and knees, made me very nervous. But after going through once, emerging with scraped up elbows and bruised knees, I was ready to go again. I convinced two students to return to the tree cast after lunch and crawl through with me, this time with a camera. I’d lost my apprehension, and I felt exhilarated, ready to go on to <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Ape</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Caves</st1:placetype></st1:place>. </span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><st1:placename st="on">Ape</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Cave</st1:placetype> is the longest lava tube in the continental <st1:place st="on"><st1:country-region st="on">United States</st1:country-region></st1:place>. When lava cooled near the surface of the thick flow, it solidified into a crust, forming a subterranean tube that carried molten rock underground for miles. A boy scout troop first explored the cave in the 1950's, naming it after a local outdoor group called the St. Helens Apes. The hiking club took their name from a 1924 incident in nearby Ape Canyon, where a group of miners claimed to have been attacked by a family of Bigfoot. I didn't see any sign of sasquatch, but there were plenty of hominids present as a bus full of geology students pulled into the parking lot.</span> </p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591118539558180338" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5HGGPtdkx09olAibW39IZuNNYax9oi4y0QWcHMpDk2L7TIM3XjZw6g2lAaJ_cga9hy_ygQmHXFuE5m2t9jMNSRYGk_n7LmhYsY82eZ5MzK1bkoH3-mfGaDx2W7ebgf8WTbHHvrqgXQFu8/s400/New+Photos+172.jpg" border="0" /></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">With a total length of over 13,000 feet, and with several sections requiring at least a gutsy willingness to scale difficult walls and rubble fields in the dark, we weren’t going to see the whole thing. Instead, we descended a wooden staircase through a skylight at the main entrance and followed the lower cave to its debris-blocked end. From the skylight – essentially just a hole in the cave’s collapsed ceiling – the lava tube descends gently into darkness lit only by flashlight and headlamp. </span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Ape</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Cave</st1:placetype></st1:place> contains many features not found in caves formed from water erosion. There aren’t any stalactites or stalagmites, which require water and minerals to form. Instead, the walls and ceiling are smooth, and covered in an iridescent bacterium known as cave slime. The black and white zebra stripes are caused by water vapor condensing from the breath of people exploring the cool cave – <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Ape</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Cave</st1:placetype></st1:place> remains a fairly constant 42 F year-round.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591118407770161266" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9OmdZQ2Ih9-yZRRHZBcNbfNd-4eG4iGFSrM-_MynO5HMhuqV5QlQ032yMcQgH9ZkBA-ZGuWo_QrxNRsExOHgjSseSuGVgDpvkYmj9tBuGHz71Jhw5p6yGzkI-mkLyOLGQmFvZrNACKmHc/s400/New+Photos+178.jpg" border="0" /> <br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">As the daylight filtering through the main entrance fades, strange patterns and formations loom from the headlamp darkness. The cave wall is collapsed in one section, revealing oxidized bedrock baked red by the heat of the lava behind the smooth, crust-like wall. The ceiling closes in and opens again, like walk-ways above the sandy floor. Known as the “railroads,” these protrusions were formed when the lava tube was half full, and the surface of the lava began to solidify over the flow. At points along the tube, the floor is covered in boulders that have fallen from the ceiling. </span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Called breakdown, the larger boulders sometimes wedge between the railroads extending from the walls. The most prominent, an oxidized boulder nicknamed the “meatball’ by cavers, is fused to the extended walls by the heat of the molten flow. The mostly sandy floor alternates with rocky rubble from minor wall and ceiling collapses, and smooth stone eroded by water running through the cave in the near past. Moisture in the cave drips from the ceiling, further eroding grooves in the stone floor.</span> </p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591118211580445330" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijUMuGYVYZhGxBej21cUPPswjkCrxpRDHQ0MihE6KeBx40vV16SqKnzxGAfGMsgRnJl64FtBb4yl3NmLjAy8ruXBR7AdxvDvKRdRPcR6gayVfxN-mPDOmTtW48Hv_rT5xgZP3vdADjNNRe/s400/New+Photos+175.jpg" border="0" /> <br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Everywhere the walls are brown, gray, black, white, glistening and smooth and when the lights are turned off, always silent… In the darkness, cupolas open overhead and the dim blue LED light from my headlamp filters into nothingness.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Elsewhere in the tube, the ceiling drops lower and begins to resemble the hall of a gothic cathedral or monastery, with a pointed arch extending into a dimly lit cavern, a ceiling patterned with cracks and water-formed lines that appear intentionally designed. The dusty floor here has levees, small ridges running parallel to the wall, as though to keep a flow of water between the wall and the floor.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5591118046789800946" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUZjGjoSvhQ0I5s6TPFxIx6owFCyTQroerfFzPxYPuhuo1IUG3GPUnGox-J5ldsPiOwZidITlGLFz6GjSYFSh_WHA5-_xO9bn4fHL5ZsDQThu8Paph2lfbKldmFo8Ivx0rOmm1iKiQz-tY/s400/New+Photos+183.jpg" border="0" /></span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">At the end of Ape Cave, the ceiling drops so low that to continue, I crawled on my belly like a lizard, with my arms and legs splayed out until I reached the final, tiny chamber. With just three people the chamber quickly became claustrophobic, and it began to fill up as a line of students, tourists, and hikers on the other side waited to crawl through and blocked the passage out. Shouting through the narrow tunnel, I stopped people from entering the tunnel long enough to crawled back out, where the darkness and air were far more expansive than the flashlight walls and heavy air at the end of <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Ape</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Cave</st1:placetype></st1:place>. I walked slowly back to the entrance, and when I ascended the stairs and left the cave the sunlight was dazzling, and the sight and smell of the thick verdant forest made me feel as if I’d woken from a night of troubled dreams. I’d only been underground for an hour, but it felt like more, like the first day out after a prolonged illness.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Standing deep within <st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Ape</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Caves</st1:placetype></st1:place>, you gain a sense of how powerful the Earth is. It’s difficult to fathom the force and power of the molten lava that once flowed through the cave at a thousand degrees or more, but in the darkness it’s easy to let imagination and even fear run wild. And at Trail of Two Forests, the new forest overlying the ancient basalt flow that destroyed a forest and left casts of the trees that died there demonstrates the resiliency of natural forces and the interplay between creation and destruction. </span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">As William Stafford said, “The answers are inside the mountains.”</span></p></span>Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-56786877881110515522011-03-18T15:03:00.000-07:002011-03-18T15:21:34.507-07:00Scrambling Around the Labyrinth<span style="font-family:lucida grande;">A warm, fair day in February usually means crowds at Catherine Creek. I figured I could get away in the Labyrinth, a rugged area of imposing rock outcrops and hidden dells traversed by a maze of hiker, biker, and game trails.<br /><br />I started out hiking near a young couple with two young children. I passed them, and then they passed me while I fiddled with my new camera. It seemed they were always nearby, and the point was to get away.<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585545716422528226" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRZY1Fm2hsSQ8uSrJwu4q4UkJLR956soQH7FLHsrhp79nPGtNdCRUZSjrpIFIg9Do2Klu9D3d_y4FOYuhlZoRaCO6ieW7e7aO3NoJ3TShgd65dtPt-OuV1DfypfDmA_lIFjQv_WVSjRW9Z/s400/DSCN0817.JPG" border="0" />Pretty soon, though, I approached a massive outcrop of 50ft tall columnar basalt, sheer on every side but one, where a curtain of steep boulders reached to the very rim. I scrambled up to the base of the talus. A trail to the top suggested itself – at the very least, it was the beginning of a route – and my eye followed a line up the rocks and along the columns to the top. But I was alone, and at that moment I recalled a story I’d read of a climber’s death in a similar, albeit larger, boulder-field, and I thought about Aron Ralston, the guy who’d been pinned in a Utah slot-canyon and amputated his own hand to free himself. I thought about spraining or breaking a bone and having to negotiate my way down the boulders while injured. I visualized the loose boulders shifting without warning, crushing or trapping my leg or arm, or avalanching downhill with my body cushioning the fall of half-ton rocks. Hell, it would hurt just to fall on that surface.<br /><br />Finally, I thought about the brilliance of placing my hands out of sight on top of boulders where rattlesnakes might be sunning themselves. One last look and I turned around, picking my way back to the trail.<br /><br />Then that same family, kids and all, appeared below and started to hike a small game trail towards me. I spun around, walked back to the talus, and began to climb.<br /><br />At first the going was easy and I felt that if it got harder, I could just turn around. But I was quick and balanced, sure-footed, the boulders were more firmly entrenched than I’d feared, and I never had to put my hands where I couldn’t see them. I reached the basalt columns. The route continued up a little until it ended at a five or six foot wall that was easy to pull myself over. I was on top.<br /><br />I was on top, and I’d been here before. An ancient pine, silver and shattered, lay across the rock. A young ponderosa, squat and bushy, shaded a field of hand-sized stones covered with dusty orange and chartreuse lichen. Grass waved in the wind and I had a 360 degree view overlooking the Labyrinth and Catherine Creek, with the Columbia stretching east towards The Dalles, and the gorge stretching away west. All of this was familiar: I’d eaten lunch or taken a rest on many an outcrop such as this, and I knew that at the opposite side of this particular outcrop, the ground sloped gently down to meet the rising hill, and a game trail led back to the main trail. Breathing hard and pleased with myself for not giving up on the climb, I turned and looked down the talus. It was clear I’d misjudged the height by a factor of two – the family sat in the grass far below, perhaps a hundred feet or more, and the steepness of the boulders in the full sun was dizzying. </span><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585546003350360994" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9PLD1pEjMTX-q-dOsko4o4s9-TJCRKNkO_Sq_sKfpGsvqfRFqgqO-WAejh2evcrwF_CP2lZ_bP0_avW6qSnVBWAHuS1j9iIXiEdSQNmBfNArI35wtVC0lGxi-SpoUwOsDPW0bRYsgvLaH/s400/DSCN0858.JPG" border="0" /> <div><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></div></span>For a while I wandered slowly along the edge of the outcrop, over the jointed tops of smooth six-sided basalt columns, some peeling away from the rest, leaning outwards in denial of gravity. Away from the edge, the columns disappeared under a skein of angular stones decorated with hieroglyphic lichen. Climber’s bolts at the very edge of the columns reinforced my belief that I’d followed an actual route up the boulders, and that it hadn’t been unsafe. Unfortunately I didn’t pause to question why climbers would climb the talus to reach the bolts, rather than just walk up the other side.<br /><br />I backed away from the edge and found a place to sit for an hour. I poured a cup of tea and soaked up the expansive view, then ate lunch in the steady breeze. Afterwards I wrote in my hiking journal:<br /><br /><em>Climbed to the top of a great stone<br />outcrop, wind gusting ecstatically,<br />clouds old friends scattered in the sky –<br />rare blue, pale egg color fragile and new.<br />Across the river small fires burn.<br />One spark leads to spring.<br /></em><br />Not even good for a first draft, but promising on a still-winter day when it was almost too windy to write. I stowed my gear and got ready to head down.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585546432405693026" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKzfnA1MouEwaxyXDxfWlUSWU09QysUPo2gEmLoZouQwTuo_SDJb9NOd8RhQHK6bCuNrRd8JikpdFhTewhg7wgbv8-8K_bvUd3Bwfd3-f1VCmkZ8Xol7cFjEQn5xlg6yw-gEgQCHrK7nEW/s400/DSCN0833.JPG" border="0" /> <div><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></div></span>As I followed the edge I peered over into the small valley below. The trail was a sharp brown line swaying along the hillside. Tiny hikers walked along it, and beyond them, a small creek ran among leafless oak trees. The outcrop was a hundred yards long and higher in the middle, and I couldn’t see the far end until I reached it.<br /><br />A fifty foot drop. Vertical basalt columns. Air and space, filled with wind. No gently sloping hillside, no game trail, not even a pile of rock to down-climb. I was wrong. There was no way off the top of this outcrop except by the way I’d come up.<br /><br />Hurrying back to the talus, I thought of all the things that could go wrong on the descent. And I quickly discovered I hadn’t paid enough attention during the ascent: I didn’t know where I’d climbed over the top.<br /><br />When I came up, a series of natural hand and footholds had aided me. I’d intended to use them on the way down, but things looked really different from above. Dropping a few feet from a hanging position isn’t dangerous, unless it’s a drop onto rocky, uneven ledge six inches wide at the top of a 100 foot fan of boulders sitting at the angle of repose.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585545160006382450" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSFsPx9QuU15u8d8L3SwODIV_ZXaF1h3A63g4zice_w4SrVaF_iVzLqOM1wZS2-EuQVxoOs7qSTuFaiceEn8Ek-aYl_1BBu4tzCKjD-Mgovxa9lUW0dpuRKyOO8JJhrve0EEwxR7_0oxuK/s400/DSCN0824.JPG" border="0" />At this point I wasn’t scared. Obviously climbers came up and down this route, and I’d come up it with no problems. But going down was far harder than coming up. I studied the cliff until I was sure I’d found the line, and that led to where I needed to drop over the edge. I carefully lowered myself over, finding footholds and descending until I stood at the top of the boulders, and I cautiously moved to the columns, scouting the least steep route down the boulders. The problem was, it all looked far steeper than on the way up, and once I committed, I discovered that the boulders were not, in fact, wed in place, but were all loose and shifted under my weight.<br /><br />If I faced the slope, I put too much weight on my hands while testing my footing. If I faced out, I put even more weight on my hands. Nothing felt right, or sure. Even though I moved slowly, always with three points of contact, every time a boulder shifted I froze, willing my body to balance. I thought about what would happen if I knocked a boulder loose, or what I would do if I felt the burning sting of a rattlesnake’s bite. I pirouetted down the slope, sometimes facing out, sometimes in, never comfortable, always nervous, in a heightened slow-motion dance with gravity and growing fear.<br /><br />It took forever but I made it to the bottom. My quads burned with lactic acid, my knees felt weak, and I was cold in the sun. I covered the last few yards to the game trail, sipped some water, and took a deep breath. It was still early in the day and I was on solid ground. Before heading off deeper into the Labyrinth, I looked back at the solitary ponderosa on the rim, high above the boulder field.<br /><br />It didn’t look that steep. Not really. </span><br /><div><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5585544588164550594" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqkFcrDV5bTIq5xWSADHWuUN52oYEilCCBM7xgSNqKM3r7nzGXfwHEBjSefsIB6aeFAPhxGB_63uqv0I0Y0lTz8Kf3dpcEHadgmOVGmYe7Cq_GbkqZYGwEHIYTuarNM1SVKfMg_2GHvM0L/s400/DSCN0822.JPG" border="0" /> <strong>Distance:</strong> 5.8 miles roundtrip</span><br /><div><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><strong>Elevation Gain:</strong> 1200 ft</span></div><div><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><strong>Region:</strong> Columbia River Gorge (OR)</span></div><div><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><strong>Information:</strong> <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780979923241-4">Curious Gorge, 3rd ed</a>., by Scott Cook; </span><a href="http://www.portlandhikersfieldguide.org/wiki/Labyrinth"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">www.Portlandhikers.org</span></a><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><strong>Directions:</strong> From Portland, drive I84 to Hood River, cross the river, and drive east on SR14 for 5.7 miles. Turn left on Old Highway 8 and park immediately at the corner. Follow the abandoned highway west, and just past a road-cut, locate the obvious trail leading uphill to the north.</span></div></div>Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-17652683041165555362011-03-12T15:21:00.000-08:002011-03-12T15:34:26.988-08:00Take Nothing But Photographs, Leave Nothing But Footprints<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXhmzSsCuMPyI64ka7AeNfduP3Sl5lWZDdlW_l-eBK4zR0AQ4o0tWm_RckBW7iI5f_OK4cGRhRIT5Huxv7GTbG_oxVJUvYHVDxbXLlo-0dZtriw1SMccEIudSmPRxmH-fYJ7XKPHsh1Nch/s1600/DSCN1084.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583338382862671794" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXhmzSsCuMPyI64ka7AeNfduP3Sl5lWZDdlW_l-eBK4zR0AQ4o0tWm_RckBW7iI5f_OK4cGRhRIT5Huxv7GTbG_oxVJUvYHVDxbXLlo-0dZtriw1SMccEIudSmPRxmH-fYJ7XKPHsh1Nch/s400/DSCN1084.JPG" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><em>"We talk far too much… By contrast, how the gravity of Nature and her silence startle you, when you stand face to face with her, undistracted, before a barren ridge or in the desolation of the ancient hills.”</em> </span><br /><div align="right">Goethe</div><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><br />There was no sound but the sound of my boots in fresh snow, and the wind gusting through the forest. The snow fell with a hush that was softer than silence. It covered the trail, the vine maples and ferns, and coated the trunks and limbs of trees. Through breaks in the forest, I saw the dark ridges rise from the hidden river, slowly into snow-covered cliffs and conifers weighed down with winter. As I hiked towards Wahkeena Springs, patchy snow glazed the trail, and snow began to fall hard and harder as I climbed the final 800’ towards the tree-enclosed summit of boulders at Devil’s Rest.<br /></span><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583338258267910658" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnRI57GHDSSgtBA59n23ut1zlsmzmoVf6Rvh5berc5OL52JDB-0yOeAwphE2sGQFoUsg5Mi0yRrSRxV2s1mnPkfEBc54e7ZCMwKsqx4jrqi8BD1S8r7v62XOtsj1hu6LynHaKLG_i0sA2f/s400/DSCN1106.JPG" border="0" />Snow purifies not by hiding, but by revealing. Four miles of hiking and a half-mile climb had worked off the distractions of home. There were no tracks ahead of me, and on the way back, fresh snow and drift rounded the edges of my boot-prints. The forest was calm and serene, with snow coating the young trees and scars from the last century’s logging. Clouds drifting in and out obscured the river’s trade, the highways and barges, the railroad tracks and the clear-cuts on distant hills.<br /><br />The logging and the roads and rails were hidden, but I saw them through their absence: I did not see them visually, yet when I looked at the forest so different with snow, they suggested themselves in my mind. I felt that these things, these supposed imperfections on the purity of nature, signs of the world hikers strive to leave behind, weren’t even hidden, or in the process of being revealed – they were merely a part of the whole.<br /><br />A brief moment in the snow at Devil’s Rest was a brief moment in front of a mirror.<br /><br />When I moved on from my reverie the snow still fell through second-growth forest, a stand of former timber left to mature at its own natural pace. The clouds sweeping up the ridge continued to screen the traffic and muffle its noise. And because I was not hiking wilderness, snow piling on old stumps and chainsaw-cut rounds of downed trees was allowed to be beautiful.<br /><br />Hikers know the art of packing the critical, and also the weight and utility of it. Whatever is too heavy or isn’t useful gets left at home. At the summit of Devil’s Rest I set down my pack and poured a cup of hot green tea.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583338115342327458" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwn7qsXO87NqS0W-JUOrIvbw_y9xGQ5Srre1RCL9B3QZ-LYVkBNMQzM-Z1z4E-HocrPe-_l5aHHjI0LjgnZidD0JSF-JW0GQzr7Gsvit74ePjfFSkiVOk81p03plJp_NolLD8nnu1mKVlG/s400/DSCN1142.JPG" border="0" /> I stood for a long while in the silent young forest, watching the snow fall, breathing in the cold sharp air. Soft light filled the spaces between trees and the mossy boulders capped and crusted with snow. I was warm under synthetic layers and the warmth from the hot tea spread from my center to my limbs. I rested. I took photographs of my pack and gear in the snow. My pack was filled not just with the ten essentials and an extra sweater, but also with food and water, a journal, and a well-worn copy of the Dhammapada.<br /><br />I had everything I needed.<br /><br />The clouds began to lift and I left the summit with a lighter pack than when I arrived. The snow stopped falling, and yet as I descended Devil’s Rest there was no sound but the sound of my boots in fresh snow, and the wind gusting through the forest.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5583337966432213266" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 267px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDOLxKOUSORhZ0DMoSkyE75W_pOpMre3xmpe0JaFtckodCjLLU3PPV-VgZtySBKnztImVBIJflM-gAD9nRUvvENyjMA0MCXG9_RCcOrZw_p4yZnIGTE61OiEeX2dEDbbJYn6Pa_znp-xwT/s400/DSCN1108.JPG" border="0" /><strong></strong></p><p><strong>Distance:</strong> 8.6 miles roundtrip<br /><strong>Elevation Gain:</strong> 2550ft (est)<br /><strong>Region:</strong> Columbia River Gorge (OR)<br /><strong>Information:</strong> Most guide books; <a href="http://www.portlandhikersfieldguide.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Rest">PortlandHikers.org</a>.<br /><strong>Directions:</strong> From Portland, drive I84 to exit 31, Multnomah Falls. Alternately, take exit 28 (Bridal Veil) and follow the old highway east to either the Wahkeena or Multnomah trailheads.<br /><strong><a href="http://redsasquatch.smugmug.com/Hiking/2011/Devils-Rest-February-2011/15970967_6u3gJ#1198023817_3dYdk">More Photos Here!</a></strong></p></span>Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-22230696143708449512011-02-12T13:19:00.001-08:002011-02-12T13:23:20.507-08:00One Shot Wilderness: Without Weight<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxR39LvrHOJKEnu9CC75zGHpv6nfLzan5Z0B5M7Ao9oBacGzY9MXWsOmvbIw1DzlOJJXza4WYb6wkwJuoJeIDDB-aCltD-i0JvkfR6Nhbjli9U1krt-Ni5OPhPekCAn629J03fYam0Vod0/s1600/DSCN0631.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572916112401953202" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxR39LvrHOJKEnu9CC75zGHpv6nfLzan5Z0B5M7Ao9oBacGzY9MXWsOmvbIw1DzlOJJXza4WYb6wkwJuoJeIDDB-aCltD-i0JvkfR6Nhbjli9U1krt-Ni5OPhPekCAn629J03fYam0Vod0/s400/DSCN0631.JPG" border="0" /></a> <div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Sometimes, the only thing I can be sure of is that it is always and forever <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">right now</i>. </span><br /><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5572915941833612466" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSGzxOtqtTWdyPnI86mzNqQGF5nN4LgWxJyflgXOj1tmYkB-52Ax2xh9C5ZZG7knLZ_2ajipmVk675JRAHK0xv-EdRPICvExcTgGJ_28BTQz4r8pOwNk9XmMBXXHC0HU-CWQZm3eVa6YMS/s400/DSCN0633.JPG" border="0" /> <p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">The first photograph was taken from under the shade of forest, mid-morning, about a mile up the trail on Eagle Creek. The second photograph was taken a step or two later, just as the sun escaped from behind the moss-laden limbs of a winter maple. How swiftly mood changes, rising like the temperature when the sun strikes you. The view up the canyon washed out in the light, refocusing on the path and the shortened shadows. Distance shrunk and focus expanded; I became aware of steam evaporating from sunlit moss, of the subtle greens tips of pine needles, on the weight of winter exhaled in a bright moment of easy breath.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">It was like this all day at Eagle Creek – a thousand changes happening without weight, or, when noticed, noticed in sum, every detail magnified and whole, like nature getting off work and slipping into something more comfortable. Sun into shadow and back again. The creek singing from its bed, suddenly silent, suddenly always there. Ice on the trail followed by soft earth. Cathedrals of trees opening into long vistas and closing again in meditation. Breeze, then stillness. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Later when I turned around – for there’s only one way in and one way out of Eagle Creek – the sunny grove I meant to take my lunch in was thick with shadow. Below me, the creek cut through the basalt as it has for centuries, and the sun sank into the trees at the edge of the ridge-top. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">A thousand changes happening without weight, always and forever <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">right now</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span></span></p></div></div>Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1407374110567857282.post-69743164538869547652011-02-09T11:32:00.000-08:002011-02-09T11:39:57.035-08:00British Soldiers<div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Winter in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Tryon</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Creek</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype st="on">State Park</st1:placetype></st1:place> is bleak. The trails are muddy, the light crummy, and the foliage thin. Leafless vine maples bend their limbs under dark young firs, the fallen cottonwood and big-leaf maple leaves turn to mush under ragged bracken, and along the creek brown grass tangles with mud and the winter-washed banks. Winter is a time of waiting, and only the moss, lichen, and licorice fern seem to hold any promise of spring. And even then, only on rare days when the sun is shining and light fills the canyon.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"> </p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571775445265600962" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisK3a3jwqnG6QS0zGIZOhKK3mVYZZg93piBz2BzXRwjeCPPtYFMJxUNJVYz_R0a3jPlm92WxjhyphenhyphenDbAQ9VgaxhG-BVLyvXEvyYT_XcbhfI3vBrc7Axf6q5Ys75cWMH9yes1k-zYdxxCik0u/s400/DSCN0600.JPG" border="0" /> <p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Tryon Creek is not, by any stretch of the term, wilderness. It’s less than 700 acres of second-growth forest, entirely surrounded by urban areas, and used by just about everyone: walkers, joggers, hikers, equestrians, bicyclists, students, and artists. The trail system is extensive, but at less than a seventh the size of <st1:place st="on"><st1:city st="on">Forest Park</st1:city></st1:place>, it can be a crowded place. Nevertheless, Tryon Creek has its charms.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">One of those charms is the multitude of cedar stumps throughout the park. Relics from logging operations that began in the 1860’s, and development that lasted into the 1960’s, the stumps – many with springboard notches still evident – contain miniature ecosystems rarely noticed by the suburban joggers and dog-walkers. This photo is from a recent trip I took to Tryon Creek in order to play with a new camera and to get out of the house – and to check on British Soldiers.</span></p><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571775628396931570" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR7sN1-4EMA83DiA2DXUL2yGKvD1b_Y1fM_Es6vsedpxwwc9oQlUGpgrz2AlrOdKQXNiDPmv91knD-otJMUGbOlASaCenb_x0-ciDTzKVQi6BZ2OAjD2JS0obz4ON2Xq1Xbr790BV86En6/s400/DSCN0588.JPG" border="0" /> <p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">British Soldiers are lichen that produce red fruit at the end of a short stalk. Because lichen grow slowly and live long, they’re excellent indicators of environmental change, including that caused by pollution. Last year, I found a ton of British Soldiers in the stumps, along with a lot of small mushrooms. The hollow cores in the stumps provide protection against wind, rain, sun, and other environmental factors, and each is unique as an individual ecosystem. Because of the confined space, each of these ecosystems is subject to radical change – a large branch falling from a tree is but one branch in a forest, and hardly noticeable relative to the effect that same branch might have if it destroys a single stump. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">There’s one particular stump – I’m keeping its location secret – that has a high number of British Soldiers. And this year, almost exactly a year after I last visited, the number of British Soldiers in fruit was much lower. I didn’t do a count, so I have no hard data. Call it a subjective guess. From photos, and from memory, the amount of this lichen was radically reduced.</span></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">That subjective comparison, in itself, is meaningless. There’s no way to draw a conclusion without real data based on long-term observation. Because these ecosystems are so sensitive, a huge number of factors come into play. Weather is just one; the difference in precipitation and temperature swings widely from year to year with equivalent impact on lichen growth.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><o:p><span style="font-family:lucida grande;"></span></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Because of this uncertainty, I’m not worried about the apparent reduction in British Soldiers this year. I’m well aware that people might consider the very idea of being concerned about lichens a sign of mental instability. But next winter, I’ll probably find myself leaning into the rotten core of an ancient hemlock, taking close-up photographs of tiny lichen and wondering what it all means.</span></p></div></div>Jason E. Weekshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13687535851145531495noreply@blogger.com0