I'm the Decider, and I Decide What's Best.

Out from under the compressed expectations of a short work week, I launch my kayak from Heritage Landing. The fast flowing Deschutes ejects me into the Columbia River Gorge.  I paddle into a stiff wind, the captain of my own fate...for a change.

Moments before, a man with a new jet-ski tied to the shore told me the water was too 'crispy'.

"You mean 'choppy?'", I asked.

"Crispy." he nodded.

But eventually I settle for the adjective 'spooky'.

What looks to me like serpentine standing waves, the massive undulations of a barely submerged plesiosaur, are camouflaged by the spray of wind whipped whitecaps. 

I ride the bucking cryptid as it sweeps me off course.

"Captain of my own fate my ass." I mutter.

Swept, eventually, into the wind shadow of Miller Island, I regain my bearings and make landfall at the first smooth sandy beach I find, which, because the water is higher than usual, means a protracted search.

The wind curves through basalt lined valleys, pushing the heads of the tall grass downward. They bob up and down like blinking fireflies, in dramatic contrast to the tortured skeletons of burnt shrubs.

The island valleys parallel the flow of the river, and hint perhaps their current appearance owes much to ice age flood waters...

...with only the strongest basalt outcroppings surviving the deluge.

Now windswept dunes migrate the length of the island's interior...

...mostly appearing to labor eastward.

Paper cracks rock.

Fire burns paper.

Rock ignores Fire

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08-24-2013    -   07-04-2014

The sun sinks behind hills on the Washington shore. The wind is strong enough to knock me off balance as I step from stone to stone, which isn't ideal from this high perspective.

Using my dumb phone, I call friends with smarter communication devices and inquire about wind forecasts. The lowest wind speeds are expected to occur at sunrise.

You'd think those things would look like frenzied pinwheels.

At about two in the morning, without proper camping gear, it occurs to me that I should also have inquired about the expected night-time temperature.

I also begin to reflect upon the psychological importance of blankets. When I was little, and in fear of monsters, there was no greater comfort than being able to pull my blankets up over my head for safety.

For adults in the wilderness, it works exactly the same... if by monsters you mean the noisy black beetles I discovered with my flashlight...or any number of imagined ticks, spiders, ants, snakes, scorpions, tarantulas and foul tempered beavers.

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The valley floor at five in the morning.

Because it gets light at four.

Note to self: Remember where you parked.

(Especially if by 'park', you mean  'hide your kayak in tall grass to protect it from pirates'.)

On this particular morning, the clouds take a crack at tessellating, after catching a glimpse of an M.C. Escher book abandoned at a picnic, its pages slowly flipping in the breeze - waving at the sky.

(Editiors Note: See comment number two)

"Hello." The Water is Calling.

I set out for The Dalles last Saturday to track down some more examples of native American rock art (I'd been given a few leads - thanks Mr. Colman), but driving east on I-84, I didn't fail to notice that the Columbia River was as smooth as glass all the way from Portland to Biggs Junction and probably beyond.

This phenomenon was not entirely unexpected (witness the kayak strapped to my vehicle). The miraculous conditions persisted as I sped up the gorge. By the time I passed Celilo Village, my plans to correlate GPS coordinates with actual physical locations were mostly forgotten. The brilliant blue water was calling to me like early morning flat water calls to water-skiers.  Note to literalists: When I say the water was calling to me, I'm employing a metaphorical device and by no means am I suggesting that water can actually talk.

Even my brother Fred would have a hard time managing to capsize in this.

Some months ago, wildfire danced impulsively across this Columbia River island. 

Formerly, a nearly impenetrable barrier of trees, brush and stickers lined the shore, but now, the natural fence is decimated here and there...

...with only a few elder trees, limbs now charcoal-ized in gestures of despair, testifying that fire is hot.

The singed landscape struggles to hide its scars.

All week at work my brow is furrowed - the ends of my lips pulled down into a pained grimace - but today in this thin place, my forehead kissed by the sun - my face begins to unfold - relax - and though I don't recognize the feeling, I think I start to grin.

Inhabitants of this area told news reporters that there hadn't been a fire like this one in over 50 years...

...but this scorched island is not bereft of life or beauty

I've spent so much time conversing with the fire's ghost, that I realize I will be paddling back to my launch site in the dark.

I paddle through Hell's Gate as the sun sinks behind the hills. All the while I feel as if some kind of Moses has stretched out his hand to divide the winds on either side of me... to let me pass unharmed.

High on the lips of the gorge, the sun lingers for a sublime moment.

And I am left alone...listening...

...the water calling...

...cars whiz by on the freeway, semi tractors growling occasionally...and the last of the die-hard fishermen rev their motorboats to life and hurl themselves towards the boat ramp.

Six Weeks Later: Miller Island Fire

Almost six weeks ago, fire danced across 513 acres of the eastern end of Miller Island.

If you compose a picture carefully enough, you can make it look like a surreal image of destruction. But mostly, the biggest difference on the island is that there are more ashes blowing around and it smells like your clothes after you sit in front of a campfire for a weekend.

East end of Miller Island as it appeared in May of 2009

East end of Miller Island as it appeared 08-24-13

The fire's path of destruction seems kind of random at first, but then you begin to notice geography and elevation and the gorge's trademark gusting winds, and some things begin to make sense... patterns become recognizable.

It isn't always clear why some things are spared.

Deer retrace their trails into the singed earth. The sound of brittle grass crunching heralds the approach of bounding deer long before they become visible.

The bark on tree trunks is burnt, but not all the way through, and the lower leaves are singed brown...but perhaps the trees will survive.

Green things are already migrating into the blackened areas of earth.

I lichen how the singed edges provide a bold black outline.

As I secure the kayak to the truck rack and prepare for the journey home, I notice that someone has lit the clouds on fire.