The Narrative Image

Overnight, supposedly, the temperature bottomed out at 15 degrees Fahrenheit. With only a 20% chance of precipitation, the odds seemed good for a survivable trip up the Eagle Creek Trail. The only places that were icy were the places where water perpetually drips down and oozes out of the basalt layer cake that makes up the cliffs to Eagle Creek's canyon. Perversely, the only places that were icy were also the places that have the greatest exposure to heights. The water was running much higher than I've become accustomed to, no doubt because of all the recent rain, and the new broad banks made a view of the falls from the lower viewpoint problematical. The water runs ice cold, even in the summer, and the last time I tried to wade out for a shot of the now hidden iconic-waterfall-scene, the nerve connection between foot and brain was numbed so quickly that I endangered the well being of my photo gear as I teetered crazily on senseless pegs,...

My dad died a long time ago when I was away at college. Ever since, Father’s Day hasn’t been one of the more outstanding celebratory days. It isn’t because I can’t remember a lot of positive things about my dad, it’s more about a hole that I can’t seem to measure and which never really fills up. Cancer introduced itself to my dad back in the mid sixties and then proceeded to stalk him for almost two decades before cutting him down at the age of 48. So anyway, being in a melancholy mood, I thought I’d take a stab at writing a piece that might fit into the inspirational genre. Knuckle-prints in the Sand One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with Monkey-Cam. Many scenes from our hiking adventures flashed across my memory. In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was only one. This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I really could have used a friend, I could see on...

Ever since I trespassed into a mysterious hidden clearing on the Wilson River Trail, I’ve experienced the eerie feeling of being watched, or perhaps even of being followed. It’s the same kind of feeling I had when I crossed the renegade cows on the Bird Creek Meadow Trail near Mt. Adams. I shared my uneasiness with Monkey-cam and hinted that I could really use some company on the Triple Falls Trail in the Columbia River gorge, but he was still miffed about being treated like an imaginary friend. “Why don’t you hang out with your corporeal friends?” he pantomimed, knowing full well that I don’t really have any. I guess he must have seen some transient expression of pain flicker across my inexpert poker face and he relented a little bit. He indicated that he wouldn’t be hiking with me this week, but he reassured me that he would begin negotiations with the cows to see if he could work out some kind of truce for the upcoming spring hiking season. I interpreted his goodwill gesture a...