SHITTY CONDON POETRY

A thin, icy, cloud painted crystals overnight onto chilly windshields

Till the morning’s faux summer-sun chased it into low places

Winter’s premature apparition melts in gullies, carved across sloping fields

Behold a golden diamond set in a blue dome of sky, quiet and still as if in permanent stasis

Until Winter’s specter fingers stretch forth, over brittle, golden-fields shivering

Birds bail out of the sky, as if some great dangerous tide is turning

I stand atop a deep cut scar, a canyon, a river’s ceaseless dithering

Gusting winds kick up a haze though no fire is left burning

This bird’s eye view reveals my path through history, those days of triple digits

The river, flashing cold blue grins, teases saying, “I still got your (pretty-good) fishing pole”

It seems unlikely that a river’s fits and starts, its endless fidgets

Would craft such nonsensical wondrous scenes — absent any goal

Though born of different mothers — those distant violent mounts, these carved out hills —

They put on similar fashions, they rock their gravity skirts

Strong gusts comb the blond stubble of this barren high desert, yet my nose fills

With juniper pollen, hints of sage — varieties of earthly dirts

This isolated house — it’s hearth — someone’s metaphor for heaven

Did it nurture its humans, or do tragic skeletons somewhere repose, without testament or will

I can see for miles and miles and not see one Seven Eleven

Or gas station for that matter, my sketchy gas gauge reading empty while slanted downhill

Those grasping spectral fingers from before

Dragging a cloud blanket behind me, to swaddle me in cold darkness

A crowd of fans are waving at the sun they adore

“We really love what you’ve done with these pressure gradients”, they confess

Winter seems certain to win this seasonal battle, yet one pinwheel yet strives

To blow the snow off the mountain (with picturesque backlighting)

The vanquished apparition rises from the valley again, as if with infinite lives

Who would have thought 23.5 degrees of tilt would guarantee forever fighting

APE CANYON TRAIL

Water has been falling out of the sky continuously now for …I don’t know…maybe a hundred forty two thousand days (or maybe it just seems like it).

Hiking at the base of mountains at this time of year means any significant storm front can drop a foot of snow on you in almost no time at all. The consequent scarcity of intelligent/cautious hikers makes for uncrowded trails - with little hope for rescue.

Spiteful winds and rain try to strip the trees of their golden leaves. Failing to denude the deciduous victims, the jealous clouds hang low and hide the brilliant colors in a dull gray blanket.

Here and there, autumn’s fire bursts through the gloom.

I know Mt. St. Helens is ahead, because I saw it at the end of September (above) when I broke my bicycle on this very same trail.

…but today… I walk in eerie limbo, consorting with the souls of unbaptized children and all the rightous who died before the arrival of Jesus (Roman Catholic theology is endlessly fascinating).

The much photographed, constricted throat of Ape Canyon.

A pair of mountain-bikers (to the right) reveal the scale of the canyon relative to hominids.

When the volcano blew, melted glacial ice made a dangerous slurry of rock and ash which poured down the mountain’s flanks like a cataclysmic belt-sander.

The Plains of Abraham – a vast sterilized pumice landscape which now serves as an immense Petri dish in which to examine the re- propagation of life.

Tell-tale red bushes delineate the arterial flow of life giving water.

A tortured tree makes due with the only available shelter.

A line of cairns beckon me ever further into the apocalypse. I’m keenly aware of the warning I read earlier that says, “If you encounter ashfall or ballistics, seek cover and act quickly to protect your head, airway and eyes.” It ought to just honestly suggest, "...kiss your ass goodbye."

The contrast between the stark plains and the remnants of ancient forests, preserved behind sheltering ridges and hills is striking.

Further north, along windy ridge, Spirit Lake serves as a receptacle for thrown away trees - those that were unfortunate enough to be standing in the face of the eruption.

Tree limbo

Mt. Adams pondering the example of his sister

Kind of like looking down the barrel of a loaded gun

Editor's Note:

Dear Mr. Beck,

Thank you for your comment. I've highlighted the second biker (see above), but I wasn't able to find any yeti(s).

Editors Note:

Mr. Beck,

I have re-examined the photo of the bikers and determined that the rider of the first bicycle is Monkey-cam. In the fog, Monkey-cam might very well be mistaken for a Yeti, and, since that is not his bicycle, you may indeed have witnessed the throwing of poop as the second biker gained on him.

EAST ZIGZAG MOUNTAIN AND BURNT LAKE

There probably aren’t a lot of things worse than death, but the onset of dementia or a sudden diminishment of mental functioning - so severe that your ‘you’ is lost - might be two of them. That’s why, when evidence shows that I can still learn by experience, I feel exceedingly pleased with myself. For this hike (the directions to which I found in Douglas Lorain’s 100 Classic Hikes in Oregon: http://www.mountaineersbooks.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=577 ) I made sure that the entire route was well below the 6000 foot level, and I mentally prepared myself to test any gate I should encounter, closed or not. (See my June 11th entry about how I lost an encounter with a closed gate: http://thenarrativeimage.blogspot.com/2007/06/road-to-cloud-cap-trailhead.html ).

While there were no gates to worry about on this trip, possible future lessons to learn might have something to do with just how far you should go into the wilderness with a two-wheel drive vehicle on really crappy dirt ‘roads’, especially if rain is imminent.

Since I was previously sensitized to the plight of trees close to the timberline on the road to the Cloud Cap Trailhead, I was interested to compare them to the trees living close to the 2000 foot level. I know it is appalling, but I’ve realized I don’t really know the names of any trees or plants besides the descriptive generic terms flower, tree and vegetable. I’m trying to think back to when I was younger to determine if I ever knew the names of trees and plants, because if I’ve forgotten them, then maybe that’s a sign of dementia …but I can’t remember.

Despite not having an adequate vocabulary, I will attempt to describe some differences I noted. The higher altitude forest seemed to be composed exclusively of ‘pine’ trees. In clearings on the forest floor, young trees compete for the light that manages to filter through the holes in the canopy opened by fallen elders.

On the Burnt Lake trail however, a whole second layer of deciduous trees were struggling for placement underneath the taller ‘pine’ canopy. In the picture below, a wide stretch of young, broad-leafed trees are mysteriously leaning downhill.

My working hypothesis is that the trees’ posture is the result of being buried under winter’s accumulating snow which may at times even slide down the hillside thereby effectively teaching the trees how to dodge.

Vegetable wise, I saw many plants that looked like they depended on enormous amounts of water to be happy. I wondered if perhaps some of them might not make good salads.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the slightest idea which plants are edible.

And, edible or not, there’s no way I’m eating this thing. (See my recipe for French Tickler Salad below)

View towards East Zigzag Mountain Summit.

When I reached the edge of the ridge that leads either up to the summit of East Zigzag Mountain, or down towards Burnt Lake, I felt immediately rewarded for my long uphill walk with the sudden appearance of Mt. Hood, which had been hidden behind the ridge. True, most of Mt. Hood remained hidden from sight in the clouds, but it was still impressive. A beautiful, dangerous mountain, teasing from within an amorphous shroud of light and shadow causes the same kind of suspense and anticipation that is sometimes created by smart directors of horror films, the kind who don’t actually show their monsters until close to the climax.

AND NOW A WORD ABOUT THE RAW IMAGE FORMAT

I was challenged by a photography enthusiast at work to try out the RAW image format available for my camera. Up until now, I’d been using the highest quality JPEG format that the camera is capable of which typically results in images of approximately three megabytes in size.

It turns out that these JPEG images I’ve been taking are the equivalent of a stenographer’s shorthand notes for what the camera’s sensor is actually capable of recording. The typical file size for the RAW images taken during this particular hike weigh in at about eight megabytes each. Each RAW image file also comes with a secondary file which records the camera’s settings at the time each particular picture is taken. It is this secondary file that translates the RAW image into a JPEG file that is easily recognized by most computers.

The interesting part is that Canon’s supplied software, Digital Photo Professional, makes the record of the camera’s settings at the time of the shot irrelevant. In the picture immediately below, the image appears according to the instructions contained in the secondary file – as it would have appeared at the highest quality JPEG setting. However, since I have saved the complete RAW data, I am able to go back and essentially write my own translation instructions. In this case, I decide that the daylight setting for the camera’s white balance doesn’t support my eerie, almost mystical intuition that the mountain was consorting with heaven behind the shielding wall of clouds.

The second version of the mountain shows how I can ignore the camera’s original translation scheme and choose to alter the white balance output according to color temperature. The warmer colors work better for me. Since the RAW data remains intact and only the translated output changes, there is no image degradation.

Mt. Adams impersonating a cloud

My first view of Burnt Lake

A close up of Burnt Lake from East Zigzag Mountain Trail reveals what appears to be an improbably large duck.

Is this where fishermen go when they die?

View from the shore of Burnt Lake

(I was kidding. There is no recipe for French Tickler Salad.)