THE SOUND of WIND OVER the ROCKS

Just down river from here, there was a horseshoe structure of waterfalls where American Indians fished for over ten thousand years, establishing a trade center that stretched from Alaska to California.

By the time Lewis and Clark sailed through here in dugout canoes, vast Indian populations had already been decimated by European diseases. If it wasn’t the end of the world, it was, at the very least, the end to their world.

The sound of the falls was silenced by 1957 with the completion of The Dalles Dam. The water backed-up and rose and changed the shoreline of this island. The river itself became an artificial sequence of controlled lakes, put to work turning turbines and diverted into the desert to grow crops.

Today, windmills creep westward down the sides of the gorge, even as far as this island. Time can be told not only by the position of the sun or moon, but by the regular passage of rumbling freight trains.

But the passage of time is still marked here by the passing of the seasons, and by scales less relevant to hominids, like the erosion of the gorge itself.

From the perspective of a deer’s lifespan, the old fence-posts from an abandoned corral may seem permanent and timeless – something that has always been there as a part of the landscape. Perhaps in the same way, we misunderstand the permanence of our environments … assume the mountains and valleys will stand till the end of time … forget that the very crust of the earth is in motion … evidence of the past continuously being submitted for recycling into earth’s molten core.

The basalt plateau at the head of the island stands like the prow of a mighty ship, strong enough to withstand the repeated onslaught of ice-age deluges.

The wind whistles around and over the giant wall, stacking shoulders of sand and dust at the base of the sheer cliffs. Eager grass optimistically calls the accumulations soil and starts setting down roots.

Gravity, roots, rain, wind and extremes of temperature - nature’s chain gang - making big rocks into little rocks.

Like ballerinas with little respect for gravity, deer glide effortlessly across the plain. I speculate it is this group’s tendency to run single file that has produced a veritable highway of trails from one end of the island to the other.

On the day this picture was taken, the wind comes out of the west and tries to push the river up-hill. Seemingly inexhaustible, the wind persistently coaxes the waves to march to the east in white-capped rows. From my vantage point high on the plateau, I can see eddies and other patterns appear on the river’s surface as the confounded water seeks to elude the wind and resume its journey to the ocean.

The sun ducks down behind the edge of the gorge long before it actually sinks below the horizon, leaving the island in an extended time of shadows before true twilight.

Back at the beginning of April, a lone kayaker paddled into the shallow ‘lagoon’ at the head of the island as the true dusk commenced. He spotted me returning to my camp and hailed me. “Did you walk here?”

Still equipped with a brain challengeable by clams, I wasn’t able to figure out a quick response. Of course I walked to my camp – he could see I walked – he must be driving at something else…

He must have sensed my confusion because he formulated an easier question for me, “Is this an island or a peninsula?” He shouted out cheerfully.

I knew the answer to that one.

It turns out he didn’t have his map available and while choosing to go left or right around an island usually doesn’t make a great deal of difference, approaching a peninsula carried a 50% chance of choosing a dead end channel and possible strenuous backtracking. When he found out it was an island he seemed relieved. He headed off to search the shoreline for a suitable campsite and indicated he’d visit my camp once he was settled.

It was an interesting visit. The lone kayaker said his name was Keel. Kiel I asked, sounding it out. No, he said, Keel, like a part of a boat.

I wondered if that was an alias as I eyed the giant knife he used to stir voluminous sausages into a greasy vegetable/noodle mixture – a serving size that would likely feed an entire Chinese family for a week.

Keel explained that he needed to ingest considerable calories to keep pace with the rate at which he was burning them. I came to find out that he had been on the Columbia river for the better part of a month, following it from its source in British Columbia (or as close as was possible considering the weather) with the intention of paddling all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

He had covered 35 to 40 miles that day, taking advantage of a break in the weather. Considering that in April, frost still decorated the grass in the morning, I had a hard time imagining the cold windy conditions Keel must have endured up to that point.

You’re taking this journey by yourself? I asked incredulously. The answer turned out to be no and yes. It had all been part of a sponsored adventure called The Columbia Experience. He and two others had set out together, but one called it quits after a week, and the other was outfitted with a catamaran style raft that showed a high profile to the wind. With such ill-matched craft, they had not been able to travel together for the most part. Then, perhaps that very weekend, the second adventurer was indefinitely sidelined by a broken foot leaving Keel on his own.

I had a million questions about expedition kayaking, and Keel was eager to share his hard won knowledge…which is surprisingly cool.

Keel noticed that I was shooting pictures with a Canon camera and since he had a similar model, the conversation soon drifted toward photography. I had been getting such poor results with my low-light long exposures that I had almost concluded that my camera wasn’t capable. Keel was able to show me that my chosen aperture setting was counter productive. Once the adjustment was made, I spent a good portion of the remainder of the evening shooting in the dark. It was his idea to put the flashlight inside my tent to create the kind of image that outdoor magazine editors supposedly ‘eat up’.

The ‘lagoon’ by moonlight

A twenty minute exposure reveals the earth’s rotation.

sunrise (late May)

sunrise (early April)

Keel sets out for the ocean.

It was great listening to Keel’s adventures. One of the stories I liked had to do with confronting an obstinate lock-tender at one of the dams. The lock-tender legalistically explained how regulations forbid him from operating the lock for boats that didn’t have engines. Evidently Keel, sitting in his kayak at the entrance to the lock, shouted back up to the tender, “No engine? What about these ‘guns’?” as he displayed his work hardened arms.

I remember that when Keel visited my camp, I didn’t have much to offer save for a substantial quantity of rum. He turned the rum down even though he professed to be a capable drinker. He didn’t really have an articulated reason for going without, but it seemed his exposure to the river and its rhythms had spurred him to seek a different kind of balance. I know for a fact that he was wrestling with questions of environmental balance, questioning whether human short-sightedness had already irreparably ruined the gorge, so much of which he had just seen first hand.

It will be interesting to see what Keel learns by journey’s end.

Keel (in the highlighted box) entering Hell’s Gate

Detail from entering Hell’s Gate

For more about Keel’s kayak journey see:

http://keelbrightmanphotography.blogspot.com/

See also:
http://thecolumbiaexperience.wordpress.com/

The wind during my May visit afforded me an opportunity to try capturing the motion of the grass, which was undulating in waves like a Kansas wheat-field. In the extended dawn, I was able to take 30 second exposures that showed the same kind of blurring effects I ordinarily see with water.

I suspected this deer cornered at the tip of the island would try to run past me. I panned the camera as it bounded by, which explains the blurry background. Out of six or so shots, this one was the best.

I was hoping the differential in movement between the grass and the sturdier foreground plant would create a painterly blended background suggesting the motion of the wind.

I think it may be worth experimenting more with this approach.

evaporating ponds high in the island interior

FROZEN WATER / FROZEN TIME @ Multnomah Falls

How it looked Saturday Morning

Midweek, I saw a picture of Multnomah Falls in the Oregonian (Portland’s big daily newspaper) that showed the giant waterfall as a kind of hybrid water/ice sculpture and decided I’d try to see it for myself if daily temperatures would agree to stay close to the freezing range until the weekend.

Multnomah Falls is situated toward the west end of the Columbia River Gorge, an eighty mile long canyon that stretches east through the Cascade Range. This high walled ‘funnel’ turns out to be an excellent conduit for frigid arctic winds that seek an avenue to the Portland Metropolitan area.

Anticipating ice, I stopped at REI Friday night and picked up some traction devices that are supposed to allow a person to walk on ice. There were three options, but the two in my price range were All Purpose Traction Aids by Due North and the Yaktrax Walker. I chose to try the Due North offering since I couldn’t see how the little metal bands on the Yaktrax wouldn’t slip on solid ice. I thought maybe the Monkey-cam could test-drive the Yaktrax, but he had spent the night bar hopping with Picasso in Old town and couldn’t be persuaded to wake up.

I’ve begun to think that Monkey-cam’s deliberate hangovers are really just an excuse he manufactures to avoid going hiking in the cold since he steadfastly refuses to wear pants. Last week I finished knitting a little non-confining ‘hat’ for his disproportionately large berries. When I gave it to him, he tried to act appreciative, but he looked kind of embarrassed and he’s never worn it. Now I guess I know how my grandma felt after she sewed me a hippie shirt.

Early Saturday morning - really early - I noted that internet weather sites were listing winter storm warnings for the Columbia River Gorge. The snow and freezing rain weren’t expected until about 10 o’clock. I thought maybe I’d be able to hike in at daybreak and get out before the storm’s onslaught.

Multnomah Falls is a pretty big deal as far as tourist sites go. It’s the kind of place you can take your relatives from Kansas who’ve never seen geography more interesting than a plain. It is easily accessible from an island parking facility in between the west and east bound lanes of interstate 84.

The clouds were approaching in an ominous fashion, disguised perhaps like fog, but with their baggy pants hanging low and their gang colors showing. A preliminary vanguard of little ice pellets fell from the sky and bounced on the ground.

I didn’t think I could beat the establishing pictures of the falls that I’d already seen in the newspaper, so I hustled up to the bridge and tried to take some more detailed images. The mist that came from still unfrozen, falling water single-mindedly sought the surface of my lens and immediately started to collect and freeze on the lens hood.

Taking pictures from the bridge was proving to be a losing proposition. I stood there among half a dozen other would-be photographers, all of us distinguished by our self-conscious maneuverings of cheap gangling tripods. I felt like some kind of lemming confined to a cage.

The waterfall mist had, over the last few days, coated the bridge and the trail in multiple layers of solid ice. The grasses and vegetation around the punch bowl were growing elaborate ice flags that pointed toward free flowing water. Nobody was moving beyond the bridge because the upward slanting trail was clearly a functional ice-slide.

I sat on a bench and pulled the Due North traction devices out of my pack. It was as easy as pulling on slippers to fit them to the bottom of my boots. All told, there were only six little tungsten spikes on each sole, but that turned out to be as effective as magic. The spikes made a satisfying crunching noise as they bit into the ice. This aural and tactile feedback helped make me confident the little spikes were engaged and working with each step I took.

It’s about a mile to the top of the falls that you can see from the bridge, and I walked that mile in solitude. As I climbed in elevation, I noted that the once visible Columbia River was disappearing into a white-gray fog. The ice pellets I noted earlier hadn’t stopped falling. I couldn’t tell by looking if they were falling faster or not, but the noise the bouncing pellets made when they hit the paved trail allowed for a rough estimate based on audible volume – like listening to a Geiger counter.

The stream that feeds Multnomah Falls is supposedly fed by underground springs from Larch Mountain - and also rain. The water careens around corners and bounds over rocks in a headlong plunge toward the canyon rim where it launches itself into space.

This frenetic motion of the water – this activity – is the best evidence or proof for the passing of time. In a way, winter appears to stop time. Animals enter various states of suspended animation. Grass stops growing. Trees shed their leaves and loose their link to the life giving sun. Water freezes.

In the still areas of the stream, ice would find footholds and crystal fingers would reach out to claim a branch or a rock – to stop the vital motion – the flow – the pulse - and bury it beneath frigid covers.

I don’t know where this apple came from - Well, O.K., I bet it came from an apple tree, but like I said, there didn’t seem to be anyone else on the trail. In a landscape of black and white and gray and green, I liked the surprising spot of red.

Now and then, the background noise of the freezing pellets falling from the sky would swell and amplify till it sounded like the ocean. The rocks began to shine and glisten.

As careful as I tried to be - protecting my camera from precipitation with an unwieldy umbrella - an ice coating never-the-less began slowly spreading from the lens hood down the length of the lens barrel and eventually began interfering with the zoom ring.

It was cold out, but I felt fine as long as I kept moving. When I stopped to take pictures I would also take time to drink from my thermos which I had filled with a hot cocoa - dark rum concoction suggested by the Monkey-cam. Three cups of steamy goodness later, I was feeling much braver about walking on the ice than was probably warranted.

One of the benefits of having a digital camera is the opportunity it affords for reviewing pictures as soon as they are taken. Unfortunately, the differential between the sub-freezing ambient temperature and my rum-stoked core temperature in excess of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit rendered my bifocals next to useless. I had to unzip my coat and find a dry patch of material to wipe the glasses, and then I had to put them on quickly and review pictures before they fogged up again. I determined that I liked the longer exposures though I don’t know if I can explain why.

It has something to do with multiple layers of frozenness.

Maybe I’m unduly susceptible to metaphor. Winter attempts to freeze and capture the stream. Cuffs of ice are everywhere visible. The camera shutter opens and shuts capturing a limited moment. But the stream is somehow, even now, not yet frozen.

The stream begins to disappear. It leaves a trace of its pattern, a memory of its motion. The stream is ephemeral - fleeting – as long as it moves it transcends the frozen moment.

I began to feel comfortable in my high private sanctuary from time. Meanwhile, far below, in random moments of chaos in the realm of a winter storm, cars careen across lanes and bound into medians. They leave patterns of their passing – angry ruts torn into a rich brown earth, white ash from a sputtering red flare, a human body – motionless. A freeway closed between Hood River and Troutdale.

Perceiving Time at Smith & Bybee Lake(s)

I sometimes think I can remember back to High School. Every classroom had a uniform, institutional-style clock about the diameter of a large pizza high on the wall. At certain stressful moments, say Mr. Rubin’s oral Algebra quizzes, my attention would be transfixed on the clock’s minute hand, all my powers of will focused in a hopeless telekinesis experiment to accelerate time and perhaps escape the grand inquisitor’s sarcastic wrath as he methodically and relentlessly worked his way from victim to victim on his master seating chart. I don’t think I ever saw the minute hand go faster, but I’m fairly convinced I saw it stop a few times just long enough to grant my classmates a smug sense of superiority as I proffered another ridiculous answer.

Depending on the clock, you may or may not be able to see the minute hand move. Sometimes minute hands click to the next minute-mark increment once the second hand completes a circuit, but I don’t think you can really see it move while you’re watching it. When it comes to the hour hand, forget it.

The only time I think I can see the Sun move is right at sunset or sunrise when it is put into scale against the horizon. It is kind of a revelation to realize that it has been moving that fast all day, all the way across the sky, but it really doesn’t intuitively explain how the earth could be spinning (at least at the equator) about a thousand miles an hour.

At the Painted Cove Trail in the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, a boardwalk takes you on a journey through time measured in millions of years. At one point an interpretive sign explains how the trail spans two ages separated by ten million years: On one side of the trail, colored layers speak of the remnants of a deciduous forest. On the other side of the trail, jumbled rocks testify to a lush tropical jungle.

If you can’t see an hour hand move, how can you imagine the formation of mountains, state-wide lava lakes or continental plates migrating around a molten core?
Geologic time isn’t intuitive. I can’t see it directly, can’t feel it, and I can’t experience it except through imagination. But once I try to imagine it, once I walk on an outcrop of shale that holds the imprint of avocadoes in a central Oregon desert, it somehow enriches the sense of time I do experience.

This is the fossil shell of a café in Mitchell Oregon. It is evidence of a more prosperous economic epoch lost in time.

This is Smith and Bybee Lake. Actually, I’m pretty sure this is the Smith part of the Lake. (Or is that ‘Lakes’? – they’re connected). Anyway, this is how it looks in springtime. There is an explosion of growth – plants seemingly leap out of the water - yet just five months ago, photographic evidence tells me (and I kind of remember) it was winter.

From January, 2007 to June, 2007

The passage of time on a human scale.

All of the things we see, and all of us, it turns out, are fragile and brief experiments of life set in a shifting environment much harsher than Mr. Rubin’s Algebra quiz.

Occasionally, a species is fortunate enough to find a brief eddy in time sheltered from the current, a place to stretch out and flex a few muscles.

An opportunity to bloom.

As examination time drew near, Mr. Rubin used to write witty sayings on the chalkboard. The one I remember goes like this:

"Time will pass. Will you?"