P52 - Week #20

Although I've photographed the Columbia Gorge Bighorns for years, they haven't been as accessible in recent years.  I get a stiff neck looking for them when we drive the area from Blaylock Canyon and Phillipi Canyon to the John Day River.  There are so few places one can pull off the freeway safely.  This time, it was perfect.  On our way home from the west side, we saw these rams and they were right above a wide spot beside the road.  I actually climbed up the rocks to the fence below the rams to get a good shot.  The next time we go, their winter coats will be shed and they shouldn't look so raggedy.

Another Round Trip Across Oregon

Our only granddaughter turned 1 on April 10, so we made the trek to the "west side" again.  On the way back, we drove a portion of the Historic Columbia River Highway, always my favorite. Before we took that old highway at Mosier, we sailed past Multnomah Falls, but it was packed on a Monday, so I didn't want to stop.  Beautiful drive both ways...we just wish Hillsboro could be closer.

The ubiquitous wind towers lining the Washington horizon above the Columbia River

 Bighorn rams photographed at 70 mph from the car

 Portland has beautiful flowering trees, many of which line the streets.

 Magnolias were starting to bloom in Hillsboro

 Fascinating variety of growth on a tree limb

 Metal creature on Main Street in Hillsboro

 A most interesting combination of tenants

 Multnomah Falls, plunging from a mountain charred by the devastating Eagle Creek Fire of 2017

 View of Columbia upriver and I-84 East from Rowena Crest Overlook

 The famed Rowena Crest horseshoe highway

 Bighorn rams bedded down in the afternoon; we actually backed up on the freeway for this shot!

 Bighorn ewes look really rough this time of year.

The Boardman tree farm, now in small sections since the land was sold for other agricultural use.

The Gorge Will Never Be the Same

A week ago, my husband and I made the drive across Oregon from rural to urban...to spend a few days with our first--and only--grandchild, ginger-haired Ava Maeve.  She's not quite 5 months old, so has changed so much since we last saw her in early July.  The drive takes nearly 5 hours, if we make our obligatory stop at The Dalles.

A little more than halfway, the Columbia Gorge begins...one of the most beautiful "wild" areas of Oregon, home to hundreds of miles of hiking trails up forested mountains, and home to 77 waterfalls, the most famous is Multnomah Falls.  Today, the forested area of the Gorge is on fire, the victim of a teenager with fireworks.  Things will NEVER be the same again in the Gorge. Generally, I don't do a lot of photography from the car, and we didn't stop because the Gorge area was full of Labor Day visitors.  However, I actually took a photo right at the exit to Cascade Locks, a small town on the river, which has now been evacuated because of the fire.

View of the burning Columbia River Gorge from Washington side of the Columbia River
(dylan taylor photo)

These photos are just "typical" sights along I-84 to and from...  some sights will never be the same after this fire.

Three modes of transportation so important to the state: a tug, a train, and trucks.

View west into the smoke caused by multiple wild fires in the state. 

Railroad bridge across the Columbia from Oregon to Washington

Smoke illustrates the layers of the landscape in the Gorge. 

Exit to Cascade Locks, riverside town forced to evacuate by the Eagle Creek Fire

Young Bighorn Sheep rams grazing on the dry terrain along I-84. This

       sighting was on the return to Northeastern Oregon. 

Wind turbines are common in this part of Oregon and across the river in Washington.

It might be an interstate, but the combines have to get from one harvesting area to another!

A famous tree farm near Boardman has been reduced to a few small stands of trees, making way

for more productive crops .  

Spring also means Animals...

The trip to SE Portland is nearly 400 miles, out of the mountains, across the flatland "desert" between the mountains and the Columbia Gorge.  The Gorge itself is always beautiful, but the high point for my husband and me is always the search for views of the Bighorn sheep between Blalock and Philippi Canyons and the John Day River.  Several summers ago, groups of rams were almost always right next to the freeway and easy to photograph. Then that seemed to change, but we didn't give up looking. Two weeks ago, we were able to stop three times--three times where there was enough space to pull off the highway. I was within 50 yards of the animals.   The rams are ratty looking because they still have winter coats, and it was a rough winter in the Columbia Gorge.  Hopefully, they will be down low again in a month or so.