Geo 365: Jan. 7, Day 7: Heeere's Water!

On the last day of Dana's visit in October, we had intended to do the Columbia River Gorge. But the air quality was horrid, and at the end of a long, record-setting dry summer, the waterfalls were mere trickles. So we did a drive-through, and when we got to Hood River, we turned south onto the Mt. Hood Highway (Route 35), and up to Government Camp, then up to Timberline Lodge.

Timberline Lodge deserves a few posts of its own. The rustic, hand-wrought, rough-hewn architecture is wonderful. But after a walk through the lodge, both of us wanted to get outdoors and enjoy the views of the mountain. So we walked east, crossing a gully that was damp, but had no flowing water in it. The path we were following turned north to parallel the gully, but at some distance from it. We had gone no more than a couple hundred feet from where we crossed, when we heard the distinctive notes of trickling water. I was puzzled, but had my suspicions.

We walked back to the gully, and sure enough! We just happened to be at the right spot, at the right time, to catch the arriving front of the day's snow melt.

Just two weeks later, winter had returned...

(And as an aside, the title is an allusion to The Shining, parts of which were filmed at Timberline Lodge.)

Converted from .jpg to .gif and resized in Paint.net, animated .gif assembled in UnFreez, hosted at PhotoBucket, otherwise unprocessed. October 10, 2012. FlashEarth location.