Nature

Westmoreland, on a very cold fall day in Portland
The main intersection at Milwaukee and SE Bybee, in Westmoreland. Shot with a GoPro.
There is always a big line at Saboru Sushi, in Westmoreland.
Shot with a GoPro.
Shot with a GoPro.

Technically I live in the Sellwood-Westmoreland neighborhood, but I consider Westmoreland to be distinct unto itself. I once lived here oh so many years ago when I was an undergraduate, so it is a place I have called home. The defining features are the massive rail right of way, the Westmoreland Manor retirement community off McLauphlin Boulevard, and the newly restored Westmoreland Park. They all mash together in a valley. I now run and walk here and enjoy the park, the local eateries and brewpubs, and cozy little homes. It would be a good place to call home for the long haul. (Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Grant and Mt. Scott parks, Portland
Taken with a GoPro.
Taken with a GoPro

Portland, like many cities, has a lot of parks. Seen here are Grant Park and Mt. Scott Park. Portland’s parks have this almost eerie quality with Douglas firs and ultra green grass, manicured by Parks and Recreation Department staff. It is as if some great omnipotent being wanted to make a cross between an English garden and a Pacific Northwest forest, and plop it in a city. That is what they feel like to me. I like them. So do residents, who approved a big bond levy on Nov. 4 to pay for improvements.  (Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Fall and fog in Portland, Oregon
Taken with a GoPro.
Taken with a GoPro.
Taken with a GoPro.
Taken with a GoPro.

It was a foggy, cool, and beautiful day (Friday, Nov. 7), here in the Northwest. The colors on the oaks and maples have been spectacular, and I brought my GoPro camera on a trip to and from the swimming pool. I took these along the way, through the Woodstock, Mt. Scott, and Eastmoreland neighborhoods. I’m a sucker for color and foilage every time. What is not to like about nature doing its natural thing? (Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Impressions of southern California
Shot with a GoPro
Shot with a GoPro.
Shot with a GoPro.

I love traveling to places I know nothing about, in my own country or overseas. What you see is all new, particularly if you have no firm pre-set notions or biases. I spent a few days in San Diego and Riverside counties, specifically in Temecula (home to Native Americans for about 10,000 years), about 60 miles northeast of San Diego and the same distance southeast of greater Los Angeles. It is now a bedroom community, in the middle of the coastal ranges that once were dry and mostly arid spaces and are now home to freeways, Indian gaming casinos, agriculture businesses, shopping centers, miles of car-oriented subdivisions, strip malls, and also beautiful mountains and natural spaces. I was struck by how utterly and completely dependent the entire local economy and the built environment are to cheaply priced energy, notably petroleum.

The beaches of north San Diego County dazzled me. Numerous historic and scientific landmarks also impressed me, particularly the San Luis Rey Mission and the Palomar Observatory. I also was able to get in some hikes in Palomar State Park and the Santa Rosa Plateau. All provided excellent opportunities to enjoy the high desert mountain ecosystems. (Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Fall in the Chugach Mountains
Taken in 2006.
Taken in 2006.
Taken in 2006.

Let’s be clear. I will say that fall in Alaska is as good as it gets for autumn colors. I still cannot believe the colors of red blueberry bushes on the hillsides, birch trees firing up the forest canopy, and the orange and red underbrush. I took all of these pictures in Fort Richardson and Chugach State Park, both just outside of Anchorage. (Chugach State Park is more spectacular than most National Parks in this country by a country mile, if you ask me.) I do not miss the winter at this stage of my life, as of today, but I do miss the fall, all days of my life. See more of my photos of Alaska on my Alaska photo gallery. (Click on each photograph to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Bird outside the window
This bird on the wire was shot right outside my study window, using my consumer-grade Canon, and I liked the results (2014).

One or two families of crows nest in trees in my backyard. Noisy winged neighbors indeed, and bullies. I am fairly certain they keep all other birds away too (crows raid nests of other birds, as they are efficient at finding food anywhere). Crows are not quite as stately as the raven, the granddaddy of all birds and the apex of the corvid family of birds. At times I watch the crows, likely this one, on a perch outside my kitchen window, and they cannot see me. They are wickedly smart and not afraid to tussle and compete with humans for the land we mistakenly think is “ours.” (Click on the photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

Odd and scenic sights on the Forest Park Running Trail

I grew up in the St. Louis area. One of my favorite places remains Forest Park, perhaps one of the nation’s top tier public parks. It is both historic and beautiful as a natural place in an urban setting. There is a six-mile running trail that circles the outer edge of the park that takes one by a bird sanctuary, a golf course, the Jefferson Memorial Building dating from the 1904 World’s Fair, some artificial ponds where urban fisherman really do fish, and the St. Louis Science Center. The latter has a life-size diaroma model of a tyrannosaurus rex battling a triceratops, which were among my favorite critters growing up.

One of the oddest attractions is a monument to the Civil War veterans from the Confederacy, highlighting the city’s legacy as both a Southern and Northern community–a racial and sometimes divisive legacy that remains today, as seen recently in protests in Ferguson. There is also a competing statue nearby of German-American veterans of the Union Army from the Civil War. These are all visible from the running trail. I decided to photograph these sights today using my GoPro Camera to capture the scenes with a fish-eye view.

Runners, put on you shoes and do a lap or two when you visit. You will love it. (Click on each photo to see larger pictures on separate picture pages.)

Steptoe Butte, the power mountain

 

Wheat fields surround the highest point in the Palouse, Steptoe Butte.

Steptoe Butte is the tallest natural feature in the Palouse region of southeast Washington. Today it is a state park that provides a spectacular view of the wheat and other fields of this mostly agricultural area north of Pullman. According to some sources, this more than 3,,612-foot-tall peak, was sacred to indigenous groups, going by the name Eomoshtoss. Native residents reportedly visited the location to engage in vision quests. It is well worth a visit. And all that crop you see? That is wheat-miles and miles of wheat, just before harvest. (Click on the photo to see a larger picture on a separate picture page.)

In the path of fire’s fury

 

Pateros was the hardest hit single community, where wildfires burned a swath of homes after the flames raced down the hillside forcing residents to flee with almost no time to grab belongings.
Residents of Pateros, three weeks after the fire destroyed many of their homes, now clean up and pick up the pieces of their massively disrupted lives.
The United Methodist Church of Pateros survived the blaze, despite the fire taking homes to its west and the minister’s home to east. Having a small bit of defensible space without fuel likely helped.
One can see some of the dozens of burned structures in the Methow Valley, like this, driving north from Pateros to Twisp.
The road connecting Twisp and Oknanogan saw some of the greatest damage from the ongoing fires.

This past week I visited areas that were burned in the Carlton Complex fires, which now rank as the state’s worst in recorded history. Part of a neighborhood was burnt down in the small town of Pateros, on the Columbia River. More than 300 homes were lost in the Carlton Complex blaze as of late July, which still is the epicenter multiple fires now burning in Okanogan County.  It is deeply saddening to see a person’s or family’s dreams turned to black ash.

I believe this fire will be a watershed in how this state contemplates dealing with people living and building in the so-called fire wildland-urban interface zones, which are at high risk of wildfires. Insurance companies will no doubt be rewriting their policies. The larger issues of how we will prepare for a drier, hotter, and more fire-prone future because of ongoing climate change remains to be seen. I expect more fires of this magnitude in the future in this part of the West.

I do not know if those with money or big dreams will still be flocking to resort and natural areas like the Methow Valley to live closer to nature, now that we have tasted nature’s wrath. My experience as a former St. Louisan, where I have witnessed two 100-year floods on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, is that people will likely again build and return in areas once destroyed. The pressures to do so likely will overwhelm many of our best efforts to prevent through smart planning the next all-but certain natural disaster. (Click on each photograph to see larger pictures on a separate picture page.)

(Note this post was updated on Aug. 11, to reflect a more accurate count of the fire damage based on media accounts from local officials.)

Fires continue to burn central Washington

 

One of the fire incident command centers is located at the Methow Valley Elementary School near Winthrop, where hundreds of tents are pitched, creating a small city.
One of the active blazes in the Methow Valley, when this photo was taken on Aug. 6.
The many hundreds of firefighters have been welcomed warmly in Okanogan County.
The air is thick with smoke in the Columbia River basin, north from Wenatchee to the Canadian border. This was taken near the fire damaged town of Pateros on Highway 97.

I just completed a trip through some of the most impacted areas of central Washington, where the largest fires ever in the state have left a path of devastation and continued disruption. Okanogan County, a beautiful mountainous and a popular recreation area, was among the hardest hit. One fire alone, the Carlton Complex fire, burned more than 300,000 acres and destroyed dozens of homes. Charred remains of burned buildings can be seen from the roadside, not to mention hills turned black and brown. Thankfully, no one was directly killed. More than 25 helicopters remain deployed in the valley, and several thousand regional firefights continue to fight blazes in the county and now other areas of the state.

I will publish pictures of actual fire damage tomorrow, in Okanogan County and also in the town of Pateros, which lost more than a dozen homes to a fast-moving blaze in mid-July. I have never seen type of smoke cover we have now statewide as I saw the past few days throughout the entire state. (Click on each photo to see a large picture on a separate picture page.)