www.bigjimsdrivein.com

We’re GOOD food, NOT fast food. We never cook our burgers ahead of time. We make our own dressing for the burgers, tartar sauce, fry sauce and our own recipe for chili. We still make those old-fashioned milk shakes, Banana Splits and Sundaes. Our Waffle Cones are a big hit with one of our 16 flavors of UMPQUA brand hard ice cream in them. Try one of our 5 FRESH FRUIT milk shakes or Smoothies.

Enjoy our clean comfortable dining room, outside patio or drive thru to indulge in some of our great food or desserts.

509.427.7777

www.carsonridgecabins.com

Relax and rejuvenate your soul in the tranquility of your very own private luxury cabin. Spa tub for 2, walk in shower with dual rain heads, fireplace, hand crafted log bed, private deck with a log swing, spectacular views, scrumptious breakfast, spa services in the privacy of your own cabin…need we say more? Award winning for being “The Best in the West”, “Top 10 Most Romantic Inns in the Country”, “Best Places to Celebrate Romance”.

541.490.0769

www.thegorgemagazine.com

541.386.7440

www.gorgeguide.com

The Gorge Guide is the official visitor guide to the Columbia River Gorge.

We love everything about this area from the scenery, to the people to the recreation. Come visit! But be careful, you might want to live here too!

September has me thinking fall, even though it’s still going to be weeks before the season is really upon us. I see it that way mostly because I look back at a summer that always seems to sneak by. I understood that last summer was going to depart quickly; we were getting married last Labor Day weekend and that meant a summer spent planning (yuck), organizing, hosting family and waiting excitedly for the big day at the end of the summer. That explains the last one, but what happened to the promise and excitement that surrounded summer 2011?

We certainly had a rough start to the season when it comes to the weather. It seemed cool and rainy into early July. The river sat dark and brown with the winter’s sediment until shortly before July 4. It still doesn’t feel as warm as in years past. On an early May hike, my wife and I were greeted by snow at the summit of Dog Mountain; open space and green grass covered the fields that would normally have been in full spring wildflower splendor. Maybe the seasons are just backing up a bit. Maybe spring and summer will start later but also leave later? It’s not out of the realm of possibility when you’re talking weather in the Gorge to expect a long “Indian summer,” but I’m not holding my breath.

When summer did finally arrive I looked down at the social calendar: a wedding in Chicago, a trip to Bend, a visit from each side of the family, a few weekend appointments and promises. When all was said and done I think we were left with two weekends this entire summer that didn’t have at least one full day and night of activity planned. Those are my kind of weekends—the endless possibilities. My wife, of course, wanted to plan Labor Day weekend’s events last weekend since we weren’t busy planning or doing anything else. I buried my head in a book and mumbled something about enjoying the current weekend for what it was. We both won a little bit. We didn’t quite over-plan, although I know she was writing emails back and forth with our visiting friends and simply leaving me out-of-the-know on the plans. No problem.

Now it’s looking as though Labor Day will be a weekend of catching up on all the trips and activities we should have spread-out blissfully over the summer. We’ll be at the coast for a day before an evening in Portland to catch the symphony at the waterfront. Then it’s back to the Gorge for a trip down the White Salmon before catching First Friday in Hood River. Up the next morning, we’ll be hiking by noon before getting in a bit of a wine tour and some lunch. Maybe Saturday we’ll relax at home before a day of standup paddling on the Columbia or a paddle around Lost Lake followed by a few beers on a mini brewery tour, and then Monday, for our first wedding anniversary, we’ll say goodbye to our bound-to-be-exhausted friends and likely find our way into downtown Hood River
for a fine dinner and a walk while the sun sets. It’s the recipe for one complete summer crammed into four fast days over an extended holiday weekend.

It’s the kind of thing I normally hate, and yet I don’t find myself boxed in by plans and responsibilities; I feel grateful to have so much planned and organized so that we can get summer 2011 harvested while it’s still ripe. For once, I’ll thank my wife for the planning—even the over-planning.

Maybe we’re on to something there. Maybe instead of beating ourselves up and wondering how another summer got away, we’ll just turn September into one final hoorah. It’ll be a month of the summer that never was. And we’ll ignore the weather and put away the excuses for not getting out there and we’ll simply pour ourselves into enjoying the summer the way we did when we were kids and every summer evening had that feeling of being closer to the day school started again. There was no quiet night in; you had to live for that day and that day only. It lent a sweetness to the days and a contemplativeness to the nights because when you’re a kid you don’t say things like “There’s always next year.” No, you simply grab the days and the nights as if those are all you’ve got guaranteed and all you might be given and you live at 100 miles per hour.

It’s a pace I can’t maintain for long, but I feel like summer gave us another shot. If it’ll just hang on long enough, I’ll be out there leaving any semblance of a regret or missed opportunity behind me. By October I’ll be wiped-out, but for now, September—my month of summer—awaits.

mark@killerburger.net

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Killer-Burger-Portland-OR/143479562359460?v=wall

503.253.3458

www.drbohley.com

Dr. Bohley is a skilled Portland cosmetic surgeon with many years’ experience helping Portland, The Dalles and  Hood River plastic surgery patients realize their aesthetic goals.

541.386.2123

Some of the finest bagels in Hood River, OR. Come by today!

Our bagels are made in small batches at our shop and baked fresh every morning. At 6am, you can usually spy one of our bakers sliding the final bagels in the case.

www.hoodriverbagel.com

541.386.7114

There are times—quite a few actually—where I find that I literally have had to pinch myself. Yesterday was one of those. I awoke around 10 a.m. to the incessant cooing of the doves that have decided to call my little Hood River neighborhood home. My wife was out of town, which might have had something to do with why my clothes from the night before lay in a pile on the floor where they nearly killed me as I made my way out of bed. I stumbled down the hall and past a sink full of unwashed dishes to find that I was out of coffee; another great start to the weekend. I spun around and headed back toward the bedroom where I pulled the clothes off the floor and put them back on. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes as I brushed my teeth quickly. Visions of a Dutch Bros. iced coffee danced in my head.

I hate starting weekends this way. The previous afternoon I’d received my copy of The Measure of a Mountain in the mail, but I hadn’t yet had time to tear into it. I wasn’t worried; that’s what Saturdays and Sundays are for, right? Summer sun pouring through the windows, the fan steadily humming at my back, a cup of coffee in hand and a new book, or at least a book that’s new to me. That’s my ideal weekend. Well, that and then some outdoor adventure before a late lunch at the brewery that turns into an early evening sitting outside discussing the finer things in life with friends and family. But we can’t have it all, all the time. The start to the day is the part that I can control, and on this particular Saturday, with a book I’d been anxiously waiting for, and with a quiet, empty house, the least I could do, I thought, was control the start of the day. Wrong.

Teeth brushed and cloaked in the previous day’s dirty clothes, I looked just for a second into the bedroom where I’d somehow managed to thrash and twist my way through the night, thus leaving the sheets and comforter in a contorted, tangled mess. Oh well, the wife isn’t home until Monday. I pulled the bedroom door shut, promptly stubbed my toe as a I turned to head down the hall and then cursed and fumbled my way to the car keys, which, of course, weren’t where they were supposed to be: on the kitchen table in the car key holder. After about five more minutes of cursing and searching around—and a fair amount of sweating as I realized that my only other Jeep keys were with my wife, in Chicago—I found them in my pocket, in the shorts I’d worn the night before. I needed coffee in a whole new and very desperate way.

The way the morning had gone, I expected to turn toward the driveway to find my opened Jeep Wrangler soaked with rain I hadn’t heard the night before, but there it sat, dry as a bone and shimmering in the morning sun. The pleasures of an open-topped car in the Gorge summer are new to me this year, and it’s an open, natural, inspiring feeling. When I look at the car now, rather than seeing miles of I-84 stretched out before me as I make yet another drive to The Dalles or Portland, I now think about the way the cliffs near Rowena tower over me as the wind whips through the car, or the way small, seasonal waterfalls sound in the early morning hours during a weekend drive. There’s something enchanting about turning off the radio and letting Mother Nature provide the air-conditioning. Perhaps it was these thoughts dancing through my head that led me to leave the door wide open, which I realized as I backed out of the driveway and heard the door slam shut with the force of the Gorge winds. I popped back out, locked the door and jogged back to the car wondering if I should just crawl back into bed and start over again in a few hours.

And then it happened. It happens almost every morning but especially when I’m not expecting it. As I pull out of the driveway and head north on 5^th, my eyes, for the first time since waking, look beyond myself and my fumbling morning activities and they catch the horizon. It’s a magical moment no matter what time of year, but in summer it’s purely stunning. Mount Adams was already awake, glowing from the sun and snow. Not a single cloud was in sight, and the blue of the sky was so inviting, I nearly missed the stop sign at the end of the street. Alone in the car, I can’t say I literally pinched myself, but I did run my hand through my hair and just sit for a moment at the stop sign. I believe I audibly said, “Wow.”

And I live here. I took the usual left and headed toward 13^th where that large, iced coffee awaited, though I already needed it less than I did just 30 seconds ago. As I turned around from 12^th to 13^th to catch the one-way in the right direction, it happened again. Mount Hood pulled the breath from my lungs. There’s something about these two volcanoes when the early summer season is upon us that makes them appear in their most perfect form. The snow still drops down just far enough to show their girth and weight, while the dark lines of exposed ridges and rocks give contrast to the pure white snow that envelopes the peaks. The green of the trees, the white of the snow, the blue of the sky. I nearly drove past the little coffee hut.

As my car idled while I waited for the young woman to make my drink, I simply sat and stared at one of my favorite views in the world: the north face of Mount Hood. I laughed a bit to myself as this thought crossed my mind. Just a few days ago I was telling my wife that the one thing that Jon Bell got wrong in his new book, On Mount Hood, was his opinion that the view of the mountain is best from west looking east—from Portland. I prefer the sheer, nearly inverted way the top of the mountain appears from the north looking south. It has a roughness, a jaggedness from this angle that just isn’t there from any other side. Of course, Bell and I are both from Ohio, so we should just be thanking our lucky stars that we get to see this thing of beauty whenever the weather allows, but alas, a little experience seems to make us all experts these days, and I’m sticking to my opinion on this one.

It was Bell who recommended The Measure of a Mountain, by Bruce Barcott, which I suddenly remembered was still waiting for me at home. After paying for the coffee I headed right at Mount Adams as I worked my way north, back toward home. The icy condensation from the coffee had left a small ring at the bottom of my cup holder by the time I pulled it out at home. My reading chair isn’t more than three steps from the front door, and I had already placed Barcott’s book, which is about his exploration of Mount Rainier, on the ottoman. In a one-mile circle I’d already been wowed by Adams and had my breath taken away by Hood—two mountains I know well, yet continue to understand and appreciate more each day. I made myself comfortable and let the first caffeine blast of ice cold coffee do its work as I cracked the spine of my new adventure: my vicarious exploration of Mount Rainier.

I’m glad I got out of bed in the morning. I’m glad my stubbed toe isn’t broken, especially since I’m supposed to be up on Mount Adams next week, but I’m especially glad that I have those wondrous white volcanoes right outside my door to remind me that my life, while not perfect, is absolutely blessed by the gifts of Mother Nature. To live in the Gorge and among the Cascades is not a life free from stress, frustration or bad mornings, but here, nature acts as the elixir to heal all wounds, and it’s a dose of medicine I’ll gladly take. The rest of the day likely didn’t go as planned, but I don’t and won’t remember those things. I will remember yesterday morning though, just as I remember an early morning last October where the mountains seemed to have wrapped themselves in a thick white blanket overnight, or that time last January where Mount Adams showed itself for the first time in weeks and served as a reminder that while we don’t see and experience the majesty of the mountains every day, they are always with us, we are among them, and they exercise far more welcomed influence on us than we may realize.

503.943.9102

www.lockscafe.com

The Locks Waterfront Cafe is located in the Visitor Center in Marine Park, Port of Cascade Locks off Highway 84 at exit 44.

Our menu features fresh, local and organic selections including fresh cut french fries, fish and chips, Painted Hills Organic ground beef burgers and much more prepared in our state of the art kitchen.

The cafe operates full time with expanded waterfront seating directly overlooking the Columbia River and plenty of free parking for all.

541.436.0509

www.thaihousehoodriver.com

Welcome to a journey of authentic Thai cuisine for beyond imagination. At Thai House Restaurant, we are bringing the most out of Thailand to you in the heart of the Columbia Gorge.

541.308.0700

www.springhousecellar.com

SPRINGHOUSE CELLARS embodies the spirit of the Columbia River Gorge, producing ten handcrafted, small-lot, Northwest wines each year in the cellar of a rustic downtown Hood River winery, and pouring them upstairs in a tap driven tasting room. You read that right, wine on tap. Order a flight of all ten wines, relax with a glass on the porch, and then take home a unique Springhouse 1 liter growler – or as they say in France, growlier – that you can perpetually refill. Fine wines – in a sustainable package – in a beautiful place.

Save the planet while drinking great wine. It doesn’t get better than that.

888.508.2363

www.gorge.net

541.387.2468

541.386.4442

www.groundhoodriver.com

The best coffee and breakfast sandwich in The Gorge!

541.467.2330

WE3 Coffee & Deli offers a great menu of Kobos coffee and espressos, Tillamook ice cream, made to order deli sandwiches and baked goods.

In my June 2010 column titled The Blessed Life, The Written Word I lamented the loss of the Hood River County libraries nearly a year ago. As we push into the beginning of July, I’m so happy to see their doors once again opened. The new director of the libraries, Buzzy Nielsen, appeared on Localite with Jon Compton just a day before the writing of this column, which granted me the privilege of stepping into the Hood River branch this past week—my first steps inside a library in over a year.

For those that truly know me, that will come as quite a surprise. It wouldn’t be too farfetched to say that I grew up in a library. When I think of summers I think of summer reading—of filling the giant tree that lined the ramp leading up to the children’s room at Morley Library in Painesville, Ohio with the leaves that bared the name of each book read by each child in the area. Sure, I think of the 4^th of July at my Aunt and Uncle’s place with fireworks, feasts and that often elusive feeling of being worry-free and close to my family. I think of catching lightning bugs—something sadly foreign to many kids here in the Northwest—and the smells of hot dogs on the grill and chlorine and bug spray, but above all else, I think of the smell and feel of the library.

Non-booklovers simply won’t get it. There’s little you can do to explain the way it feels to pull back the cover of a book you stumble across while buried deep in the silent, obscuring aisles of the library. The binding simply falls open—not like with the new ones, where you wince as you crack the glue to open it enough to read. It’s not just the contents you look at; you scan the names of people that have checked it out before. Sometimes your heart jumps just a bit to see that someone you know read it before you. You’re holding a book you’re about to enjoy, remember and learn from, and you’re looking down to see that someone held that same book in 1974 and 1981 and 1997. And it’s not just the feel; there is a smell to libraries whether in Oregon, Ohio or Illinois. It’s a mix of a light mustiness, wood, paper and some indefinable quality that I can’t believe I’d forgotten until I stepped through the doors last week.

As the library sits now, its shelves are swollen with the weight of more books than they were ever meant to bear. It struck Buzzy as odd too, but as he pointed out, everything has been returned. Before the doors were closed they had to round up everything they could, and now the building is exactly as it should be except that no one is enjoying all that’s offered. It’s more of a museum representing a library than an actual, active library.

In the far corner or the main research room on the upper floor facing north, looking out over the underutilized park that sits between the library and Oak Street, is the old microfilm and archive viewing machine. It’s a relic. Anyone under the age of 20 has probably never used one. It’s pre-pdf. It’s pre-Google, in that age when history had to be researched, rediscovered and pieced back together by hand and by making connections—not by typing “wiki” into the search bar with your subject. It made me miss the time spent discovering the newspaper articles that bared the names of family members and prominent community citizens from as far back as could be maintained. I’m not one to shy away from the technology-driven present, but I do pine for the old systems sometimes. I’m sitting here thinking of things I can try to look up using the machine. I’m sure I’ll make some librarian’s day when we get to search together through the archives yellowed by time.

But this isn’t all about the past, and I know, it’s not all about me. It’s about the kids and the families that haven’t had this resource for a year. To me, it’s not summer without summer reading. Teachers will rejoice in the fall when all the hard work of the previous year’s teacher didn’t wash away; reading isn’t simply an act of learning or entertainment—reading preserves or calcifies knowledge that would otherwise wither away. In the time the library has been closed, the iPad 2 and the Samsung Galaxy have taken off, and I’ll bet most of you would be surprised to learn that you can borrow e-books from your library. Visitors are flooding the streets, finding that their vacation home has a DVD player and TV but no cable—yes, the library has DVDs. Somewhere someone is Googling something and just not finding what they need. They’re lost in a sea of advertisements and what seems like miss-information; your librarian is more powerful and much friendlier than any search engine you’ve explored. Throughout Hood River, Cascade Locks, Odell and Parkdale—throughout the region—a family of new Americans is trying to raise their kids as best they can in a society and place that’s a bit foreign to them, and the bilingual resources available to them at the library can make that possible.

There was a cost to re-opening these buildings and staffing them, and there is a cost to operating them into the future. In November that cost will be part of the new tax responsibilities, but for this summer, these institutions and tools are available because of the kindness and generosity of those who know how wildly imperative it is that each community have a library. Whether you’re reluctantly or willingly doing your part to keep these places open, thank you. We’re a wiser society when we have more varied sources of information and skilled, educated people to help us find the answers we need. Our kids will thank you someday too.

Thank you, Grandma and Aunt Nancy, Mom and Dad, thank you teachers and thank you Morley Library, I’m so happy to be in love with libraries. I’m so happy that my profession as a writer is further valued and guaranteed each time a kid pets the fuzzy bear in a touch-and-feel book, each time a middle school student finds him or herself lost in Alaska with Gary Paulsen’s classics, each time a high school student pulls open the worn spine of a book to discover that despite what Google or Bing were telling them, some things are best left discovered on their own—the old way.

541.387.6464

541.387.6700

www.gorgeproperty.com

888.256.3683

www.dovesvacationrentals.com

541.386.1161

www.bisnett.com

www.adornmentsofhoodriver.com

541.399.3169

www.gorgeacupuncture.com

High quality, low cost acupuncture and Chinese medicine for members and visitors of the Columbia Gorge.

541.386.6772

co.hood-river.or.us/museum

Celebrate the Paste * Preserve the Future

Explore the true “treasures” of Hood River County.

541.387.4400

www.melika.com

The Pacific Northwest is one of the most beautiful, exciting, and awe-inspiring places in the world. Its mountains, rivers, deserts, and beaches offer daily inspiration to those who live and play here.

Our mission is to share the inspiration of the Pacific Northwest lifestyle with women everywhere. Melika performance activewear and swimwear is made in Oregon to fit your life, your style, and your sport.

541.386.8732

www.stoltzvineyards.com

Stoltz Vineyards’ winery and tasting room are located at Hood River’s historic Mansion on the Hill  in downtown Hood River. We are next to the library and overlook Smith Park and Mike’s Ice Cream. 3 Rivers Grill and Brian’s Pourhouse are our neighbors to the southwest.

541.386.0500

www.bobstoneauto.com

541-386-3444

www.mfpc.mywindermere.com

I grew up in a small town in Ohio near the south shore of Lake Erie east of Cleveland. To say I was active is to drastically understate the fact. I spent weekends swimming and diving off of my grandfather’s boat and weekdays playing whatever organized sport was in season. In between seasons, I was at summer camp shooting rifles, playing capture the flag or hiking the clay pits that line parts of Pennsylvania’s Erie shore. At various times, I participated in baseball, basketball, football, swim team, tennis, golf, gymnastics (yeah, that’s right), soccer, cross-country skiing, downhill skiing and more. Even with all of that, I managed to get upset with my parents when they wouldn’t let me join the wrestling team. I swam competitively through high school and through three of my four years of college before growing tired of the repetitive sport.

                We had strong winds off the coast in the summers, and I remember seeing a few folks trying their hands at windsurfing, but the sport just never caught on there. Over on Lake Michigan, a few hours to the west, there was a rapidly growing windsurfing scene near Chicago and northern Indiana, but their wind was more prevalent. We waterskied or fished while they surfed and sailed.

                I grew up skiing on tiny hills we called mountains. The highest point in Ohio is 1,549 feet—no joke. A day’s drive to the east were the Allegheny Mountains and the Appalachians. Skiing Pennsylvania or New York is nothing like skiing the Rockies or the Cascades, but it got the heart going when I’d never been over 2,000 feet before.

                I had friends who explored mountain biking or climbing, though mountaineering was certainly not an option. We all knew the few kids whose families would head west once or twice a year to ski or snowboard, but my family was more of the boating, waterskiing, sledding, tubing and golfing type, and I loved it that way. Of course, I didn’t know any better.

                Fast-forward about a decade and my Indiana born-and-raised wife and I were walking down Oak Street in Hood River this past Memorial Day counting the hundreds of mountain bikes poking out of the beds of pickup trucks and SUVs in Hood River while dozens of windsurfers and kiteboarders braved the high-rising, cold, spring Columbia River waters. There was a large mountain biking race in town, and it was a holiday weekend for most, but the streets being lined with cars carrying all the season’s gear is the norm around here. In the time we’ve lived in the Columbia Gorge we’ve managed to whitewater raft, kiteboard, mountaineer a bit on Mount Hood and trail run, among a few other things, but we can’t help but feel like we’re missing out on something. At first we found it odd that while game seven of the World Series might be going on, people here were out on the water or up on the mountain, but that’s something we’re slowly coming to love about this place. Anyone from back home is thinking that what I just wrote is darn near blasphemous, but things are simply different in the Gorge.

                 A coworker told me a while back that one of the hardest things about living in this area is getting gear-envy. She was absolutely right. It’s heading toward summer, so now I want a mountain bike, a kiteboard and kite, proper mountaineering gear for an upcoming Mount Adams climb, a longboard skateboard, a new road bike, a kayak, a wetsuit, some extra somewhat-necessary camping gear and, well, you get the idea. Most of my life it was baseball gloves and basketballs, but there’s a completely different set of games, rules and equipment out here. Sometimes I still feel like that kid who’s mad at my parents because I can’t join the wrestling team while wrapping up the soccer season and heading into the five-month winter swim season.

                The people aren’t different, at least not in a way that would lead to such drastic differences in sports and outdoor activities. There might be a bit more of an adrenaline bug out here and more of a big-three-sports focus back in the Midwest, but I think it’s the playing field that makes for most of that difference. Here we have the wind, the mountains and the sticky, screaming single-track. There, they have the fields, pools and courts in numbers that would shock many of my current neighbors. One neighboring town of my youth had something like four hockey rinks and four outdoor swimming pools, not to mention the 20 or so baseball fields.

                Now I find myself trying to remember how lucky I am to be able to experience both worlds. When I get upset at the price tag of a new full-suspension 29er, I try to think of all the sports, activities and recreation I have been able to do, not just the stuff I’m currently on the sidelines for. I try to remember that I grew up near a city smaller than Portland that has three professional sports teams (though it’s often more heartbreak than heartwarming to reflect on Cleveland’s sports history). I’m grateful for what I’ve had. That being said, I’m going to find a way to get that new bike and that mountaineering gear. Maybe I got bit by the adrenaline bug, or maybe I’m just adjusting to the new playground and the new toys. Either way, I’m a pretty lucky guy. Now that the June column is done, it’s time to hit Indian Creek Trail for a quick run before game one of the NBA Finals tips-off at six. It’s the kind of dual-life I’m having no trouble settling into.

509.427.8444

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Skamania-County-Pioneer/106997649336776

541.296.6101

360.210.7028

www.hearthwashougal.com

HEARTH is designed to provide an enjoyable experience—a place to eat and drink with family and friends that is notable for the quality of its food and service, as well as the beautiful dining environment.

HEARTH is founded on the belief that the wood-fired oven creates flavors that conventional cooking methods cannot, while simultaneously providing the ideal backdrop for a dining experience that awakens one’s sense of fire, heat, and cooking.

It plays to our desire to have some things done the way they were generations ago. It grounds us as we appreciate the extra effort it takes to gather the wood and cook in an environment where constant vigilance is required to generate and maintain heat.

Our goals are:

To provide a dining experience that is inviting, warm, and friendly—where the community can gather for a birthday dinner or enjoy a draft beer while taking in the scenery

To provide service that is efficient and knowledgeable, as well as courteous and helpful

To provide food of exceptional quality that is unpretentious and reasonably priced.

541.993.3997

www.purehotyoga.com

Hot yoga is a challenging series of 26 postures and two breathing exercises specifically designed to work every system, organ, muscle, joint, tendon, and cell in the body. While improving strength, balance and flexibility you will reshape your body, and relieve stress and tension.

541.300.0071

www.lonepinevillage.com

Icon West Developments was formed to acquire and carefully develop unique parcels of land. Our real estate experience in Spain, London, Baja Sur California and the United States allows us the opportunity to consistently redefine distinction and quality.

Icon West believes passionately in the pursuit of excellence and the creation of the perfect living environment. By seeking out the most extraordinary natural environments combined with the harmonious collaboration of the finest materials, craftsmen and design, Icon West delivers innovative real estate developments.

Six months ago I wrote the rather sarcastically titled column Print is Dead. It welcomed responses from the community and beyond, most of which agreed that print and print media may actually be more alive than ever. Things have certainly changed for writers, readers and the publishing industry, but change doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In this case particularly—the era of e-readers, online news and electronic entertainment—there are advances and improvements to be embraced, not feared. Shortly after that column, we at the magazine began the work and study it takes to move our magazine into the online domain. I couldn’t be happier or more excited to announce that each upcoming issue of Columbia Gorge Magazine will be available, in its entirety, online.

We’re not changing a thing about the way we print and distribute the magazine; we’re simply adding another useful, easy-to-access version of the magazine in electronic format. Now you can use the internet or your e-readers and tablets like the iPad or Galaxy to access Columbia Gorge Magazine from anywhere in the world. If you have an internet connection, you have a piece of your home or home-away-from-home at your fingertips.  The same vivid photography, the same entertaining stories, with you no matter where or when you want to give it a look.

As the premier publication of the Columbia Gorge, we take pride in our established relationship with the local community. We’re so excited to be able to continue to share complimentary copies of our print edition at locations throughout the region. But now, when you’re sitting at your favorite brewery, coffee shop or store and you find that feature story that you just have to share with your friends and family, you’re just a few clicks away from spreading the word. Our eMagazine is one more way to share and explore the Gorge from anywhere your heart desires.

I’m a print nut. I read all day, every day in formats that range from twitter and online newspapers to hardcopy magazines and novels. I love the feel of a newspaper, magazine or book in-hand, and it is very important to us to keep that tactile experience easily accessible to our readers, so we haven’t changed it a bit. But the advancements in the readability of electronic print media in just the last two or three years have been staggering. When we unveil the eMagazine version of our Summer Issue on June 1, we’ll be opening up the Gorge to a wider range of readership than it’s ever been capable of harnessing before. Our contributors and advertisers will have a nearly limitless audience.

The electronic format will appear almost the same as the hardcopy editions. You can turn pages with a simple click, or you can enjoy the feature that allows you to peel back and move the pages, just as if you were holding it in your hands. It’s all that’s great about Columbia Gorge Magazine in an easy-to-share, easy-to-access format.

This is not a time to shed a tear for the changes and hardships facing the written word; this is a time to welcome a new way to enjoy the same great material. I look forward to seeing our readers with a print edition in-hand emailing their friends with a link to the online edition. Read, share, enjoy and embrace what technology has so generously offered us. I’ll end this column the same way I did six months ago, and this time I say it with an even stronger conviction. Print is not dead, “Print, my friends, is flourishing.”

541.478.2200

www.garniervineyards.com

info@garniervineyards.com

Located in the heart of the fertile Columbia River Gorge near Mosier, Oregon, Garnier Vineyards is a family-owned winery built upon a growing tradition of sustainability and stewardship to our unique environment. Surrounded by a majestic landscape built over 15,000 years, our prime location is as captivating as our wines. Rich soils, natural micro-climates and moist Gorge winds are the foundation for producing the complex flavors found in all of our red and white wines.

From the vine to the cellar, great care, diligence and attention to quality are combined to produce some of the most flavorful Oregon wines on the market today. Our intense passion for winemaking is evident in every bottle we produce. We proudly invite you to experience it for yourself.

509.427.3980

www.columbiagorgebluegrass.net

Located in the scenic Columbia Gorge, only 45 minutes from Portland, Oregon, this premier event features a long list of talented performers, contests, the jammer’s jamboree, a raffle and dancing. Camping is available with hot showers, and an unforgettable vista.

509.427.3979

www.skamaniacountyfair.com

The Skamania County Fair and Timber Carnival is a tradition of people sharing their knowledge and skills for the preservation and promotion of what’s best in America. People of all ages demonstrate their talents and hard work to educate and inspire us about what we can achieve. Whether it’s a nine-year-old showing his finely tended sheep or a seventy-year-old sharing the secret of her preserves, we see the hope, industry, and pride that reflect the best in all of us.

541.769.0426

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Columbia-Gorge-Surgery-Center/110317125905

Columbia Gorge Surgery Center offers an exceptional level of convenience and comfort in surgery. During a brief stay with us, patients find the highest quality of care rendered by a concerned, expertly trained staff. In addition we have warm, friendly surroundings, easy access, ample parking and a degree of personal attention unlike that available in a hospital environment.

509.365.2543

www.klickitatcanyonwinery.com

541.386.5050

www.ruddyduckstore.com

509.427.4479

www.elriotexicantina.com

Our kitchen is inspired by the cuisine of Texas, New Mexico and Northern Mexico. Rich sauces, house smoked meats, everything made from scratch. Whether it’s the Seafood Enchiladas, Smoked Pork Chili Verde or Handmade Fresh Chili Rellenos, our menu has something creative and delicious for every taste.

Our bar is inspired by… well, honestly, Tequila. It’s really what the beverage section of our menu is all about. 36 different labels illustrate the amazing breadth and complexity of this traditional and uniquely Mexican elixir. A great way to start is our Tequila Sample Trays or maybe one of our signature margaritas crafted to please the most discerning fan.

541.386.6086

www.bigwinds.com

Established in 1987, we are one of the largest windsurfing, kiteboarding and stand up paddle product and accessory stores in the United States. Our expert staff members are experienced players who are passionate about these sports.

541.386.7069

www.silveradogallery.com

Our gallery showcases today’s most creative artisans. The collection spans traditional to contemporary – whether your style is sterling or stainless, turquoise or pearls.

360.624.6531

www.anichecellars.com

AniChe Cellars is a small family winery located in the beautiful Columbia River Gorge. We make wines with an eye to European tradition with a particularly Washington State sense of terroir and style. Our wines are almost entirely varietal blends, believing that wine varietals are very much like people and dogs, with an egalitarian mixing up of characteristics to create interesting nuances and surprising complexity and beauty (think Halle Berry, mutts and Bordeaux). Our fruit comes from Washington state’s plethora of renowned AVA’s, including our very own Columbia Gorge AVA.

541.374.7996

www.nwp.usace.army.mil/op/rec/home.asp

Take exit 40 off I-84. In addition to views of migrating fish moving through underwater fishways, visitors will find a five-level facility with an observation deck, air conditioned interior with exhibits, restrooms, a large theater, and all-glass exterior walls which allow a panoramic view of the Columbia River Gorge. A short walk leads to a viewing area inside the first powerhouse.

541.296.5657

www.crwclinic.com

At Columbia River Women’s Clinic, we are committed to providing healthcare to women of all ages, through all stages of their lives. We believe medical care should encompass the physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of a person. With today’s modern advances in medicine, we strive to assist you in longevity and improved quality of life.

I spent the last few months of winter booking guests for the all new season of Localite with Jon Compton, which starts May 2, and I can’t tell you how excited I am to share the stories of our neighbors. The variety, diversity and “it” factor of so many of the people that make the Columbia Gorge their home never ceases to inspire me, and getting to tell their story—whether in print or on the screen—is both a joy and an honor. People from all over the world and all over the country have reasons to take pride in their home and community, but there really is something special about this place.

                Localite started with the vision and passion of Jon Compton, the host and executive producer, and the focus and intent of the show is both incredibly enjoyable and vital. There’s a sense of place I’ve written about in an editor’s letter for the magazine and a previous column, and that very phrase: sense of place, came back to me in a recent interview with an upcoming Localite guest. The idea is that not only are the people of the Gorge bonded by their location and proximity, but also by something more, something deeper. There’s a cultural history, a social and environmental engagement element and a desire to live bigger and better that’s almost palpable here. Knowing that and discussing that behind closed doors just isn’t enough. Anything that unifies a community and makes them unique should be fostered and celebrated. That’s where Localite comes in.

                In the coming season we’ll hear the stories of entrepreneurs, experts, athletes, writers, artists and more. You know what every one of these people has in common? No matter where they’re from, what they do, or what influenced them, they all take great pride in calling this place home. I’ve spoken with a dance teacher from Hood River, an entrepreneur from The Dalles and a world-class athlete from White Salmon in just one week’s time and each had the same answer for what brought them here: “I was driving through the Gorge and fell in love with the place.” Some were on their way to the quirky, colorful city of Portland and never made it there, choosing Hood River or Stevenson instead. Some worked their entire lives to get to their dream destination, and still others have found that there’s simply no better place to do great work while maintaining an active, enjoyable lifestyle.

                They come here to work, to play and to explore, and many of them—like me and many of you—never plan on leaving once they get here. They bring with them the same things immigrant cultures always bring: variety, culture, art and inspiration. Once they get here they find themselves melding the ways of their past life with those of their new one. They discover the power of the Columbia, the majesty of the Cascades, the stunningly fresh air, the breathtaking scenic drives, the food, the music, the farms and the trails. They discover that unquantifiable “Gorge-ness.”

                It’s almost as if the local lifestyle is an art-form. The ways and means with which it is executed and explored vary, but the canvas or backdrop on which it takes place is the constant. Each neighbor—each localite—has a story unique to them, but each of those unique stories takes place in a larger context. The more we understand that context—that lifestyle—the more we understand our own story. We’re each chapters in an ‘ever-building story.

                As we begin filming Season Two in April, I’m anxiously and excitedly anticipating the public’s reaction in May. I’m truly blessed by the work I do and the people I get to work with, and we’re all pushing ourselves to bring these compelling stories to you in the most enjoyable and entertaining format possible. May will bring exciting news of some great additions to Columbia Gorge Magazine, but for now, I’m reveling in what I enjoy most: exploring and sharing the stories of our localites.

Watch Localite with Jon Compton weekdays at 7 p.m. at columbiagorge.com or on CGN-7 (Charter Cable)

Become a fan of the View From the Gorge column on facebook

541.296.7044

www.curves.com

Created specifically for women, Curves offers a complete fitness and nutrition solution. The Curves 30 minute workout exercises every major muscle group and burns up to 500 calories through a proven program of strength training, cardio and stretching. In addition, club promotions and events encourage women to support charitable causes, learn about health-related issues and forge lasting friendships as part of the global Curves community.

509.427.8515

www.cascadecountrycabins.com

Many of our clients have chosen Cascade Country Cabins after much research on their part, due to the quality of the product and our reasonable prices.

If you would like to join the growing number of people who have decided to move up to the beauty and warmth of a log home, we hope you will consider working with us.

Scroll your mouse over the shows below for more information

Watch our morning programs 7AM – 10AM Every day!

Plenty of people have paintings or photos of Mount Hood and the Columbia Gorge in their homes, but few can actually see the real thing from their living room. The Ruber family can. Walk through the front door of their Underwood, Washington home, and there’s the mountain, perfectly framed in the picture window ahead. Take a seat on the sofa, and you’re staring right down the heart of the Gorge.

This was no accident. The house was designed around that sweet spot in the southwest corner with the spectacular view. Located on a bluff above the Columbia River, it was built for Dennis and Marlene Ruber by their daughter Michelle Ruber and her husband, Klaas de Jonge. Dennis purchased the land back in 2002, envisioning it as a place where he and his wife could retire and host their three children, their spouses and two grandchildren. Meanwhile, Michelle, then working in the green building industry, was daydreaming about using her experience to build a house from the ground up. By 2007 it was settled: Who better to build the family retreat than a member of the family?

Katmandu, that ancient, mystical and mile-high capitol city of Nepal—heralded in song and myth as an ultimate destination—may bear little resemblance at first glance to Mosier, Oregon, and the surrounding Columbia Gorge. But for world citizen Arlene Burns, the two are sisters, inextricably linked. Burns has given her heart to both for extended periods of time and for many of the same reasons: adventure, natural beauty and the unshakable bonds of community.

This is the story of a Southern woman who traded what could have been a soft and predictable gentile life for one of exploration, of pushing human limits, of building a life and a career that would find her not only peering over the precipice of excitement, danger and fear, but ultimately helping save the planet over which she’s paddled and trekked for the last 30-plus years.

Burns, who lives in a warm and modest home in downtown Mosier, is a world-renowned river guide. She’s led first-descent expeditions and guided international trips for National Geographic Expeditions, among others. She’s spent the last 20 years leading these watery treks in New Zealand, the Himalayas, Russia, South America and other exotic locales, with a specific passion for high-level, technical kayaking and heart-stopping runs where no kayak has ever knifed the treacherous waters before.

The Columbia Gorge is famous for offering world-class kiteboarding and snowboarding. But what’s a board sports enthusiast to do when the wind isn’t blowing and it’s not a perfect powder day? Grab a skateboard and hit the concrete.

Over the past 15 years, several of the small communities lining the banks of the Columbia River have built public concrete parks to accommodate a growing skateboarding scene. There are parks in Stevenson, Bingen and Lyle, in Washington, and Hood River, in Oregon. There’s also a 50,500-square-foot private indoor-outdoor skate park at Windells, an adventure sports camp on Mount Hood, and another public park set to break ground in The Dalles this spring.

“You could skate your way up the Columbia River,” says Sam Beebe, founder and editor of skateoregon.com, an online resource for public concrete parks in Oregon and throughout the Pacific Northwest. It’s no surprise that the Gorge has embraced skateboarding, he says. “Hood River has a long history in alternative sports; skateboarding fits in with that image.”

Jerry Seinfeld once said, “A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.” I live and shop for books in Portland, and while there is evidence of what Seinfeld was talking about inside some of Portland’s bookstores, many of them are populated by people who are more concerned with using free Wi-Fi or drinking gourmet coffee than they are with searching for a new book. During a recent trek to a downtown bookstore, I realized I had become one of these people. I was in line and adjusting my fantasy football roster on my iPhone when it dawned on me that what I had done was come to a store with thousands of books and ignored every one of them because I was buying a DVD and a muffin. Disappointed with myself, I decided to take advantage of upcoming appointments in The Dalles and Hood River to visit some bookstores in the area. My hope was that—for at least one day—I could reconnect with the booklover side of myself and leave my Internet-junkie side in Portland.

My first visit was to Klindt’s Booksellers in The Dalles. As soon as I stepped in the store I noticed the sound of the old wooden floor squeaking beneath me. This is the same floor that has been in the store since 1891, and it is just one example of the emphasis co-owner Dane Klindt has put on the historical preservation of his family’s store. Dane told me that the little remodeling that has been done in the store has always centered on maintaining what he called, “historical integrity.” This was extremely important to Dane’s parents, Philip and Linda Klindt, and it is a passion shared by Dane, his co-owners and the store’s employees. When I commented on how much the store’s shelving and counters added to its authentic feel, he quickly walked me over to a photograph taken in 1913 that is on display in the storefront. The shelves and counters I was admiring were in that photograph and were actually part of the store back when it was known as Nickelsen’s. If it were not for the amazing collection of books around me, I would have spent more time examining the photograph. It was clear how little the store’s interior design has changed since 1913.

The end of February has once again provided me with the rude reminder that sometimes I’m looking too far ahead. It’s the nature of the job—I’ve spent the last few days setting up the stories that we’ll feature in our Summer Issue and booking guests for a show that will launch in May—but there’s got to be a better balance. I’ve always been a “no regrets” kind of guy, and I don’t want that to change, but as I find myself reaching out further into the future, I see myself letting a few moments or hours slip by. I guess recognizing the problem is the obvious first step in solving it, and I love every little bit of both what I do for a living and how I spend my free time, so it’s not like there are major changes to make, but how does recognizing that a few moments pass me by each day—moments I can’t re-embrace—make my day better? It just doesn’t help; it feels like something vital is lost.

It seems to me to be an oxymoron that the more we do, the more we miss; the more we embrace our lives and live them with veracity and fervor, the faster and more frequently things start to escape us. Shouldn’t that be the other way around? Shouldn’t those who fill their days with work, activity and thought be rewarded with longer, more satisfying days? And those who choose to sit back and watch the world go by—and, honestly, there’s nothing wrong with that if it’s your choice—shouldn’t those people be the ones who find things getting away from them. It’s like the harder you squeeze, the tougher it is to grasp.

I would prefer for this to sound like contemplating, not complaining, but I guess I am complaining a little bit. I’m young, but I’m not too young to know that life goes by fast enough. Which gets me back to this lovely end to February and start to March that has me deeply satisfied to be inside this warm, dry office. As I said, just days ago I was planning for the summer. Thoughts of campfires, grilling, an ice cold beer outside in the warm, prevalent sun and long days full of light were running through my mind, but when I opened my eyes the past few days, and once again this morning, I was greeted with something that resembled rain and snow, followed by a back and forth, on and off mixture of the two that’s forecasted to last for days. I felt like a cartoon character whose daydream thought-bubble was burst.

The weather literally brought me back to reality. I went from summer back to winter so fast I was dizzy, and then it occurred to me that we still have spring to enjoy. That thought caught me too. I’m a four-seasons-a-year person. I enjoy them all, and just when one really starts to wear on me, the next is coming, and the anticipation can usually get me through any lingering winters, or a summer that stays hot for too long. Why fight that? Why even push on to summer if you don’t get those green bursts of spring. Remember what spring smells like for those first few days? That cannot be missed. Every breath of summer would be less sweet because of spring’s absence. Those days are just around the corner.

So what does that say of winter? What am I rushing through with the warmer days on my mind? That duality, that unexplainable yearning to both hang on to time and to get to the next, brighter season is one of life’s little mysteries or complexities. Before I know it, I’ll be pining for the silent, snow-covered streets and the way the Douglas firs carry and display fresh snow. I will miss that line across the mountainsides where the snow ends and the dark greens of Oregon and Washington begin. I will, believe it or not, actually miss brushing off the car. I like the enduring elements of winter; it all makes me feel like a stronger, fitter person. I think I have come to appreciate the things I have to work a bit for, and winter certainly gives us enough of those.

I’m excited for spring, and thanks to my job and my home, I’ll never be too stuck in the present, but somehow, knowing that there are a few snowy days, a fair amount of rain and some tough driving situations still ahead leaves me feeling like maybe the world slowed down just a bit for me to enjoy it—to catch my breath. When I thought I needed the glow of summer nights, Mother Nature gave me a few cold lashes, but it’s just what I needed. It’s just what I deserved. 

541.296.3224

www.rivermarkcu.org

We treat every member with respect and dignity no matter your account balance or credit history. For nearly 60 years, families in our communities have trusted us for affordable financial solutions. From Checking Accounts to Credit Cards to Auto and Home Loans, Rivermark has all the financial products and services you will ever need.

www.cgaie.com

Spring is on it’s way and that means, blue skies, daffodils and The Bite of the Gorge! Celebrate the coming of sunny days and a community proud to support arts in the schools at The Bite, Saturday, April 9th, 6 -9pm at WAAAM, Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum, in Hood River.

Spend the evening with the Gorge’s best restaurants, wineries and breweries under one roof, each offering a sample of its very best fare. The Bite is our way to say THANK YOU to the community for supporting us in our efforts to bring arts education to schools throughout the Mid-Columbia Gorge.

WAAAM is the place! You will be surrounded by the art of flight, antique cars and more at Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum, located off of Tucker Road just 2 miles from downtown Hood River.

Sunshine Mill Artisan Plaza is about building a network of artists and artisan for our community. We currently offer a tasting room for Quenett Winery in our Grand Hall with an amphitheatre, courtyard and bocce ball court!

We are developing loft space for local artists to create and are pleased to announce that Kelly Wheat Pancake Mix is produced at the Sunshine Mill! Early in 2011, a brick-oven pizzeria will be added to this exciting project. Check back for more information soon as the local, artisan pizzeria gets underway!

We open at 12pm daily for wine tasting and have live music every Friday night until 10pm!

541.490.6082

www.sukhayogaretreats.com

509.493.1711

bcon@gorge.net

A not-so-funny thing seems to have happened almost across the board in the entertainment industry. All of a sudden, everything is either an ad or it’s self-promotion. When was the last time a late night talk show booked its guests simply because they’re interesting people and not because they had a movie, book or show coming out? Too many lifestyles and feature magazines seem to be heading down the same road; covers are given to actors with a movie coming out and the stories center around whatever an artist, actress or businessperson is selling, promoting or releasing.

             At Columbia Gorge Magazine and CGN-7 we truly believe in telling interesting, relevant stories strictly for their entertainment value. The entire tone of both the magazine and station is to promote the region we find so magnificent, and we do that by providing the best possible enlightenment, entertainment, history or insight. We tell the stories we find to be the best, and that gives our advertisers the greatest chance of having their work viewed, because it comes alongside content that people don’t want to miss.

            A day or two ago a person turned down the opportunity to be covered as part of an upcoming feature story because their shop is at full capacity and they only do their work for close friends or referrals now. “Great,” I thought, “since my aim is not to bring you more business; I’m trying to tell your story because our readers will find it interesting.” It seemed that no matter how I phrased my response, the cultural influence was ingrained, and I wouldn’t be able to get across my very honest, heartfelt desire to share a great story with our readers. It just doesn’t feel right to me that we’ve poisoned what we see as enjoyable by always having to find a way to make it profitable. There are just certain stories that are worth telling because they’re interesting, heartbreaking, captivating, daring or humorous.

            While it always bothers me that someone might opt out of a feature or a television show, it cuts even deeper to think that we’re watching, reading and being entertained through this misunderstanding about what is worth seeing or experiencing. Those who make many mainstream movies and television shows—and those who publish many of the modern day magazines that were, at one not-so-far-off time, a lot more entertaining— are finding ways to intertwine products, promotions and profitability. But wouldn’t those movies and magazines be more profitable if everyone wanted to advertise in them and read or watch them because their content is the most interesting or entertaining?

            I don’t remember any former classmates or teachers from junior high through college in any writing program, class, seminar or workshop that said: “I want to tell the stories of people who have things to sell viewers. I want to share show times, locations and ordering instructions for books and movies.” Yet, it seems like many have fallen victim to this trap. Far more frequently—literally almost every time—people said things like: “I want to write because I love to tell the stories of people’s lives,” or “I want to produce a show that captures the hearts and minds of its viewers.” I know I’m not alone in hoping that the latter is still the preferred career path.

            I get that companies have to make money. That’s not really what this is all about. What I’m saying, or maybe what I’m asking, is whether or not it might be better to make the absolute best possible form of entertainment, and to rely on the public’s desire to be swept away in order to make your dollar.

            That’s my endeavor; that’s the goal of the dynamic, creative people around me. I’d be lying if I said my heart and head didn’t hurt a little bit when the mainstream entertainment media mixed up the message and confused our potential subjects or guests. I’d be even more heartbroken if I didn’t believe that you, the readers and watchers, want a better, higher form of entertainment. There are times, and I think this is one of them, where I feel that I’m shouting into a large, empty cave, but there is hope in the one simple act we can perform: We can demand more of ourselves and our amusers. Your choices as readers and viewers shape the content laid before you. It’s a small voice, but sometimes it’s the only one you have. In the meantime, our production team and magazine staff will continue to do things the only way we know how. We’ll seek out the best stories, the most captivating programs, and we’ll present them to you carefully, honestly and diligently. We’ll give our advertisers a great advantage in the market because their products and services appear next to the content that everyone looks for. We’ll hold ourselves to the highest standard because our future, our advertisers’ futures and the future of great, authentic entertainment depends on it.

541.386.6555

www.fifthelementsalon.com

5th Element- The Element of Beauty. Our salon is located in downtown Hood River. We have a modern atmosphere with the latest in style and technology to offer our clients. At 5th Element Salon our passion is creating beautiful hair.

541.308.1300

www.centerpointebank.com

PERSONAL BANKING

We offer a variety of personal checking, savings and deposit products specifically designed to meet your needs. We also offer basic savings, money market accounts, CDs and IRAs. Whether you want a no-charge, basic checking account, or you carry a large balance and deserve more, CenterPointe has a product to match.

SMALL BUSINESS BANKING

Some banks claim to be Small Business centric, but no one does more than CenterPointe. We can provide you with basic checking, business analysis, business money market accounts, and CDs. We also offer a variety of special loan products.

AG BANKING

If you’re a grower,  we have a solution to your banking challenges. CenterPointe offers business sweep accounts, ag loans, lines of credit, commercial mortgages and investment secured loans. Everything you need to maximize the return on your investments and minimize your headaches.

541.387.3262

www.wattsbuilding.com

Watts Building Company is a residential construction contracting and development firm located in Hood River, Oregon. We specialize in building custom homes for clients, the construction of single and multi family projects for sale, and partnering with investors to develop and sell their properties for profit.

509.427.4900

www.skamaniacoves.com

Located in the heart of the Columbia River Gorge among waterfalls, sweeping vistas, Hiking, mountain biking, windsurfing, camping, fishing, boating, kayaking, wildlife watching, birding, wildflower viewing, photography, picnicking, rock climbing. You can do all this and more in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. We are 1 mile east of Stevenson, Washington right off of Highway 14 along the Columbia River with river access for swimming, sailing, wind and kite surfing, fishing and other peaceful activities.

Our river coves are our flagship – we have many secluded coves with beaches that are excellent for water sports, picnicking, enjoying wildlife – like Osprey fishing, and more.

509.493.1555

www.henniskitchenandbar.com

To say we make “everyday food from around the world” is to say we take the worlds most famous dishes and recipes, right from your mothers table and bring them to the Columbia River Gorge. Come in and sample some of the best wine, beer and spirits hand-crafted right here in our beautiful community.

541.386.1844

www.framegalleryhoodriver.com

We will provide you with nationally certified picture framing and genuine photographic archival/restoration work.

(this month’s column is a work of fiction based on many of the editor’s Columbia Gorge winter experiences)

I think it was the sun that finally woke me up. A snow-softened stillness was wrapped around the tent and Ann lay next to me not making a sound. Our breaths, heavy and warm, were frozen to the roof of the tent. “Better frozen than dripping back down on us,” I thought to myself as I wiggled my way down into the sleeping bag; my water bottle was somewhere by my feet where it would stay unfrozen. “You awake?” I whispered. A few moments passed with no answer. Through the zipper slats the light came in brighter, and for a second it almost seemed warm. The small instant boiler leaned against the edge of the canvas to my right. Coffee and oatmeal, coffee and oatmeal, I could think of nothing else.

We’d climbed most of the day and on into the late afternoon hours before growling stomachs, aching backs and heavy eyes forced us to set up camp. There wasn’t much entertainment—not like in the other seasons. We had no firewood and with a  few feet of snow around us the whole thing seemed futile anyway. We lit the whisper-quiet stove, and after what seemed like an hour we shared heaping, steaming spoonfuls of Velveeta macaroni and bagged tuna. She was yawning early and often, and I realized I was doing everything I could to keep myself awake. The stars shimmering brightly overhead began to seem farther and farther away, and eventually they lost their entertainment value as the day’s hike caught up to us. We must have turned-in some time around 7 p.m. The last thing I remembered was trying to read by flashlight as Ann worked her way deep into her sleeping bag completely content to slumber away the evening.

My book now lay between me and the wall to my immediate right. If it had been wet it’d be ruined, but it was just 23 or 24 degrees outside and nothing was liquid. Inside the tent, even the sleeping bags seemed stiff and crystallized. My socks from the previous day were frozen and crumpled inside my boots. I shivered quickly and strongly at the thought of sliding them on. “Happy New Year,” her familiar, sleepy voice said from my left, in and even, un-celebratory tone. “What time is it?”

“I’m not sure. Can’t be much past 5, but I don’t want to get to my pack to find out.”

“Yeah. It’s cold.” She said this in a plain-spoken and completely obvious way that sort of hung in the air for a moment. “Should we make coffee?”

“I’ll get it going.” I leaned over and placed the first kiss of 2011 on her cheek. I could hear the sound of her hands rubbing against her arms in an attempt to warm them up for the new day ahead. Her sleeping bag sounded like the swish of my snow pants as I walked. “Hell of a way to start the year,” I said, reaching for the boiler.

“I know. And a hell of way to end it last night. We made it till what, like six o’clock?” Her voice was awake now. She propped herself up on her right elbow to face me. “Did you sleep alright?”

“Perfectly. I think the sun just got too bright.”

“That and we got almost 12 hours of sleep,” she said smiling.

“Ha. Yeah. That too.”

The sounds of the boiling water made me have to pee, but there was no way I was leaving the tent without a steaming cup of coffee. The only sounds were the creaking, frozen branches of the pines a few feet away and the occasional gust of wind against the tent.  “How long until we get there?”

“We’ll make it by lunch, I think, but I really don’t know for sure.”

“Sounds perfect. This was a great idea. I can’t remember the last time I woke up after New Year’s Eve feeling this good.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I thought maybe you’d miss the party.”

“Not at all.” She bravely pulled herself from the sleeping bag while a few wisps of steam floated up from inside. “Whoa, that’s cold,” she said as she moved quickly into her parka, which must have felt like a half-frozen blanket. It crinkled audibly as she pulled the hood over her long brown hair. “The coffee smells great.”

“I hear ya. I think I was dreaming about this before I woke up. Here ya go,” I said, handing her the metal mug, its collapsible handle still pushed against the side. She held her two small, gloved hands tightly around the cup, wiggling her fingers to keep them from getting too hot. We slurped almost in unison. I watched her take a deep breath of the steam rising into the chilled air.

“Mmmm.”

“Mmm hmm.”

She turned toward me and planted a now-warm kiss against my left cheek. “To the New Year,” she said, raising her mug toward mine in toast. The wind blew quick and hard against the tent, but now there was a warmth inside. There was a feeling of home, even out there.

“To the New Year,” I said. The mugs made a light metallic clink as the two plumes of steam briefly warped into one.

The perfect place for your wedding, reception, event or business meeting!

Have your wedding, ceremony, reception, reunion, anniversary party or business meeting at the beautiful Troutdale House by the Sandy River. Enjoy the cozy and rustic charm of this historic property surrounded by the spectacular Sandy River and Depot Park. We are located in Troutdale, just twenty minutes from downtown Portland.

Be one of the happiest brides to get married at a place that your friends and family will enjoy and remember forever!

Guitarist Rick Hulett flashes a little smile from the bandstand at The Pines Tasting Room in downtown Hood River. He’s seated among a loose group of at least eight musicians—maybe nine, maybe 10, it’s easy to lose count—who are, for the most part, regulars at The Pines’ popular Thursday night jam. That little grin sets up a tasty solo that both incites the comfortably crowded room of appreciative listeners and dancers and immediately ups the ante for the others onstage.

It isn’t exactly, in the parlance of blues musicians, a “cutting contest,” where everyone wields big weapons and mammoth chops and uses them to cut the others to shreds with over-the-top bombastic solos. But it does almost immediately elevate the musical contributions of his band mates tonight. Hulett finishes his phrase—a deft mix of melody, muscular technique and musical vision—and hands it off to the next slinger. He looks happy, satisfied, content to be among what is an unusually high number of talented, gifted and creative players for a town the size of Hood River.

This is no slapdash blues jam held together by endless shuffles and needlessly monotonous blues tunes, where a train wreck lurks around every solo. These guys cover jazz, pop, swing and the odd wildcard tune and guest-vocalist offering, and they do it with passion and panache—even a sense of humor…

            My parents came to visit my wife and me for Thanksgiving this year and they were happy to see the snow for a bit while they escaped Arizona, their home. The weather didn’t disappoint. Every day for a week the forecast called for a slight warm-up and some rain and every morning we woke to a bit more powder and slightly lower temperatures. By the Friday after the holiday we’d had enough of football and old movies and the four of us bundled up and piled into the two-door Wrangler looking for something beyond the walls of the living room.

            We are the winery, brewery, day-hike, scenic drive type of family, but when the snow comes down on our sleepy little town those gorgeous, rolling, Cascade hills become dangerous, emergency-only drives. We slipped down out of our home in the heights of Hood River and into the nearly empty streets of downtown. The stark contrast of dark green pines against the bright white snow gave everything a fresh, new look. The fog sat low over the Columbia, shrouding the peaks across the river. The surface of the water was still and empty. Where cars are normally framing the downtowns streets there was just snow and road grit and empty parking spaces. Only a few brave souls were moving through the streets in the early morning hours.

            Somewhere else—in many other cities, in many other states—the roads were packed with holiday shoppers. By the time we’d grabbed our coffee and headed down toward the river, the folks on Eastern Time already had ten hours of the hellish mayhem we appropriately call Black Friday. They had discount deals on discount brands and we had steaming cups of coffee, snow capped peaks and an impromptu tour of the Columbia Gorge Hotel.

            She sat silent and stoic on her perch against the bank. The rush of the waterfall on her stern was drowned out only by the occasionally passing semi on I-84. The hotel wasn’t glowing yet—not like it is now, after the lighting ceremony. Green strands of darkened holiday lights were hugging the trees and tethered to the building. My parents had never seen the hotel before; my wife and I had contemplated getting married among its historic majesty just a year ago but eventually decided on a place we found to be more appropriate for our down-to-earth, outdoor lifestyle. What fourteen months ago was all hustle and bustle and bright, decadent rooms was now a softly lit exterior against steel-gray skies. A dark crow, not much more than a silhouette, flew overhead as we ventured to the back to look out at the river.

            Inside the Christmas tree was lit and the dining room glowed in soft yellow light. Outside there was rushing water, falling snow and a dark void of a river. I watched as my wife and father wandered slowly toward the enormous waterfall that plunges past the hotel and over the sheer cliff to the river below. Dad pointed to something down below and Ann hung her head over the railing, her hair falling off her shoulders toward the water as she looked down. Lights had been strung the length of the falls where they now sat vibrating against the plummeting water. The air was cold, crisp and stiff.

            Behind us, through what seems like century-old glass doors, sat the dark, empty ballroom. Unlit lights were hidden behind draping tapestry that would have given the place a feeling of warmth and invitation had the room been in use. White chairs were perfectly placed against white tablecloths as if ghosts were preparing for a feast. All around there was winter, lights not yet lit, a river not in use and that tragic, soft, silent beauty that makes winter here feel like peace.

If you have ever spent time along the banks of the Columbia River, you’ve likely picked-up the barely audible hum of an engine and the deep, low sound of a marine horn as a tugboat and its cargo slowly crawl through the swift waters. You may have even wondered how anything that moves so slowly can possibly be economically feasible. But feasible it is, and efficient, touted as perhaps the cleanest, safest and most environmentally friendly mode of commercial transportation in the modern world.

Capitalists in the late 19^th century developed natural resource and transportation industries on the Columbia River. Along the gorge created by the river, the land lent itself to agriculture, forestry and hunting. The river itself provided a 1,200-mile channel for transporting people and commodities.

40-foot-deep channels and the absence of appreciable tidal current flows on the present day Columbia River allow large barges powered by tugboats to transport goods through a series of locks from Lewiston, Idaho to Astoria, Oregon, where the river flows into the Pacific Ocean. Making only one slight diversion onto the Snake River for a 141-mile stretch, tugboats pushing barges haul export and refrigerated cargo, grains, fuel, fertilizer, beans, hay and other products at a fraction of the cost of train or truck transportation…

Home is where the heart is, as the old saying goes. But for Chuck and Lana Moore, it also needs to be a place where the whole family can fit. The couple, married 20 years, has a brood that includes 16 grandchildren. They also care for Lana’s 84-year-old mother for half the year. Needless to say, they often have a full house. That’s why, when they set out to build themselves a home in Dallesport, Washington, they knew one thing for sure: “We wanted it to be very large,” Lana says.

At 10,000 square feet, with four bedrooms, five bathrooms, a 2,600-square-foot shop and an indoor pool, it’s definitely that. But while some big houses can feel austere and impersonal, the Moores’ is exactly the opposite. This house was built to be a home.

It sits on six and a half acres that once belonged to Chuck’s father, and it overlooks the Columbia River. Chuck himself played there as a child but says he swore he would never live there because of the way the wind howled over the land in the summer. When the Moores finally settled on the property as the site for their home, they designed the stucco structure to include a courtyard to provide shelter from the gusting wind. “That way, on a windy day you can still be outside,” Lana says…

Maupin is a steady hour’s drive south from the Columbia River on State Hwy. 197, making this Deschutes River-side community easily accessible from the Columbia Gorge area for a small-town dining and dancing experience.

Taking one’s time to meander leisurely, however, offers a weekend excursion full of opportunities for exploring rolling hills, deep river canyons and high plains vistas, and perhaps chatting with a few locals along the way. Heading from The Dalles on U.S. Route 197, you’ll leave the National Scenic Area and immediately enter an enchanted terrain of rolling farmland where tidy orchards of apple and cherry trees frame picturesque homes and barns. A turn-off to the east brings you less than a mile down a narrow lane to tiny Boyd, a former community but now just a bend in the road with a few homes clustered by orderly orchards and wheat fields that spread to distant horizons. A few chickens peck in the gravel alongside the road and a red-tailed hawk perches steely-eyed from a nearby fence post.

Back on Route 197 again, the old Dufur Road can be seen as it ribbons its way south alongside the newer highway, cresting hills and descending into hollows as the route south follows the path of least resistance… 

541.387.4100

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Fruit baskets overflowing with fresh, handpicked fruit, gift towers reaching the sky and topped with hand-tied ribbons, sensational fruit of the month deliveries, and an abundance of gourmet food gifts and surprises for every person and every occasion.
The Fruit Company® has been delivering Orchard Fresh Fruit to the nation since 1942.

509.493.8600

www.insitu.com

Insitu, Inc., has pioneered the unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) industry since our inception in 1994. Specializing in the design, development, production, and operation of UAS for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) objectives, Insitu is a leading global provider of UAS solutions that meet a wide range of customer needs.

The unmatched field performance of these customizable, low-cost systems has led to dramatic expansion, making Insitu one of the fastest-growing companies in the UAS industry.

Insitu’s family of UAS solutions has logged more than 200,000 operational flight hours by land and sea and has become the gold standard for autonomous aerial solutions in both military and commercial markets.

With immediate operational readiness supported by a framework of engineering, production, and training services that can be mobilized immediately to meet urgent customer requirements with low lead times, Insitu stands as the industry’s provider of choice for field-proven, field-focused UAS solutions that extend the eyes and empower the assets of our customers.

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bb@blaineandbethany.com

We’ve all heard it. TV, radio, e-books, podcasts, the Internet, newspapers, magazines and word of mouth, they’re all screaming it: “The world has changed. Print is dead. We get our news in different ways now.” And perhaps they’re somewhat right. Maybe we’ve all woken up and all of a sudden we’re no longer interested in what’s on the front page of the local paper—if you’re lucky enough to still have a local paper—or what our favorite columnist has to say about local elections, a hometown hero who made it big, the opening of a new restaurant or his or her daily musing about the state of our town, county, state or country.

There are things I already miss, things I find myself nostalgic for, and I’m not even 30-years-old yet, so I know the majority of the adult world is already pining for the days of old, or better yet, in denial of any change despite the fact that their morning paper gets lighter and lighter and they find themselves thinking “I already know this; I saw it on the news yesterday afternoon.” I love being up to date on the latest happenings and feeling the rush of knowing that I know something first, or almost first. I tweet and text. I repost stories on facebook with my own take or opinion posted at the top in a few words. I even get to find a few things out on my own, thanks to my job. What all of this is hinting at, and what the mainstream media outlets, as usual, aren’t telling you, is that that’s not the whole story.

How exactly are these “The sky is falling! Print is dead!” sirens defining the word “print?” It seems to me that I’m reading more than ever. The Internet isn’t television. It’s not constantly airing video and sound feed live from the events taking place all over the world. Correspondents, reporters and columnists aren’t sitting in front of flip video cameras and sharing their 1,000 word takes on the world, they’re writing them. You may have watched the Chilean miners get pulled from their collapsed mine, but didn’t you read about it first? Texting, tweeting, status updates, blogs, headlines, comments and straight-up news stories—written, typed news stories—make up the vast majority of the material you find on the web. iPads, Kindles and Nooks are bringing you print in electronic form, not on paper, but it’s still print. You’re reading a web column right now, one that will never see the page, but it’s still the written word in electronic print. And email! How many of you were writing ten or twenty letters a day between friends, coworkers, clients and colleagues before email was invented? I must read anywhere from five to ten emails a day at a minimum, and we’ve all had those days of 30 or 40 emails all in need of a thoughtful, well-written reply. I would venture to say that between all these different outlets, many of which we don’t normally recognize as print, we’re actually reading more now than we have before.

The Magazine Publishers of America and the American Society of Magazine Editors have certainly tried to trumpet the truth. You’ve probably seen their ads in a magazine you’ve picked-up recently. They often feature the old Highlights magazine style of placing a picture, in this case a magazine cover, in place of a word. For example People magazine’s cover is placed where the simple word “people” would normally have been. On the left they feature a striking still-shot that grabs your attention. They’re trying to tell you something, and that something is that magazine readership—print magazine readership—is up. It’s up for young and old, male and female, entertainment, news, sports and lifestyles publications. 96 percent of the people under the age of 35 in the U.S. read magazines. Adults 18 to 34 read about 6 magazines per month, which is actually more than older adults. Perhaps most surprising to people—given that they’re being told every day that print is dying or dead—is the fact that the top 25 magazines in the country outperform the top 25 primetime television shows in their ability to reach teens and adults. I could go on forever, or you could visit magazine.org to find out more for yourself, but it’s all getting at the same point.

Things are not what they were before the Internet, and as the world continues to evolve in a more technologically inclined direction, print is going to change, but it’s not going to die. Newspapers have definitely taken their share of hits in the subscriber department, but a large portion of that blame must fall on them. Their own websites out-scoop their daily reporters, and they failed to find a way to charge for their content, which now means they’re going bankrupt in an attempt to supply you with news every morning that you’re already getting for free on their sites as the stories break. This is exactly why the largest bellows of doom and gloom are coming from your newspapers. They thought that feeling of holding the paper in your hands while enjoying your morning coffee would be enough to get them through the drastically changed landscape. It’s not. Sure, I remember reading the wrinkled, worn pages my father had already worked through as he sipped his coffee and I downed my cereal on a Sunday morning, but I’m not so nostalgic that I’m going to read the same stories I read the day before on the web.

Another truth being overlooked is that reading online and electronically is often better. For starters, you can comment and interact with writers and other commentators, thus creating an actual real-time (or close to it) discussion of the content, focus and meaning of a story. Sure, in the past you could draft a written or typed letter to the editors at the paper or magazine and you might get lucky enough that your words were posted a week later in their opinion or editorial section, but there’s a level of interaction that’s not being utilized there. In the modern electronic setting, newspapers, magazines and TV news sites are creating a classroom-like atmosphere where discussion, comment, opinion and contradiction are encouraged. I certainly can’t vouch for the crazies and the serial or habitual commentators, but we have to put up with the sometimes crazy or obnoxious in order to guarantee the freedom of opinion and reason for all of us.

There’s also the element of information sharing to consider. In the past you could clip out an article and post it on your fridge, or as my grandmother still does, you could mail it to someone. Of course, it’s all old news by the time it gets there, and you’re not likely to comment or write a letter back. You’re also only likely to have one or two copies, so your audience is limited, to say the least. Now, you simply copy the URL and post it to your twitter account, facebook status or right into an email and you can share anything posted on the web instantly. This encourages comments, questions and thought-provoking discussions which can be lengthy, in depth, more inclusive and timely.

Print is evolving. Print has changed. Those are truths that I can get behind. Folks, the sky is not falling. No one is going to unlearn how to read. In fact, if they did, they’d be left behind faster than at any other point in modern history. Literacy is a requirement to enjoy the worlds of social media and the Internet. Parents, teachers and the community still have a responsibility to teach kids and teens how to utilize these ever-evolving electronic tools for the betterment of themselves and others and not just for frivolous fun and pointless, unfocused commentary, but are we really so lazy and disappointed by the changing world that we’re going to throw up our hands and declare that print is dead? And yes, the media outlets like newspapers, TV stations and magazines have got to do a better job of providing online and electronic content that meets the old standards of honesty, integrity, truth and well-thought-out commentary, but I know that the editors, publishers and producers of this material want, as badly as ever, to entertain, educate and inform. Web, TV and print content can be linked in any number of innovative and useful ways, thus enhancing the experience and value of all three mediums.

The media has brought the hyperbole surrounding this issue upon itself, so no apologies are necessary, but next time you hear some editor or publisher declare that print is dead or that their paper or magazine is going under because teens and young adults don’t want news anymore, think about what they’re really saying: “I miss the way it was. We were not prepared for the future, and now the future is here.” Not all change is good or bad, but I assure you that nothing in the print world is dead, as a matter of fact, I think it’s thriving, and those who learn to harness its new power and evolve to fit the changing landscape while still maintaining their principles and the principles of good journalism, will be met with levels of success, profitability and integrity that haven’t been seen in the world of the written word for a decade or two. Print, my friends, is flourishing.

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It’s hard to tell it’s October. I sit in my home with a pumpkin muffin, a hot cup of coffee and a view of the neighbor’s reddening tree through my living room window, but it’s at least 75 degrees outside and expected to climb throughout the day. Fall has always made me reflective. I can never remember who it was that said “fall is the most contemplative of seasons,” but he or she was right.

As the apples ripen on the trees back in the Hood River Valley and the snow begins, once again, to pile-up on our bordering volcanic peaks, my mind begins to wander. Only weeks ago summer was a reality; now it already carries the cloudy, mystic fog of a memory.

It’s harvest season throughout the Columbia Gorge and men and women have gone to work plucking the fruits of spring and summer’s labor. Much of it is devoured in the coming weeks, while to the contrary, the hops and grapes are brewed, fermented, stored; their ripeness will be enjoyed later. Only a few trees have begun to turn that brilliant yellow or red that leaps forth from the backdrop of Doug-fir-green. My yard is scattered with the remains of black-walnut shells that our skittering, spastic squirrels have broken open. They leave behind only soggy green and black casings. They too consume the early fall bounty while setting aside some of the riches for the long winter ahead.

What is that sweet sadness that comes with this contemplation and observation? What is it in our nature that pulls out the melancholy with the remembered, that sense of something lost for each thing gained? It does seem sharpest at the turn of one season to another, but it’s always there when we take the time to just sit and wonder. How many of you try to capture and harvest some small piece of the past or present in your own unique way? I write. And because I write I’m forced to look at the world around me and to convey that world to you. It leads to an interpretation of the reality that surrounds us. It also lends to a look at the way I see things, the way I process my world. Photographers and painters do it too, and they leave behind a similar style of interpretation: What are they showing me and what does it say about them. How much artist is in each of you? Do you wear your world on your shoulders? Does your style tell me who you are or what you want me to observe? Or maybe your actions speak for you. Maybe it’s what you do and how you do it that gives me insight into your life, your world, your interpretation of your surroundings.

I often feel as though the fall season is trying to tell me something. All seasons for that matter. It’s as if the earth, the weather, the wind and the sun are saying, “Take a second look, Matt, we’re not what you thought we were.” Does a part of us change with our seasons? I am certainly not the same man in October that I am in June. I am recognizable, yes, but something inside me seems to ebb and flow in a manner that at the very least resembles the seasons.

Fall is crisp air. Fall is apples and pumpkin pie. Fall is an exercise in color and art. Fall is a display of the potential that lies within the things in nature that appear mundane and expected until that brilliant morning in mid-October when the frost covers the green and brown earth and gives a shimmering glow to a tree that is now stark, bright, glowing yellow. Fall is a brilliant flourish of life before the death-like finality of winter.

I do not know what it is that the fall season does to me. I don’t know why I find myself pondering the things I was simply taking for granted just weeks earlier. I don’t think I want to know why or how; I just want to live in this new world for a while. I want to breath it into my lungs and feel my body swell with its fresh, crisp, nourishing smells. I want to harvest the prizes of the summer sun and devour them. I want to relish the fact that the world around us is literally changing, molting, harvesting and preparing for hibernation. The earth is an artist and it’s showing us what it can do.

541.490.9771

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Most electrical contractors prioritize a project as entry level, mid level, or a high-end custom project. At Ridgeline Electric and Design, we value every project with equal importance by providing meticulous attention to detail, professional lighting design concepts, and a careful and concerted effort in listening to the customer. Ridgeline Electric and Design has the professional experience to assist you in making smart, as well as energy efficient lighting choices.

As a Trade Ally of Energy Trust of Oregon in solar and lighting installations, we provide energy efficient and renewable energy equipment and services to homeowners and businesses. From solar electric (PV array) installs, Energy Star and Title 24 compliant lighting options, and energy efficient lighting controls, you’ll see dramatic savings while reducing carbon emissions.

www.columbiagorge.com

info@columbiagorge.com

The Columbia Gorge’s Premier Lifestyle Web site.

541.354.2865

www.hoodriverfair.com

Find the best of the entire four counties of the Columbia Gorge:

Arts & crafts, gourmet food products, fresh fruit & produce, food & wine tasting, special attactions, live music and so much more! Over 90 vendors and Garden Club Flower Show.

Travelling along the asphalt highways and byways that crisscross the fertile Columbia Gorge, one need only to glance in either direction to view myriad shades of green, covering soil that is black as asphalt and rich as gold in its suitability for cultivating crops. At the many nurseries throughout the area, environmentally conscious tree and native flower growers are making it possible for individuals and landscaping companies to responsibly incorporate native species in every aspect of yard and garden design.

Many have said, “It takes a lifetime to grow a tree.” Undaunted by the challenge, budding botanists and seasoned old-timers throughout the Columbia Gorge stand ready to embark on the venture one tree, one plant or one shrub at a time…

As your tires crunch down the gravel of the unassuming private drive off of the Historic Columbia River Highway, it’s easy to think you’ve made a wrong turn. The shady tunnel of trees belies the stunning vista awaiting at the house ahead, and the drive’s length—perhaps designed to build anticipation—is enough to make you momentarily question your GPS. But any doubt about the accuracy of your directions fades when you see the lions. Standing guard on either side of the iron entry gate, their frozen concrete forms are your first clue that something spectacular lies beyond.

That something is Waterleaf Farm, a 20-acre estate perched high atop a ridge overlooking the Columbia River. California residents Gregg Fletcher and Byron Page purchased it as a vacation home nearly three years ago. They were captured by its beauty and convenient location in Corbett, Oregon, a small town situated midway between downtown Portland, to the west, and the heart of the Columbia Gorge, to the east.

“It’s 30 minutes to Portland and amazing restaurants and 30 minutes to Hood River and anything and everything you can do outdoors,” says Fletcher, a real estate broker.  “Yet you feel like you’re a million miles away. That’s the beauty of this property; you feel so isolated.”…