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.

541.386.6772

co.hood-river.or.us/museum

Celebrate the Paste * Preserve the Future

Explore the true “treasures” of Hood River County.

509.427.8444

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

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.”

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.

541.374.7996

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.

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)

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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. 

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.

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.

(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.

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… 

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.

541.354.2865

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.”…

On a high, open prairie above the Klickitat River valley, a large herd of dark, chocolate-colored bison graze on steep slopes facing spectacular views of Mount Hood and the Columbia Gorge. Just as nature intended, these magnificent, herbivorous animals—the largest reaching upwards of 12 feet in length and nearly a ton in weight—roam freely through nutrient-rich grasses under windswept skies.The more than 50 bison of the Klickitat Bison Company graze year-round, with the eldest always keeping a watchful eye over the close-knit clan. These bison patiently bear their young and live out their years, all the while shifting slowly from pasture to pasture and season to season under the hot summer sun and on cold winter nights.

Grass is the lifeblood of this herd. The bison live in harmony on this ranch along with other wildlife like deer, quail, bluebirds, meadowlarks, birds of prey, coyotes, rattlesnakes and the occasional cougar. They maintain a healthy balance as together the wildlife and herd enrich the land and it enriches them in return.

A deep love for the land and a passion for sustainable ranching led Erik and Mary Jean Risheim to raise Plains bison. They visited ranches elsewhere to learn firsthand what would be involved and then planned carefully to manage their own herd…

When Ben Stenn, chef and managing partner at Celilo Restaurant and Bar in Hood River, gets hold of local figs, he’s very careful with them. A prime example of food best eaten where it’s grown, fresh figs are extremely delicate and don’t travel well, he shares. Even refrigerating or moving them too much can affect the fruit’s exterior. So when they arrive at his restaurant during a small two to three week window in midsummer, they lay on a cloth in the kitchen, practically untouched until they are served with just a mild soft-cheese, a salty cured-meat and a bit of oil and balsamic vinegar.

“A fresh fig is soft and supple, sweet and fragrant,” Stenn explains. “It’s a texture experience that has no equivalent. What can you do with that? You slice it and put it on a plate.”

Despite being lauded in The Oregonian in 2008 as “easily the most sophisticated restaurant in town,” Celilo, in Stenn’s mind at least, is built on a philosophy as simple as that fresh fig appetizer.

“We take the best of what comes from this region and just deliver it,” he says…

It was in that column just a few months ago that I wrote about taking the time to learn something new or to do something all over again that you haven’t done in a while. I myself chose kiteboarding and fly fishing this summer. My fiancé and I took to kite surfing like a fish to water, and fly fishing is so perfectly the opposite in terms of the sustained rush and the adrenaline fix (though a fish on that fly will get the blood flowing) that I found myself in perfect balance this summer. I made headway with both, and I can’t wait to pick up where I left off with kiteboarding as the spring and early summer months roll back in next year. Fly fishing will continue as the fall months push through, and with both sports there are significant steps I can take to practice and perfect as much as possible before the prime season returns. Part of me can’t wait, but there’s the other part of me that embraces each season no matter the rain, snow or wind, and that part is already excited for what the fall will bring.

I’ve already waxed poetic in past columns about the stunning beauty and sheer awe that a Columbia Gorge fall can inspire in us. There will be long scenic drives through the valleys, hills, mountains and high prairie, all of which sing the season in the prettiest of notes. Oh, and there will be cider and ale, hot chocolate, apples, pears and pies. It’s a great season to be a resident of any Pacific Northwest town as produce ripens on the branches and wine grapes ready for picking. There’s so much beauty and contemplation in a typical fall day, but somehow this year I want more.

Maybe I just caught the adventurous spirit. Maybe I’m just trying to hold on to the premier outdoor season until it has all but disappeared. Either way, I’m getting back out there. As kiteboarding and fly fishing worked in perfect balance to satiate my adventurous and Zen spirit, I hope the fall season itself provides the relaxation, calm and solitude I’ve been subconsciously and quietly yearning for. And as its counter point? What balance is to be struck to this refreshing and passive season? Perhaps it’s late fall skiing, which I haven’t done since I was in grade school. Maybe until then I’ll take up mountain biking. I had a rough go when I was 13 or 14 and I never tried the trails again. It looks exhilarating, and I’m a complete nut for a sport when it means I can buy and acquire more gear.

A small voice is telling me to relax and enjoy the fall. It was a very fast and adventurous summer, and I know that painful feeling of seeing the snow fall earlier then expected—of knowing it all went by and you didn’t take enough time to savor it. I think that voice comes from the side of me that’s always trying to slow things down and to take in a moment. It’s as if, at times, I can almost stop the world with the perfectly written line or the timely photograph that just stops you in your tracks and begs the question: Why move forward from here? And then it too is gone.

The other voice, the louder one, is telling me that there’s no way to capture life. It’s a futile act that will leave even the most hardy and ambitious with feelings of bitterness and regret. But to embrace life—to capture moments with memories of great adventures, challenges bested—that leaves a lasting impact that breathes and speaks back to you far beyond its seasonal boundary. I can not capture, in words or photographs, the tingle in my stomach that I can recreate whenever I sit and think long enough about the rush of being pulled up out of the water on my first kiteboarding lesson, and it’s with that spirit and that sentiment in mind that I’ll attack this fall. I think as a child I was imbued with a sense that we aren’t here long enough to enjoy what’s out there, and that made me slow things down and savor them as much as I could. Now, I still think our seasons and years are far too fleeting, but I’m taking the opposite approach. I’m living each day fast and full, and when it’s all said and done, I’ll be filled with memories that don’t lose their spirit over time.

It almost seems too easy, but for some reason it’s felt counter intuitive at times. Fill your life with adventure, excitement and just the right amount of time to sit back and smell the fall leaves, and you’ll be rewarded with memories that fade much slower. Try to slow down too much, and you’ll find that time has passed that cannot be captured again. I know these things, and yet they are often at conflict within me. Finding that yin and yang balance within myself sounds challenging, but it’s a challenge I embrace with a smile. Bring on the fall, bring on the adventure, and when it too has passed, half of me will be fondly looking back while the other half braces for the winter of a lifetime.

541.308.0308

www.localite.com

Localite is a television talk show hosted by TV personality Jon Compton. The 30-minute show is taped at CGN Studios in The Dalles, Oregon and features guests from around the Northwest and beyond.

A few Wednesday’s ago I had a chance to enter into a world that—because of my age and my life experience—I had never entered. I volunteered with the Gorge Heroes Club in their efforts to assemble, pack and ship care packages to soldiers from the Columbia Gorge that are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I read about the wars on a daily basis; I even like to think that I talk about them and think about them more than the “others” of my generation who’ve forgotten or turned away. How much of this is because of the amount of news I read for my job, and how much of it is my general curiosity about the field of battle, are two questions I don’t have the time and space to explore here, but something from that meeting has kept my mind reeling.

 In the darkened, hanger-style warehouse of the Western Antique Aerospace and Automobile Museum I was met with the faces of several soldiers’ parents, spouses and family members. Those faces evoked stress. Their way of looking at you was a bit scattered at first, as if their minds were somewhere else, and who could blame them for that. What I saw that evening as we packed boxes, signed cards and socialized was a level of commitment and dedication from the home-front that I am yet to experience in any other place as these nearly decade-long wars have raged on. I know much of this is political, and I don’t even want to near that line of discussion. What I do want to say is that the level of dedication from these volunteers was simply heartwarming. What bothered me was the thought that these very people who are so giving of their time, money and efforts are the same people who have already given themselves over to the anxiety-ridden, all-encompassing fear that comes with having a loved-one at war.

It all got me thinking back to my college days and my work studying the war literature of Tim O’Brien for my undergraduate thesis. Many may know his novel The Things They Carried, which chronicled his involvement in the Vietnam War. In it, O’Brien uses fictional characters and fabricated situations to try to convey the emotions, fear, dread, boredom, mind-games, pain and more that come with being a soldier. As I was pondering the inevitable parallels—fair or not—that have been drawn between Vietnam and Iraq or Afghanistan, an old quote I couldn’t completely recall kept playing in the back of my mind. With some luck and some thanks to my younger self, who took down page numbers and marked quotes for everything I read, I found the lines in O’Brien’s most recent novel, July, July from 2002. As I thought, the lines don’t just resonate with the echoes of the Vietnam era; they carry an even more striking tenor today. In July, July, O’Brien has created a fictional college class, the Darton Hall College class of 1969, and from it he contrasts those who fought in Vietnam with those who stayed and went to college. The story centers on the modern-day class reunion and explores the effects the war has had on the characters. In the following lines, O’Brien taps into much of what I’ve been feeling since leaving the Gorge Heroes Club packing event.

“And while people perished on the far side of the planet, other people had their teeth filled, and filed for divorce, and made love in parked cars.

            Freshmen were oriented.

            The Mets were on a roll.

            Small, simple things, yes, but in some great nationwide darkroom, the most ordinary human snapshots would be fixed in memory by the acidic wash of war—the music, the lingo, the evening news.”

We all know the legacy of the Vietnam War. We know the protests, the lack of support showed to some returning soldiers, the divisive politics. One parallel I don’t see, not at all, from this current set of wars to the one O’Brien is writing about is the backdrop. When we look back historically we see the scenes of the late 1960s set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. We understand much of what happened in the years after the war to be a result of the war. Will we feel this way about the two wars we’re fighting now? We’re a larger country, we’re a very politically divided country and we are in a news-cycle and internet age that we haven’t harvested an understanding of yet.

I guess a lot of what stuck with me after interviewing RaeLynn Ricarte, one of the founders of the Gorge Heroes Club, and after volunteering at their event, is that much of our country today is missing the context—the backdrop—that these wars are providing us. Regardless of our opinions, politics and arguments, these wars are taking place. I’m glad I had the opportunity to be reminded, very gently, of the sacrifices and spent-lives these wars have already demanded. For the most part, we can choose how we feel about a major event like a war; we can even choose whether or not we go, or, thanks in large part to modern news coverage, we can choose whether or not we even pay attention to these wars. What we can’t choose is the fact that they’ve happened. They’re going on now, and they’ve become the backdrop to our era. Our new millennium, our new century, the last nine years and the next few years will all be set against a backdrop of war. I don’t ever want to forget that, and I’m not sure it’s healthy for any of us if we do.

Just a week ago I had the chance to venture a little over half-way across the country to a family wedding in Southeastern Ohio. I wish I could say that the red-eye flights don’t bother me, or that I never complain about the opportunity to see my family and some old friends, but alas, it simply isn’t true—or at least not the whole truth. I was bitter. I was tired. And to make matters worse, Ohio in June is a sweltering, humid, down-right muggy environment. As my fiancé and I exited the small jet into the Port of Columbus International Airport a deep, dank stench of heavy moisture on old carpet greeted us.

            I was nearly sleepless after flying out of PDX at 11 p.m. the previous night because of connecting flights and the fact that I stand at about 6 feet 4 inches—the typical airline seat hits me right about mid-shoulder blade and my head bobs around every few seconds waking me up. My knees were sore from pressing into the seat in front of me and my eyes were bloodshot—a true red-eye. We packed lightly, so we were quickly in the rental car and on our way to the rolling green hills near Athens, Ohio.

            I’m from Ohio, though it’s been half a decade since I’ve called it home. You would think I’d be used to the humidity, the corn fields and the aggressive driving, but somehow every time I go back it all seems new and frustrating again. By 9 a.m. it was pushing 80 degrees and the moisture in the air made it seem heavy, like a warm, wet blanket. We met my mom and my aunt whose son was to be married at the reception site, because what’s better after flying overnight across the country on an hour of sleep than to help unload 20 or 30 boxes of liquor, wine, soft drinks and mixers in the early morning heat? I was all smiles and hugs on the outside and fire and ire on the inside. I’d like to think I pulled it off, but my family knows me all-too-well.

            We were half-way through the carload of boxes at the Eclipse Company Store when it happened. A father and son staying in this tiny town northeast of several other tiny towns simply reached in and started carrying the boxes up the short flight of stairs and into the venue. A few of us introduced ourselves, thinking for sure that they must be the bride’s family, and they smiled warmly and shook our hands. Grandma asked how they know the family. “Oh, we were just walking by—looked like you could use a hand,” the father said. His son was already back out the door grabbing another couple boxes. There was a moment of silence, and then we all laughed and smiled and thanked them for the help. In minutes the car was unloaded and they both vanished as quickly as they’d come.

I’m originally from the Cleveland area, and I spent several years in Chicago. When you’re in those places you don’t want people reaching into your car to grab your stuff. It’s almost never a gesture of hospitality or thoughtfulness. People simply do not say “hello” to each other; they rarely even make eye contact on purpose. Somehow what that father and son had just done for us started me on to a pattern, one that made me feel much closer to my Columbia Gorge home, where I recognized the kindness and generosity of those that were making this weekend possible. From the waitress at the restaurant who spoke with a slight southern twang and took care of us like a grandmother would, to the concierge at the inn who always asked how we were doing and remembered our faces so we never answered the same question twice, these people were genuinely warm and truly friendly.

            The wedding went off without a hitch, at least not one that we noticed. The bride was stunning and the groom was everything my cousin has always been: stoic, calm, warm and gracious. The caterers, waiters, hotel staff, bar tenders and neighbors throughout the sites we visited helped to not only make the wedding a success, but they also helped to ease the tired and travel-addled minds of my fiancé and I, as well as the other guests I’m sure.

            In just a few months these same family members will be traveling the same tiring and challenging distance to witness the wedding of my beautiful soon-to-be bride and me. We were reminded of this throughout the weekend as friends and family introduced us to other guests with, “These two are next,” followed by a congratulations and smile from a stranger. “Are you guys ready?” and “Only two more months!” were common starts to a conversation with my cousins, aunts and uncles.

I’ve been excited to marry Ann from the moment we met, but there was something that became even more apparent to me after last weekend: I’m also very excited to share my home here in the Columbia Gorge with my family and friends. I can’t wait for them to experience the outdoor lifestyle, the brown and green contrast of the Cascades in September, the mild summer nights. I can’t wait until I see the look on their faces, especially those who live in the bigger cities, when a complete stranger smiles and says “hello” when they pass on the sidewalk. I want to be there when a friendly neighborhood dog comes jogging up for a drop-in visit at their vacation rental. What will happen when lines of cars come to a halt to let them cross the street? Will they notice that we don’t honk our horns here unless it’s an emergency, or that it’s considered rude not to ask the person on the barstool next to you what his or her name is?

            I think a lot of us, even those like me that weren’t born here, start to take some of this for granted. It becomes part of our daily routine to be kind, neighborly and hospitable. I have all the confidence in the world that my family—exhausted from travel and perhaps antagonized by the thousand of miles and dollars it takes them to get here—will find themselves cooled and calmed by the personalities, kindness and hospitality of those of us who live and work here in the Columbia Gorge. In Ohio I went from angry, tired and bitter to simply grateful that I could be part of my cousin’s wedding. My heart is warmed at the thought of those I hold near and dear experiencing that same transition here.

John Maher, a fine arts photographer, walks around to the side of his house at Rowena Dell, Oregon, and points to his newest artwork. There, standing among pine trees, on a bed of needles, is a ladder painted the color of a sunflower. The 18-foot fruit picker’s ladder is out of place here in the wooden glen, so just imagine what 100 of them will look like perched on the hills along Interstate 84. The “Running Ladders” project, set to debut in 2011, is Maher’s first large-scale conceptual art installation, but for thirty years he has challenged his art to question its role in society. “Art is an elevated experience, it should engage people,” Maher says. “If you can take the mundane and show it to be as special as it really is, that’s art’s job.”

Take an everyday farm tool like a ladder out of its environment—its context—and add the right colors to it and, “You create a new context for it and raise people’s awareness of that object,” says Maher. The “Running Ladders” project is a tribute to small farms and an opportunity, through art, to bring relevance to their vital role in our society. For Maher, there is nostalgia in what small farms represent, and he sees a desire for our culture to reconnect with these farms, “to get our hands in the dirt again,” as he puts it. His sentiments go back to the 1960s and the back-to-the-land movement, but Maher believes this new push for creating sustainable communities is much bigger than that. “Farming is a big part of the landscape in Oregon,” he says. “What happens to farms happens to the environment.”

The idea of placing painted ladders along the interstate actually came from another common object seen across Oregon’s landscape: fences. Inspired by the conceptual artist, Christo, who in the 1970s did a project using fabric to create miles of white fence in California, Maher’s “Running Ladders” was conceived on a typical drive home along the scenic highway from Mosier, Oregon. “I had a transformative moment and I want to communicate that to others, many others,” Maher says…

Krista Thie’s eyes light up when she talks about wild oats. Thie, an ethnobotanist who lives just outside of White Salmon, explains that if you take its seed and add a drop of water, it will open up and begin a slow and magical spiral of its own accord. Were it on a patch of dirt it would begin to work itself in, destined to find purchase in the vital earth.

It is but one of Thie’s many overwhelming botany lessons during a tour of her solar-powered home and the surrounding grounds. Every floor of the house she shares with husband, Daryl Hoyt, is filled with textbooks, notebooks, pamphlets and guides to the incredibly abundant flora of the Columbia Gorge. Soft-spoken by nature, she comes to conversation slowly, but once a topic takes root, she will discourse until spent.

Thie talks eloquently about the wonders of the area’s plant life. She explains that Skamania and Klickitat counties alone contain well over 100 kinds of rare and unique plants. This singular ground is brought to life as a result of the ancient Missoula Flood, the continuously enormous east-west flow of the Columbia River, overlapping micro-climes, varying elevations and rainfall, and good dirt…

It used to be that the only place to get a drink in the tiny town of Mosier, Oregon, was at its namesake tavern, where females were forbidden. It stood within eyeshot of the local YWCA, where the townswomen supervised wholesome activities like tap dancing and bingo as the men were free to raise hell in the bar. The Mosier Tavern burned to the ground in 1930s. According to legend, the women of Mosier started the blaze.    

The old YWCA building still stands just off exit 69 on Interstate 84. In a fitting tribute, it’s now itself a pub—the Thirsty Woman—named in honor of those fabled women. Set behind a lawn strewn with picnic tables and colorful Adirondack chairs, the 400-square-foot structure that houses the Thirsty Woman, with its weathered wood shingles and corrugated metal siding, could easily be mistaken for the storage shed it was less than two years ago.

Co-owners Debra Mazzoleni and her husband, Barry Rumsey, ran a successful restaurant in Baltimore, Maryland, before relocating to the Columbia Gorge in 2006. They came to the area seeking a place to ride their bikes and raise their two children. When the former Wildflower Café in Mosier went up for sale, they jumped at the chance to make it their own. Along with the main building, which they reopened as the Good River Restaurant, the property included the dilapidated former YWCA…

Agriculture has been a leading industry in the Columbia Gorge for generations. The weather, soil and plentiful water of the Cascade Mountains provide key ingredients for successful farming. In an area long known for growing some of the best apples, pears and cherries in the world, vineyard managers and winemakers have recently been receiving greater exposure and acclaim.

At 40 miles in length, the Columbia Gorge American Viticultural Area (CGAVA) hosts nearly 100 active vineyards and wineries. As the tastes of consumers continue to evolve, so have the methods and philosophies of the growers and producers. Forward thinking philosophies and hard science are now leading more farmers to introduce increasingly sustainable practices.

Several definitions of sustainable viticulture exist in the grape industry, but many agree that the current movement toward more sustainable practices began with sustainable agriculture, which grew out of organic farming practices and the “green” revolution, as well as the back-to-the-land movement of the 1970s…

I was raised by two loving and ever-attentive parents who knew that in order to maintain sanity and foster their relationship for decades, they’d need a date night. Friday nights were a time for them to leave the day-to-day parenting troubles for awhile and to just be together, alone, away from everything. Luckily, my grandmother lived just around the corner. She was always so excited to see us late on Friday afternoons. I remember the way she’d be waiting at the screen door as if she could intuit the exact seconds we’d arrive. My sister and I would bounce out of the car and run to her embrace.

We would each have one of two things with us, either a large Pizza Hut button decorated with a star for each book we’d read that week, or a sheet of paper cataloging our summer reading list for the Morley Library summer program. Each title and author listed was another work devoured—another seed of knowledge or insight gained.

Grandma didn’t like pizza, but she would grin from ear to ear as we piled into her Pontiac and headed off for the small, free pizza we earned each and every week through a reading program that far too few of our schoolmates took advantage of. I remember clearly, sitting in a mostly empty restaurant just off the main drag outside of downtown. We’d wait anxiously for our prize to arrive while Grandma asked us about what we’d read, what we’d learned and what we would be checking-out from the library after dinner.

When the Pizza Hut program ended, not much would change. We’d sit over a dinner of spaghetti and fresh-picked vegetables at her kitchen table and recount our reading adventures as we made our way through the library’s summer reading program. We often found ourselves well into the lead by early June. We’d count the number of green construction-paper leaves with our names on them, each one placed onto the bare brown branches that took-up what must have been 30 feet on the interior wall of the library. By the end of each summer, with the help of hundreds of Lake County kids, the summer reading tree would be bursting with life—thousands of books read.

     In my grandmother’s living room sat a brown leather chair where the three of us would squeeze-in to read away our Friday evenings. My sister and I would each take an armrest and Grandma would ease into the middle. We took turns reading aloud. I remember the way my younger sister would laugh at the jokes she didn’t get just because Grandma and I were laughing, and then we’d laugh with her, enjoying that frivolous, warm chuckle she still has to this day. It only took a few years to wear two small holes into those armrests. Grandma would tape-over them in hopes of stretching the life of the chair—maybe in some way it was a thank you for the way that chair brought the three of us together.

As we grew older there were quieter nights, but we’d still only occupy the space in and around that chair as we each dove into our young adult novels—Grandma reading the newspaper or a gardening magazine at our side. Whether we were 3-years old or well into our teens, we’d finish a stack of books that would make any parent proud and we’d head off to the library again the next week to exchange them for more knowledge, more enjoyment, more access into that world that only reading can open.

     I’ve grown-up to make a living by reading and writing. It’s a gift I silently thank Grandma for each and every day of my lucky little life. I understand the bias I have toward the written word, and given my life experience, it’s easy to see why I get so nostalgic over the loss of a building filled with books. There are a host of reasons that these libraries are closing, but none is simpler than the fact that the money isn’t there. As many of us see the signs that this recession is lessening its grip on the nation, these closings serve as a reminder that we’re far from profitable, far from wealthy. I can’t blame a hard-working family for not wanting a raise in their property taxes, but it doesn’t make it any less of a sad story.

My office here in  is just a block from the State Street branch that will soon shut its doors. Each time I walk by—every time I see someone tug at the locked front doors and look down at their watch—I’ll think of the worn spots on that old leather chair. I’ll think of the feeling of taping up another paper leaf on the library wall, and the weight of those stacks of books as we left that Hood River cavernous brick-building in Northeast Ohio. I may be far from the place I was born, but I’m home, and every time I look at the State Street Library I’ll feel a tinge of sadness at the fact that each hour that building remains closed, another child is missing out on the blessed life of the written word.

It’s beginning to look a lot like summer. It didn’t happen overnight this time. The winter, though mild, had its claws in deep, and while spring is finally blooming all around the Columbia Gorge, the Cascade Mountain passes are still getting more than their fair share of snow. For a few long weeks, it seemed as though spring might not make it, and then all at once, the fruit trees bloomed just in time for the annual Blossom Festival, and the green shoots of this year’s leaves are starting to dot the branches of our deciduous neighbors. For some, it couldn’t have happened a second too soon, and for others, there’s an apprehension that comes with spring and summer in this area.

Our local business owners need that influx of spring, summer and early fall tourism more than usual this year. It’s become incredibly repetitive and redundant to say it, but there has been a world-wide economic recession, and when your local economy is so dependent on the presence of visitors from out-of-state or even other countries, it’s no wonder many Columbia Gorge small business owners are anxious and excited for the boon in business that follows the return of abundant sunshine throughout the region. From fishing guides, to winery tasting rooms, to restaurants and our local groceries, there can be no doubt of the imperative role our swelling summer population plays in the continued economic success of the communities that surround the Columbia River.

There’s already a noticeable increase in people, though at this point, many of them are residents who’ve simply come out of hibernation or returned home from warmer winter climates. As I walk the streets, it’s easy to see that there are more smiles, more waves, and with that, hopefully more optimism. They, the visitors, the tourists, the curious, and the adventure seeking, they will come. But May is that precious month that serves as a bridge between the somewhat peaceful and idyllic calm that so many residents embrace, and the adventurous, boisterous summer season that follows.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the last time I tried something new—something “touristy” or “vacationy.” I, like so many of you, live in a place that allows for an endless stream of new adventures, new sports, new restaurants and new art displays. I update the columbiagorge.com events calendar just about every day, and it’s filled with things I have either never tried or have written off as one-time experiences. What better month than May, while the streets and trails are just a bit less crowded, to venture out into the ever increasing sunshine and to explore the Columbia Gorge, my home, as if I’d never been here before.

So you’ve lived here for years, maybe even your whole life, but have you done everything you can to experience the natural playground you have in your own backyard? You’re a windsurfer, kiteboarder and maybe even a stand-up paddler, but have you sailed the river? Maybe you fish, but when was the last time you gave a fly rod a try? Or perhaps you’re a hiker, but have you ever strapped on a pair of trail running shoes with a few days’ supplies and fast-packed your way through the area’s wilderness? I’m sure many of you are nodding your heads, yes, you’ve done all of these things, but I know there’s something out there you haven’t tried, and that very something is what a vacationing guy or gal is going to come here to do. Can you really get bested—get out adventured—in your own backyard?

We’re not all athletes or adventure seekers either, I certainly know that. Maybe you’re a self-proclaimed foodie, a wine aficionado or an art connoisseur. Well, then the Columbia Gorge is your playground too. Have you tried the new varietals at Maryhill or Pheasant Valley? When was the last time you rounded up the family, or perhaps better yet, took your significant other, and headed downtown to your local First Friday Art Walk? And for you foodies, much like the adventure seekers, simply because a few months have passed, I can guarantee that new menu items are featured at a place you haven’t visited in years. I don’t know where, yet, but there’s some new renegade chef who’s taking your old favorite and spinning it in a direction you never thought it would go, and as soon as you or I can find him or her, we’ve got to try it out.

This very spirit—this kind of pioneering attitude—is a huge part of what has made the Columbia Gorge such a success and such a fresh new place, no matter how long you’ve lived or visited here. This May, as temperatures climb and spirits lift, let’s take a few days, a few weekends, and head out into the great-known, to find what we haven’t yet discovered in our neighborhood. Thankfully, we’ll soon be sharing our restaurants and trails with those who play such a huge role in the economic and social livelihood of the Columbia Gorge, but for just a few more weeks, the numbers of residents will far outnumber the visitors. For the next month, I’m going to be a visitor. I’m going to see and experience everything this playground we call the Columbia Gorge has to offer. And when someone approaches me on the street in June or July and asks where to rent the right equipment for this, or to find a guide for that, I’ll know, because I’ll have tried it first hand. Come this summer, I may give a different answer when someone asks me where there’s a good place to grab a bite, or what gallery they’ve got to see before they leave. Let’s all take a little vacation in our own backyards.

I had the pleasure—and at times the pain—of taking a trip down through California and across the desert to Scottsdale, Arizona, just a week ago. It had been a few years since my last great excursion and I was nearly giddy with anticipation of the open road. My fiancé and I packed the car in the waning evening hours as we prepared to drive through the night. We did so quietly, our minds already drifting toward that moment when the sun would come up over the southern California hills and engulf us in its spring glow. Route 5 was not the preferred choice, but we had a family wedding to attend and we couldn’t waste the hours along the coastline this time.

I truly embrace the environment that I’m blessed to live in, but there are times when the mind and the spirit need the respite that a long trip away from home can provide. Each season in the Columbia Gorge brings different pleasures, activities and opportunities; each season also brings different challenges. While this winter had not been too harsh, the weeks of seemingly endless rain in parts of February and March had long ago started me dreaming toward this trip. I romanced the desert sun, the wildflowers, the warmth. We had planned long walks and hikes through the martian landscape of central Arizona with the late March heat ebbing down on us. We were incredibly excited to see family and friends we’d too long last hugged. We were ready to push through the familiar Oregon landscape and to bust into the ever changing and adventurous California terrain.

There’s a refreshing feeling to breaking free of that southern Oregon border in the dark of night. We had no immediate timeline, no predetermined stop. It was us, the Cascades, the road, the darkness. Mount Shasta seemed asleep as we rounded her curves. Sacramento was a quiet, dark mystery at nearly 4 a.m., and just as we began to pine for that sun we’d been so long dreaming of, it crested over the rolling bluffs north of Bakersfield.

I struggled to sleep, anxious for both time spent with family and the next unvisited environment. Sometime around 9 a.m. we headed into Los Angeles. Neither of us had ever been, though we felt we knew the city well thanks to the television shows and movies that call this enormous urban jungle home. I think that’s about where it started, this feeling that though we wanted to break free for a few days, we were incredibly lucky to call the Columbia Gorge—a National Scenic Area—home. The San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountain Ranges are not nearly as lucky as the Cascades. While they provide a stunning backdrop to the nation’s second largest city, they’re almost lost in the hustle and bustle, the smog, the blinding sunshine. The Angeles National Forest backs right up onto this city known much more for its Hollywood district, restaurants, crime and crazies, than the natural beauty surrounding it. The environment—when I could forget about the city we were now speeding to get through—was absolutely stunning, but it was a total afterthought. Take your focus off of the surrounding terrain for a second, and you were simply in the middle of a crowded city rush hour. The mountains, the gorgeous blooming flowers and the snow-capped, towering peeks all but disappeared just moments after entering the city of angels.

As we pushed across the treeless landscape well east of the city and on into Arizona, I began to think about the fact that we’d have to come back home. I wasn’t tired of the sun yet, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I already missed the white puffy clouds gliding across the blue skies of Southern Washington and Northern Oregon, and I longed for the shadows of the towering Douglas Firs. As the temperature continued to climb near Palm Springs, my mind drifted to those pleasant afternoons in the moderate high deserts just east of the Cascades.

Though just the day before I couldn’t wait to take in the desert heat and the blooming flora, I now found myself reflecting on how lucky I am. A few miles into Arizona a large billboard advertised fresh produce and we both chuckled at the notion of farming this dry, brown, barren land. I opened the cooler in the back seat and we ate our sandwiches and drank the cool water we’d put in our three, half-gallon Nalgenes back home. There was something so fresh and invigorating about eating our Washington and Oregon grown and raised meats and vegetables while washing it down with crisp, clean Northwest water. I couldn’t help but think that all those people in the cities off the freeway, or in their cars speeding by on their way to work or the golf course, would be so much happier if they could enjoy this simple pleasure.

We arrived around four in the afternoon amid the early beginnings of a Phoenix rush hour. For as far as the eye could see there were roads, malls, houses and businesses. The entire landscape was spotted with the browns and tans of the local buildings. The sun shone brightly and warm, and although we were approaching a full 24 hours in the car, our spirits were high with a sense of accomplishment, escape and freedom. As family gathered in the kitchen to greet us, we both poured a tall glass of water from the spout on the front of the refrigerator. I watched as my fiancé took a few sips of the musty soft water and then discreetly poured it down the sink.

We did exactly as we had intended to. We hiked and ran in the McDowell range and basked in the uninterrupted rays. We hugged each and every family member and shared stories of the past year. After a beautiful wedding we stood with a cocktail and watched the orange and red layers of sunshine disappear over the jagged desert peaks to the north. And when Sunday came around we were deeply saddened to be leaving our family and friends, but all the while we were burning inside for the comforts of home.

It was a silent car ride for much of western Arizona and southern California. Somewhere between Quartzite, Arizona, and Palm Springs, California, I broke the silence. “I can’t wait to see a tree, any tree at all.”

“No kidding, right? It’s pretty here, but—”

“Yeah, I’m ready for home.”

As we breached the border of Oregon—almost 20 hours into our drive—with heavy eyelids and a touch of crankiness, we both breathed a deep sigh of relief. It was raining almost the entire way through the state. I cracked the window and stuck my arm out into the drizzling rain, feeling its cool pitter patter on my exposed and slightly burnt skin. A chill quickly filled the car. What 20 hours ago was an 85 degree push across the desert was now a 50 degree drive through the mountains, valleys and plains of western Oregon, with thoughts of home filling our addled minds. “If this is what it takes for the farms and the orchards and the water we get to drink, I’ll take it,” I said quietly, staring straight ahead at the road.

“I know. It was nice to get away, but we’ve got it pretty good.”

Presented by Salon Visio for the benefit of The Next Door, Inc., Fashionation features the talents of our local community, showcasing clothing designers, hair stylists, make-up artists and clothing boutiques for an evening of entertainment, fashion, and fundraising.

The Next Door, Inc. is dedicated to helping children, families, and communities thrive in the Columbia Gorge.

For longer than 18 years, Collyn Roberts dreamt of owning a pub and grill. Hounded by time and the inability to fulfill her dreams, Roberts—with a stroke of fortune and a matured vision—was finally able to realize her dream and make it a reality in June 2009. And so the proprietress—her dreams subtly gaining and adding richness like a fine wine—was able to create a pub and grill recognized by the residents of Goldendale, Washington, as a second home. The Barred Rock, the now named dream of Roberts, has yet to see a slow day since its opening.

Roberts’ background in the food industry came from her renowned sticky chicken, which she used to sell in a cart at local weekend farmers’ markets. “I knew it was time for me to open my own place when I looked up from my chicken cart and saw 50 people in line,” Roberts explained. Four years later, the sticky chicken recipe is another frequently sought after item on the menu.

The dinner menu also provides each patron with several difficult decisions. Steak, seafood and scrumptious dinner sides, such as Aunt Ann’s baked beans, round out the evening menu. Local resident Mike Goodson remarked that the pub and grill keeps drawing people back because it’s full of “good food, good people and a great atmosphere.”…

The highway itself functions as an allegory for the disparate faces of California; along its winding path you’ll find all the rugged, wild coastland available to soothe your indomitable free spirit, after which you’ll journey into the belly of one of the west coast’s fiercest symbols of extravagance and big business, Hearst Castle. Either way you like it, the Highway 1 road trip has something for every type of personality. We can all channel our inner-celebrity along one of America’s greatest extended drives.

If the idea of any road trip fantasy is farcical overstatement, then you’ll want to follow my chosen path and rent “America’s chosen car,” a Ford Mustang convertible. You can throw out that nagging feeling of frugality and just listen to the V6 engine drink up fuel like an August-dried lawn drinks up water. My particular road trip fantasy also involves another American cliché, the blond-haired, blue-eyed girl (my wife). However, this drive is immensely enjoyable whether you’re travelling with a partner, a pet or by yourself.

The highway stretches from the borders of Mexico to Canada while weaving in and out of beachfronts. One of the most remarkable stretches of road lays between Monterey and San Simeon in California. These two areas sandwich a precipitous wonderland known as Big Sur. The name that has stuck with this coastal area originated when mission residents of Carmel, California referred reverentially to the area as “El pais grande del sur,” or the “big country of the south.”  Although this natural splendor has not been designated as a national park, it certainly has inspired generations of poets to expound upon it…

Paul Lestock, who is leading what is surely the most warm and cozy stringed instrument class cum jam session, is about nothing if not groove. Five players are circled around him, amid wine barrels and the rough-hewn interior of Springhouse Cellar Winery, as he leads them through the simple yet elegant changes of Django Reinhardt’s “Djangology,” at a painfully slow speed.

He teaches music like he builds his handcrafted Arrow guitars—patiently, honestly, clearly, with a profound if not overt sense of greater good. He is teaching his motley charges how to be ensemble players. They learn when to play and when not to play, where and how the melody fits against harmony and most importantly, how to find that pesky groove.

The groove is the thing. He strums fat chords on his round-hole Arrow acoustic, a guitar he handcrafted in his Rowena Dell shop from fine woods and a deep sense of what a guitar should not only sound like, but what a guitar should be. He instructs the string bassist on how to set the beat with simple notes. A young boy who plays an Arrow tenor guitar (four strings tuned in fifths, instead of the usual six strings tuned in fourths) cops a simple but effective melody. The bespectacled mandolinist struggling through the chord changes suddenly gets it and bites off a tasty melodic solo…

  The weather report the night before was bleak to say the least. Clouds rolling in overnight and a morning filled with rain. We didn’t care. It was the last weekend in February and neither of us had been on a decent hike since Mount Hood had torn me up in late July. The winter had taken its toll on both of us, though neither one of us knew the extent until we were halfway along the trail the next day.

We woke early and packed quietly while the coffee brewed in the corner of the kitchen. Rain jackets, extra liner layers to keep the moisture off our skin, hats and back-up hats, sunglasses (we were still hopeful), gloves, two granola bars and three liters of water. I made eggs and potatoes—a breakfast fit for a hike—while Ann packed odds and ends into her bag. The camera, a pocket tool and a small roll of Tums were coming with us.

“Have you looked outside yet?” I asked, breaking the silence.

“I’m afraid to.” She took two steps backwards without looking and pulled the blinds from the sliding glass doors on the back of our place. A triangle of sun spread across the carpet, and I had to shade my eyes. Neither of us spoke, we just smiled.

A breakfast and two rushed cups of coffee later we had the day-use fee tag on our dash and the car doors were being locked. My legs felt spry and fresh. I’d been running for a few months, both to get in shape and to chase away the winter doldrums, and I was pretty sure this was the start of a great hiking season. Dog Mountain Trailhead seemed the perfect spot to test the legs, the lungs, the back.

Across the Columbia, the Oregon side of the river was fogged in wispy, smoke-like clouds. Just about 200 feet above us hung the same formation, but the sun was beginning to burn through the morning cover just as we stepped onto the trail.

We knew we were a few weeks early for the spring wildflower bloom that calls hundreds of Northwesterners to Dog Mountain. This left the trail nearly empty. Our breaths were still visible as they pushed into the air. It only took a few moments—maybe two switchbacks—before we fell into the rhythm of the hike as if we’d never left it. I could hear the steady bounce of Ann’s compass/whistle. Our steps nearly disappeared, becoming instead the beat by which we paced ourselves. The forest was a mix of ethereal rays of sun pushing through the last plumes of morning clouds and the calming effect of damp ground and damp trees on a silent trail.

Just as quickly as the rhythm and mindset of the hike returned, it left. Not more than a mile into the trail—which climbs a few thousand feet in just over three miles—the wintery, lazy days of the past few months manifested themselves in the weight of our packs and the burning in our quads. We stopped for water and to catch a quick glimpse back at the Columbia Gorge. Not much was visible through the tops of the pines we now stood above, but the sun had burned away the fog and the clouds, and everything seemed to shimmer in the morning light.

“It’s beautiful,” Ann said. She reached for the camera only to switch to the phone after finding the batteries dead.

“It is. And I’m out of shape,” I answered. She laughed. Her breath pushed small clouds into the air.

“I know it. I thought we’d been working out.”

“Eh, we’ll be alright.

A few more switchbacks and I was beginning to doubt my own words. I’d shed the jacket and zipped-off the pant legs. My hat was stored in my pack and I could feel a small blister forming on my right heel. The sun was doing its work and I wanted to curse out the weatherman, or worse, but I didn’t have the breath to do it anyway. That’s when the thought occurred to me that we’d also be hiking back down. Down the steep, wet, and now warm, trail. What a start to what was to be a great eight or nine months of hiking—I was burning out at just under two miles.

I put my head down and tuned out everything but the sounds my heart and my breath were making in my head. I watched nothing but the trail in front of me. This feeling I knew well, this is shortly before the end, before my mind says “Why bother, this isn’t so fun?” and my body is only seconds behind with the same notion. But then it happens, we round a small crest heading west on a steep part of the winding trail and the sky opens up above us. The trees give way to a grassy slope that was hiding a sixty-degree spring day from us.

“What time is it? Let’s stop here for a second and eat,” I said quietly, my breath still rushed.

“No idea. Sounds good. Wow.”

“Yeah. Wow.” To the west the bend in the river is barely hidden by the last of the clouds. To the east the sun is pushing through the surface of the water and lending a near-tropical tint to the Columbia. The minty, teal, green jumps out at the eyes evermore with the dark forested mountains framing it on all sides. We eat a granola bar in silence. Ann snaps a few pictures on the phone, and I do the same a moment later. Things have slowed again. My mind and my body are closer to the same beat, though my legs know what they’ve endured. We sling our packs back onto our shoulders. As we turn to catch the trail a few feet away, I look back over my right shoulder to take in the site one last time. I see Ann doing the same. A chill runs down my spine, and we turn to climb back into the forest and onward toward the top.

I awake some mornings thinking spring has already come. It’s the nature of the magazine business that keeps me constantly looking forward, and I have to remind myself to live in the moment. I often erase or delete the dates I just wrote when I realize I’m living a month or two ahead of myself. Here we are in February and we’re getting ready to print the Spring Issue. All the while I’m lining up the stories and photographs for the Summer Issue. From where I sit in the office, Mount Adams remains enveloped in winter clouds, the river is as still as can be and temps haven’t topped 50 in a few days, but my mind is on wildflowers, spring showers and the quickly building buzz of many residents returning home from their winter escapes while visitors show up for their summer adventures. While the sound of studded tires on cold, bare pavement still echoes around me, my thoughts already have me heading up Dog Mountain to take in this year’s new blanket of wild, colorful flora.

I look forward to a time that may never come, when my mind and my body are experiencing the same things. As soon as spring hits, I’ll be on to summer or fall, and before I know it, the eastern winds will be bringing freezing temps back to our communities. I can almost hear the motherly advice to “live for today,” as my mind pushes forward to days and months not yet unveiled.

This time of year a forward way of thinking doesn’t seem to hurt. It acts as a coping mechanism that pushes those wintery chills and cloudier skies away from my consciousness. It leaves me asking myself, “Why live in this moment when the next holds so much promise?” February is a month for love and a month to remember the contributions, struggles and successes of America’s black community. Somehow it’s also an in between month—a time when the snow and the dropping mercury of December and January begin to take on their role as memories rather than realities; while March, not yet here, starts to show signs of the relief and rebirth it holds within its lengthening days.

I tend to be struck each month by how quickly the last has passed. It seems that just hours ago I was writing of the ambition and hope 2010 will bring. I’m certain that by the time February 28^th roles around, I’ll be taken aback by the sudden birth of spring. So there it is, plain and simple, the ongoing battle of embracing today while still preparing for tomorrow. There is virtue to both, but the endurance necessary for winter makes it hard not to appreciate the arrival of spring. There’s a balance to the changing of seasons that I’ve come to appreciate greatly over the years, yet since I look ahead so often, there’s also an anticlimactic feeling once the new season is finally born. I remind myself time and time again that best way for me to live is to find the enjoyment and beauty of each season because they are, after all, inevitable.

I won’t look past this February. It will hold the first and only Valentine’s Day that I’ll spend with my fiancé. Before the next one, we will be husband and wife. It also marks a time for me to celebrate one of my favorite subjects, the literary and historic contributions of black Americans. I think this time around I’ll re-read Ellison’s Invisible Man in honor of the posthumous publication of its sequel. Still, through these magic moments, the pulsing will continue in the back of my mind, “it’s almost here, it’s almost spring, you’ve almost made it.”

In the coming weeks, the trails on which I hike or run will begin to fill with the rhythmic thumping of hundreds more feet. I’ll wave and smile, and I’ll be excited to see more traffic sharing in the adventure. But it’s only a matter of time before I long for a quieter path. In late February I’ll make a trip out to Dog Mountain or over to the Rowena Crest to get a glimpse of the early arriving wildflowers. But by the time everything is in full-bloom there will be others to compete with as we snap pictures and spread out picnic lunches. Perhaps that’s where the beauty of late winter and early spring—the beauty of February—really sits. It’s the solitude that’s so hard to find in spring, combined with the beauty that winter often clouds over. It may not seem like it now, but I keep telling myself that by the time March is here I’ll miss the quiet contemplation that winter allows. So maybe February isn’t so much of an in between month, but rather a month to prepare and a month to reflect. It’s a time when living in the now means taking a few moments each day to look back and a few to glance forward, because before long, tomorrow will be here and we’ll all be missing yesterday.

541.490.1320

www.heartofhospicefoundation.org

Amid the snow and ice and endlessly threatening conditions of this late December, a new year rolled in. I love the idea of a new start or a fresh beginning as much as most, maybe even more than most. I find comfort and hope in the deeper meaning of New Year’s Day. There is a reason this holiday exists, and I believe it penetrates much further into the human spirit than we realize.

As a kid, I remember thinking about how cool it would be to stop time, or to go back and fix the mistakes of days past. As an adult I find that notion more suitable for prime-time television shows and dreaming children, but I do find the idea of a fresh start at the turn of a new year invigorating. It’s the adult version of that dream I’m sure so many kids have had and still have.

We know we can’t go back. We’re all too smart—and perhaps a bit too jaded—because of our experiences. But every year one of the grandest celebrations is New Year’s Eve—our chance to look forward, our chance to change.

We’re all bonded by a common community, but our lives and our experiences, especially from one year to the next, vary drastically. Some people will find themselves more excited to say goodbye to the last year than to embrace the coming one. When I’m at a New Year’s Eve party I find myself taken in by all the smiles and excitement. I hear people pass their resolutions around, inviting whatever criticism might come their way. I hear people exclaim their joy for the end of the year past. I personally find more optimism than negativity in the moment. My spirit is lifted by the idea that millions of people are looking forward to the New Year. No matter what hardship they may have faced they find themselves counting down with elation for the next opportunity. It’s this feeling, and being a part of moments like these, that helps me to find a deeper meaning for New Year’s Day. It’s not just a party the night before; it’s not just football and food all day. It’s a festival of new chance, or of sheer gratitude for the passing of the last year. It’s a celebration of true human optimism in the face of a life that is too often endured rather then embraced.

I’m not one for resolutions, and I won’t make one now. They just don’t work for me, but I’ve seen them do great things in people’s lives. There is something magic about the way someone who has struggled with an issue for years can gain the motivation and courage to overcome that challenge by looking to the New Year. I wonder what our community resolution would be for 2010? What would the Columbia Gorge accomplish or fix if the whole community were to make one large resolution. It’s a kind community, but I’m sure we could always be kinder. We live, work or play in one of the most beautiful places on earth, but isn’t there something more—maybe several things—we could do to make the area even more incredible?

This year, instead of a resolution, I think I’ll ask what I can do to resolve some of the things in my own community that could be better or need to be fixed. Almost anyone could gain from a tighter connection to their surrounding community and environment.

I can do things that would better just myself. I have 20 pounds to lose. I have several opportunities or goals that remain unattended to, but I don’t think that does enough on its own—not this year. This could be the year we all look back on decades from now and think, “We actually did that. We somehow accomplished what seemed to be impossible.” Find your challenge. Help your friends and family find theirs too. Have a memorable and ambitious 2010.

The Hood River Valley is a patchwork of orchards, vineyards, farms and centuries-old agricultural lands. It stands to reason, that when there is such an abundance of fertile landscape, there will be farming, and where there are farmers, there is community.

Old-timers in the upper valley of Hood River County will tell you that community was the backbone of existence during the turn to the 20^th century. There was hunger and bitter cold winter in the midrange elevations of the looming volcanic Mount Hood. There were children to protect, feed, clothe and educate. There was illness, despair, tragedy and sorrow. There was hope, joy and a common bond amongst the families that made up the small community of Mount Hood.

Educating the children was always a priority. In 1884, a one-room log schoolhouse was built along the east fork of the Hood River. The school rested on a hillside above the river and was a popular site for young boys to cut trails and pretend to be pioneers. In the early 1900s, one of the boys slipped and fell, rolling down the bank and landing just inches from the swift cold waters of the river. Aside from losing his front teeth and getting pretty badly scratched up, he was fine. But it had been a very close call. So close that the town fathers decided the school would have to be moved to a safer place.

The site of the new school was a wooded knoll at the base of Bald Butte, known for its use as a campground by Native Americans as they traveled through the area. A young local builder, Louis Cole Baldwin, was hired to design and construct the new Mount Hood School. Completed in December 1914 and occupied in January 1915, the building would also serve as civil defense headquarters during WWII and on demand as a Red Cross emergency shelter.

The first promise every bride and groom should make to one another—after saying “yes” to the engagement—is to not go broke for the sake of a wedding. “Debt is no way to start a marriage. Do not have a wedding that you cannot afford—period,” Leith Gaines, owner of I Do Events in Hood River, counsels. “This is a celebration of love and it can come in any form that works for the bride and groom or families involved.”

There are scores of simple, tasteful and perfectly acceptable ways to create a beautiful wedding that the couple and their guests will remember forever.

Budgeting

Talk candidly about the other “m” word: money. Open the bank accounts, and have transparent conversations with parents and other sources of financial support. It’s important that you have a final number on paper—and a firm promise not to break it—before the planning starts.

Your budget needs to cover all costs associated with your wedding, so produce a thorough checklist that allows you to assign dollar amounts to each item.

Shaving Costs

Immediate savings come from shortening the guest list, which cuts stationery, catering, rental, favors, flowers and other significant expenses. Also consider a limited bridal party. Have just a maid of honor and a best man if that makes the numbers work.

Contemplate an off-season event. High season in the Columbia Gorge is July through September. Shoulder months are May and November. December through April deliver the most bang for your buck, especially for venue rentals and catering.

Delegate events and details to others or delete them altogether. Could friends organize the bachelor or bachelorette parties? Is there a professional photographer in your circle who would do the job for cost?

“The tiny details will eat up your budget,” Lucy Gorman, owner of Lucy’s Informal Flowers, warns. She is also a partner in Mari Bliss and Gorge Events, all in Hood River. “Think big picture and choose your key pieces. If it is the music, put more money there. If it’s flowers, the cake, the location, allocate funds there. Establish how much you are willing to pay for that most important piece and go from there.”

Rather than moving to warmer climes or becoming reclusive during the winter season, many Columbia Gorge residents simply hang up one set of gear and take down another. Skiing or snowboarding are as popular an activity as cycling and sailing. When the calendar pages are turned from the fruit bearing months, snow sport enthusiasts wax up the bases, bundle up the core and head to the big hill looming to the south.

The topography of the Columbia Gorge environment is diverse, and the terrain of each of the local winter resorts reflects that. Of all the peaks that make up the Cascade mountains, Mount Hood is one of the few with resort development. Mount Adams, although geographically closer to the Columbia Gorge, is primarily a wilderness area, with no mechanical developments.

Long awaited accolades, like Skiing Magazine naming Hood River a “Top 5 American Ski Town,” are changing the collective opinions about local resorts. No longer a 2^nd tier choice for snow-riders, the increasingly popular resorts on Mount Hood are in a progressive state of development. They offer the amenities one would expect from elite winter resorts elsewhere, like ski patrol, rentals, learning centers, day care, eateries and retail shops.

MT. HOOD MEADOWS

11 lifts (five high speed), six freestyle parks, 2,150 acres, 2,777 vertical feet

85 named runs : 15% Easiest, 50% Intermediate, 20% Advanced, 15% Expert

Often referred too as Oregon’s premiere winter resort, Mt. Hood Meadows (MHM) offers up an assortment of terrain, including wide open rolling groomed runs, steep alpine bowls and tree skiing. Sprinkled about the more than 2,000 acres are six freestyle terrain parks of varying difficulties. The lodge services at the resort compliment the diversity of the terrain and include a daycare, a top tier ski school, rentals, retail shops, several eateries and an on-mountain medical clinic staffed by Providence Medical professionals. The overall experience at Mt. Hood Meadows is polished, professional and progressive.

Every Thursday morning in a large hall at the Oregon Veterans’ Home in The Dalles there is a gathering of former World War II bomber pilots, decorated Korean War flight heroes and other distinguished resident veterans—as well as a few area supporters who come just to hear their stories.

Ranging in age from recently retired to quite elderly, these men—and a woman or two—call themselves “The High Flier’s Club.” The informal group comes together to allow American veterans to reminisce about their military service, share common experiences and enjoy the camaraderie of others who have a ready understanding of what they’ve gone through as pilots in military combat and in service for the country.

In doing so, a sense of heroic duty of days long past is kept alive, and their experiences are not forgotten. The gathering seems to help foster a sense of acceptance of life-risking experiences shared by these select members of society who have protected the country with keen eyes, nerves of steel and brave hearts.

These veteran pilots speak lightly of their intense experiences during active military combat, such as serving as a prisoner of war for several years, shooting down a dozen enemy planes on different continents during U.S. military engagements, or surviving a hasty jump from a burning plane. Their stories are vivid, colorful, frightening and true.

“Each pilot who has come to join our table has given us a synopsis of his or her military service,” John Sullivan said. He is a 91-year-old resident of the Oregon Veterans’ Home. “Then each time we would go around the table and each person would tell the newcomer of his or her own experience.

“As the years have gone on, we’ve noticed that some of the stories have become a little more colorful than when first told,” he joked. “But truly, the people at this table are real American heroes.”

        As I drove through Troutdale, the fog sat low over the highway obscuring all but the half-mile or so in front of me. It looked like snow for a moment—a sort of grainy, light snow just floating over the area. When I approached the bottom of the exit ramp on my way to the gas station a man carrying a sign came into view. He wore a stocking cap of black or navy-blue pulled down so that it almost covered his eyes. Underneath his hooded sweatshirt—he wore no coat—he had a zip-up collar that he’d pulled over most of his jaw. Around the bottom of the cardboard sign his hands barely poked out of the sleeves of his sweatshirt. He wore no gloves. His jeans were tattered, and just looking at him as he shivered in the 40-degree morning brought a chill to my body. I am not the hyper-sensitive type. I do what I can to help those that haven’t had the good fortune I have, but it’s not easy for anybody right now.

It’s a sight you see at exit ramps and street corners in larger towns from Boston to Portland: need. In the Columbia Gorge it sometimes escapes us as we go about our daily routine because so many of the people who need help have blended in. They aren’t necessarily homeless, and our street corners rarely host enough traffic for them to get the assistance they require. While I sat at that red light in Troutdale, I was reminded of the fact that thousands of children, adults and seniors—some out in plain view and some toiling away in silence—desperately need help to get through the winter. As I drove through the intersection I took a second to read his sign. I expected a biblical verse or creative plea. It was simple. It read: “I will do anything for work. I need food.”

This winter is supposed to be a drier and less-harsh one than last year’s, but it certainly hasn’t started that way. November brought an early ski season to the resorts and record-setting winds at the coast. Rain shrouded much of Oregon and Washington toward the end of the month. This December—no matter how mild the predictions—will bring more than cooler temperatures and cloudier days. It will usher in a season of need for many residents of the Columbia Gorge.

Fortunately, the season when many feel the most charitable coincides with the season in which people need the most help. Almost everyone is feeling the effects of a tight economy, and helping out the less fortunate is not an option when you can’t sufficiently support yourself or your family. It can be hard to remember that no matter how bad you have it, someone probably has it worse. But there’s always something that can be done. When there isn’t any money I can usually find an old coat or a sweater to pass-on. When there aren’t any extra goods, there is always time. Donating just an hour of a Saturday afternoon to serving food at a kitchen or collecting spare change for a good cause can bring days of comfort to those who share your community but not your good fortune.

The Columbia Gorge is blessed not just with breath-taking scenery, but also with the warmth and kindness of good people willing to do great things for their community. Many charitable organizations and non-profits have already begun their holiday drives, and many more will soon join in the giving. There’s an odd thing that happens in the winter: in a time when the weather turns our thoughts inward, we begin to look beyond ourselves. In the season in which we bundle-up, stow-away and close ourselves off to the elements, we also open our hearts and reach out a helping hand. A rising tide lifts all boats, and here in the communities that make up the Columbia Gorge we truly embrace that mantra.

At columbiagorge.com we have recently added a “donations” tab, which leads you to a long—but by no means complete—list of charitable companies and organizations striving to make this community the best it can be. There are hundreds of ways to share your time, money or ideas. In return, you’ll receive the gift of knowing that you made someone’s winter a little warmer—someone’s night a little brighter. This December will surely bring challenges to those in need, but there is no enemy that cannot be bested by the efforts of this community. The less fortunate do not always carry signs that clearly proclaim their needs, and it often seems that there isn’t much more we can give of ourselves in a time when so many are pushing their budgets to new limits, but we are a community far stronger than most. We can make things better. We are the Columbia Gorge.

        There is an odd calm that falls over much of the Columbia Gorge in these early winter months. Later in the season we’ll all forget the hustle and bustle that summer brings, but for now the contrast in seasons is clear. The river has calmed, kites and sails have been stored for a few months, the fishing boats are seldom seen. There are probably two ways to take this change: we could pine for the busy and dry summer months, or we can enjoy the quiet streets, trails and parks. To some extent, I find great comfort in the change of seasons, and winter is no exception to that rule. We are lucky to have a little bit of everything both indoors and out. Why squander the next few months waiting for a summer that will surely sail by too fast.

Mount Hood has begun to pull the wintery white blanket over its brown craggy surface, though it can be hard to tell behind the early seasonal clouds. Those who ski and snowboard are like children a few weeks before the holidays, bouncing in their seats, making predictions for another successful season, collecting their friends together and blocking off weekend days to hit the slopes. Those who snowshoe or cross country ski will have to wait a bit longer for the freezing levels to fall, but they’re a more patient and contemplative breed anyway. Through much of November these people will hit the trails now long vacated by the summer crowds who flock from surrounding cities and states in warmer months.

Residents of the many communities that speckle both sides of the Columbia Gorge can finally get their favorite table at a local restaurant. They can spend a few more minutes haunting a nearby winery, talking with the sommelier and tasting the previous year’s bounty. Some will take advantage of the opportunity to stand a moment longer in front of a work of art they’ve been eyeing through a crowd the last couple months. There are fewer cars to clog the streets, and you won’t get bumped into while you walk with the one you love two-wide along the sidewalks. It seems that you can finally hear yourself think—a voice long muffled by bustling surroundings now sings out amid the quiet splendor.

While many of the sunny fall days October brings have been fogged over, there are still those moments—now seldom and farther between—when a drive along rt. 14 in Washington, or through the forests along the Historic Columbia River Highway in Oregon, can make for a perfect day. These times have to be savored now, knowing that there won’t be so many. To focus on how few there are, or to embrace the good ones, there is no dilemma for me. A hot cup of coffee in the cup holder, a camera in the glove box and a calming song on the stereo can make for as successful a Saturday as any this time of year. The yellow deciduous trees still explode forth from their dark green coniferous neighbors. The mountainsides are covered in colors and textures only visible for a few short weeks. Seeing Mount Adams or Mount Hood peek their white caps above this colorful foreground can take your breath away.

Still others—the romantics perhaps—will find the most pleasure under a blanket in front of the fire. There is often nothing more comforting and enjoyable than the simple pleasures derived from a good read and a warm drink on a tranquil winter afternoon. I am reminded of the way my coffee mug steams the window next to me as I devour a new novel. At those times the nearly frozen world beyond seems so far, though just a quarter inch of glass away.

There is no doubt that come February it will be time for winter to end, just as there is no doubt that it will drag on just a bit too long. Why look so far ahead? There is enough to enjoy now—enough that can’t be done any other time of the year—that I can’t see the point in wasting these days, these hours. The seasonal cycle we’re so lucky to have here in the Columbia Gorge is not a treadmill meant to be cranked up or slowed down—it can not be controlled. It is an ebb and flow as constant and timeless as the river that divides us. As each season comes it invites us to enjoy the opportunities it affords while relieving us from the wariness the last has left us with. Now is the winter of our contentment. Quiet streets, calm shores, a little time to hear yourself think. 

      After a summer that seemed to sputter at the start and finish with a fury of sun and heat, the fall has arrived all at once. Pear and heirloom apple seasons are in full swing. Grapes are being plucked from the vine and bottled up for winter, and pumpkins are approaching their full size. The jet stream held cooler temperatures and wetter weather north of the Pacific Northwest for a few extra days, which kept the Columbia Gorge warm and sunny for almost all of September. Then in just a day it all seems to have turned.

I drive hundreds of miles on I-84 each week between Portland and Hood River—often even further east—but just when the driving begins to wear on me the seasons flip over, and I once again have to force myself to keep my eyes on the road. There was no gradual transition to autumn this year. It was as if a curtain was raised at the start of a show and the entire set had been changed. I could almost hear the gasps from the crowd. There were a few signs—the winds died, then switched direction as they roared back to life; the fog began to pick up as mornings cooled down—but for the most part this fall took full advantage of the element of surprise. Now that its beautiful oranges and reds have been revealed I am left with that familiar feeling of a sort of tranquil excitement, of a fresh new way to look at things, and of course, a gentle sadness at the passing of another summer.

Apple Cider and pumpkin pie. Dry leaves crackling under-foot. The first few inches of soft white snow falling thousands of feet up the mountainsides. I find myself presented with a choice when the fall bursts through. I can sit and reflect on the days of summer gone by, or I can embrace what lies ahead—a season for the senses. Warm sun on my face is replaced with a cool breeze carrying the scent of fallen leaves. Tourists and weekend warriors head back to their homes and batten down the hatches while locals venture out into the land they love. Is there anything more perfect than an empty hiking trail now that its scenery is painted with a fall brush? White wines sound less appealing than warm and robust reds, and hops season is fully upon us with local brewers pushing their newest blends. I choose to embrace the way this season makes me feel with its tastes and sounds. I will miss the steady warmth of summer, but that balance of sadness to see a season go and excitement for the next is just one more thing I love about the Columbia Gorge.

For weeks now I will carry my camera with me in an attempt to capture some small part of the wonder surrounding me. It never quite works. What stops me in my tracks as I walk, drive or hike around the area doesn’t seem to translate in a still image. I’ve grown comfortable with this sort of inevitable failure or short-fall. These moments captured in digital format now serve as a reminder of the emotions a bright yellow tree inspires as it jumps forward from the dark green background of pines. The pictures are like mementos left behind from people no longer with us. They carry an often eerie reminder or a subtle scent of what once was but will never be again. Not having them would give birth to a whirlwind of emotions—a deep seeded feeling of loss—but having them doesn’t begin to do justice to the real thing, to being there.

The soft scratch of pencil on paper is another constant companion of mine. It has its shortcomings too. I can record the way autumn sounds with comparisons and descriptions, or I can endlessly expound on the feelings it stirs up, but the fall season with its accompanying splendor is elusive. Still, it’s worth every effort to encapsulate just one fleeting moment of this splendid time of the year, and to be able to share that, or at the very least carry it with me for a while.

The only way I have found to truly embrace autumn is to absorb it in every way feasible. The taste of a crisp cold apple just off the tree is only available for a short time, as is the smell of toasting pumpkin seeds. The chance to hear brittle leaves crunching under your feet or rustling as they dance in the wind will soon pass. And the look—what more can be said about the visual feast that fall offers. Soon trees will be bare, snow will blanket much of the area and Mount Hood and Mount Adams will be glowing in their fresh white coats. This fall I will exhaust myself as my senses devour all they take in. Autumn serves as a reminder that winter isn’t far behind, and we all understand that next spring and summer will be upon us before we know it. I choose not to reflect on the season lost or the one bearing down on me, but instead to imbibe the current season, the season of the senses.

by hoot ramsey

Lorena Lowell felt there was something amiss in many early childhood programs she had administered. She believed there was a need for greater diversity and an atmosphere where children and families could share in the joy of creating, celebrating, loving, living and learning. In September 2008 she took matters into her own hands and opened Bambinos International Learning Center in Hood River, a facility that takes a unique approach to early childhood learning experiences.

The Bambinos founder and director had worked for years as a partner in her family’s Mexico City advertising and graphic design agency. With masters’ degrees in business, advertising and marketing from the prestigious Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, she is no stranger to hard work and creativity.

Lowell gained insight for her business through state and national level positions with early childhood education programs. Her frustration with seeing excellent programs getting lost in the quagmire of documentation, justification and politics inspired her to create a system where children and families could be the focal points of learning.

“Our guiding principle is to help each child master the skills needed to succeed in school and in life. Logical, respectful, life-oriented curriculum is the foundation for our program,” Lowell said. “We want to see them learn as they play.”

Another of Lowell’s goals is to make it possible for children to enjoy the benefit of early exposure to a multilingual environment, as she enjoyed in her childhood. “Each classroom has a bilingual team of teachers, one of whom has a degree in early childhood education. To ensure that the children experience both languages with a natural accent, one teacher will have Spanish as first language and the other, English,” she added. Also introduced into the daily program are stories, songs and conversation in Italian and French.

“The learning experience at Bambinos includes the celebration of holidays from countries throughout the world. It provides not only exposure to cultural diversity, but also a deeper respect for the fact that theirs is not the only society in existence,” Lowell said. “These children are learning that there are children throughout the world who celebrate as they do and that theirs is the universal language. It is the language of love and respect.”…

by rosalie westenskow

Forget sitting on the couch during school holidays this fall. Instead, get ready to explore haunted tunnels, skate the night away and cruise through a wave pool.

The Northern Wasco County Parks and Recreation District, based in The Dalles, has ramped up its emphasis on recreation recently, creating a number of programs that cater to youth, including Excellent Adventures. The program lives up to its name, providing exhilarating excursions for pre-teens and teens on many school holidays and periodically throughout the summer.

This fall, kids in the Columbia Gorge can sign up for trips to five exciting places: North Clackamas Aquatic Park, Kahneeta Hot Springs, two different excursions to Gresham Skate World, and a Halloween visit to Pittock Mansion and the Shanghai Haunted Tunnels in Portland.

The Excellent Adventures program isn’t the only opportunity local parks and recreation agencies offer for kids. Each fall, the Northern Wasco district also hosts a dodge ball tournament to raise money for scholarships for low-income youth who want to participate in the Excellent Adventures program. The district also puts on a Punt, Pass, Kick competition in September where kids in different age divisions compete against each other in each skill area.

The Hood River Valley Parks and Recreation District offers some fun programs for youth, including kayak water polo every fall, which welcomes adults as well. The district’s skate park on Wasco and 20th Street in Hood River is a popular attraction for kids and teens…

by sean patrick hill

For a quick view of how the Columbia Gorge can be in summer, drop by Multnomah Falls on a weekend afternoon. It’s hard to believe a parking lot that big can be full nearly all day long. You’ll find few other places where so many people cram onto a single trail to see a real Oregon landmark.

As Labor Day passes and the days begin to noticeably cool, even the Columbia Gorge gets some respite. Of all the seasons to hike, autumn has always been a favorite of mine. The maples turn to gold, the humidity vanishes and trails suddenly seem less populated. Pick a weekday in October and head out early enough—you may not see a single person for quite a while.

Winter, on the other hand, can be tough on the hiking enthusiast. The mountains are closed under snowbanks, making the high country all but inaccessible. There are some places to go, like the coast, but the Pacific shore can be daunting in winter with its wind and rainstorms pounding every tree, cape and hiker with the bug to just get out for a while.

It’s in these off-months that the Columbia Gorge really shines. You may have to endure some wind to get to some choice trailheads, but they’ll be open more often than not. Once you’re heading into one of the many side gorges, you’ll escape that wind. As for the rain, well, a little precipitation never hurt anyone–at least anyone with a good raincoat. If you feel like climbing some mountains, and if the day’s a good one, there are opportunities to do some Columbia Gorge summits too.

Looking for a few excellent hikes? Try these off-season trails. They vary in terrain and degree of difficulty, but each is in good enough shape that it is easy to navigate in the fall or winter. Be aware that the different managing agencies do not maintain the trails in winter, so be ready for the occasional downed tree or mudslide. Also, as always, watch for poison oak; even in autumn it can still give you the itch…

by christopher van tilburg

Hot springs abound in the Pacific Northwest. A trifecta of soakers flow in the Columbia Gorge, and several more are within striking distance for an easy day or weekend getaway. A rejuvenating and relaxing dip can be as easy on the pocketbook as it can be on the muscles, especially if the economy is keeping you close to home.

Hot springs arise from deep underground. Bubbling water heated by geothermal forces effervesces through volcanic basalt and gurgles to the surface, usually next to rivers. The water is often so scorching–up to 186-degrees Fahrenheit–it must be diluted with cold river water to be tolerable for bathers. The hot water also extracts minerals like calcium, sulfates, silica, iron, potassium, magnesium, sodium and carbonate from the underground rocks. Some believe the minerals have healing and medicinal benefits. Two resorts in the Columbia Gorge have their own distinct style and flavor. One is a destination luxury resort, and the other is historic, old-world charm. Find an afternoon and choose one that suits you, your partner or your family.

Carson Mineral Hot Springs Resort

Carson Mineral Hot Springs Resort in Carson, Washington, is one of the oldest developed hot springs. It’s rural, economical and sprinkled with old world charm. Perched along the banks of the Wind River, the spring was discovered in 1876 by Isasore St. Martin during a hunting trip. He later established a Native American homestead on the site. The resort was established in 1892, and the St. Martin Hotel was erected between1897 and 1901. A bathhouse and tiny cabins that are still in use today were added in 1923. Visitors can relax in cast-iron, claw foot soaking tubs, many of which are originals from the Roaring Twenties. The full spa service includes a mineral bath, wrap and massage. The mineral water is laced with potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, sulfate, ammonia and phosphate.

Bonneville Hot Springs Resort and Spa

The newest of the lot, the Bonneville Hot Springs Resort and Spa in North Bonneville, Washington, is a full-service destination spa. It’s the whole shebang in tasteful, luxurious Pacific Northwest wood lodges. General manager Gary Sorrels pointed out that it’s one of the largest in the region. It’s unique compared to most large destination spas because Bonneville uses natural mineral-rich hot spring water. And it’s right in heart of the Columbia Gorge…

This month we released the Fall Issue of the magazine and it got me thinking along these lines. Our cover photograph was taken by Michael Peterson. He had to spend hours out at Stonehenge waiting for the right light, the preferred amount of cloud cover and the perfect angle. I am lucky enough to see the labor of so many talented Columbia Gorge photographers as they submit their best stuff for publication. I am even luckier to get to tell some of them that their effort has paid off, and that they’ll be featured in the magazine. Even after hundreds of photographs, I’m always anxious to click to the next shot and see what’s waiting for me.

Any visitor to the area gets to take in an impressive number of brilliant and inspiring artists. Many residents overlook the galleries, jewelers, museums and studios until one day they are walking around after lunch and something grabs their eyes and sends their minds spinning. When we’re surrounded by so much natural splendor and so many opportunities to interact with this virtual wonderland we call home, it gets harder and harder to slow down and see the awe inspiring works our local artists are putting forth every day.

It’s easy to look past those that toil in studios, in front of a blinking cursor on a white screen or behind the crowds of people clicking shot after shot and hoping to get one good one. They don’t do it for the recognition, though as Rip Caswell recently pointed out to me while I interviewed him for the Fall Issue, the recognition doesn’t hurt. They do it because they love it. They do it because they’re blessed with an ability that not many have. They do it because they know they’re meant to, and they wouldn’t know what to do without it. You would struggle to find a painter or an illustrator that does their art for the money. Even those blessed with the greatest talent seem hard pressed to find financial reward for their work. They’re not complaining—they get something much greater from it.

We at Columbia Gorge Magazine were recently shaken by the fire that claimed photographer Blue Ackerman’s studio in White Salmon. It took not only her work and her place of work, but also the art of several other talented people. I have been lucky enough to work with Blue on a few issues, those staff members who have been here longer than me have been blessed enough to collaborate with her even more. It’s at these difficult times that my heart grows warm to see the sympathy and desire the community exhibits as they reach out to help a local artist.

I am so impressed by the ability of artists to endure. Just a week after the fire, Blue picked up the camera and did a shoot for the magazine that captured everything we needed to properly highlight a well-written story. I know our readers will enjoy the piece and the photographs for what they are on the surface, but we who know the events that preceded that photo shoot get something even more enriching out of it. We get inspired to endure.

Perhaps it’s my bias for the written word, but I think we seem to most often forget the great skill and patience it takes to capture the essence of the Columbia Gorge in writing. It’s just a bunch of black words on a white page, but somehow the best writers make it resonate with a reader. They make the simplest words or ideas sing. I try to read the region’s newspapers on a daily basis, as well as a few of the blogs produced by local writers, and I almost always find myself captivated by something I didn’t know I found interesting before. In our Fall Issue, Lori Russell made canning food a fascinating experience. It’s a gift of persuasion, a talent for pointing out the right things at the right time and an ability to capture someone’s attention with nothing more than 26 letters, ten fingers and the imagination that makes a great writer. I count myself  incredibly fortunate to get to read the rough drafts of our magazine’s featured writers, and then to see the profound transformation that takes place as they perfect each segment, each line, to create a great final product. I don’t know that I’d appreciate the finished work so much if I hadn’t seen the toil that goes into producing it. I have made it my personal challenge to find that in other works of art.

We are often lucky enough to meet and interact with those who do this great work, because they call the Columbia Gorge home. So many of the pieces that adorn the walls of galleries and museums in the area were inspired by the community or the natural beauty that surrounds us. I’m not sure which is a greater talent: the ability to capture the indefinable beauty that surrounds us, or the skill to make the seemingly mundane become interesting. I don’t really care to know the answer either. I’m content to relish in the fact that so much great art comes out of this community, and the fact that I get to see some small part of that often takes my breath away.

Camas, WA.

360.817.1562 x 4269

www.downtowncamas.com

541.386.1423

www.brianswindsurfing.com

bws@gorge.net

541.386.1423

www.brianswindsurfing.com

bws@gorge.net

541.296.9778

www.nwp.usace.army.mil/op/d/thedalles.asp

dimsupport@nwpoi.usace.army.mil

Hood River Center (541) 386-3510

400 East Scenic Drive The Dalles, OR.

www.cgcc.cc.or.us/

Columbia Gorge is your community college. Our goal is to help you be successful in whatever educational program or activity you choose. 

At Columbia Gorge Community College (CGCC) you can complete your first two years of college and then transfer to a four-year institution. Or you can take a professional/technical program to qualify for a job. You can finish your high school education, explore career ideas, retrain or add to your job skills, or get professional help on how to run a business. CGCC also provides you with opportunities to pursue special interests or to broaden your education. You may fit as much of this as you want into your life.  You can go to school full-time to finish a program in one or two years, or you can attend part-time and just take a class or two. 

Classes are held at a variety of locations convenient to you, including our campus in The Dalles, Hood River, and other locations in communities throughout the district. You may even stay home and take a class by modem or television. We schedule classes during the day, evenings, and on weekends for your convenience. 

Whatever your educational goals and interests, we will do all we can to help you, whether it’s enrolling you in our courses or referring you to other resources.

www.koinlocal6.com

Check the  link above to view the Columbia Gorge Events Calendar or pick up the latest issue of Columbia Gorge Magazine today! Every issue of Columbia Gorge Magazine features compelling stories and stunning photographs that capture the spirit and style of the Columbia Gorge.

It is hard to have missed the turn American food culture has taken in the last few years. Whether it’s the escalating gas prices of the last couple summers or the popularity of books like The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, many in the country have taken a more responsible role in what they put into their bodies. Here in the Columbia Gorge, the idea of buying local, sustainable and organic is nothing new. It has been the backbone of our much celebrated food culture for decades.

According to a study by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, 39 percent of the fruit and 78 percent of fish and shellfish consumed in the United State are purchased from other countries. These numbers, and many others like them, have led to a wide range of reactions from Americans.

Environmentalists concerned with rising CO2 levels are revolted by the distance food travels to reach the plate. Millions of gallons of gasoline are used to ship food around the country. Those concerned with their local economy fear the impact importing food has on nearby farms, seed producers and markets. Even those simply concerned with saving money have taken notice of the spike in food prices when gas becomes more expensive.

People concerned with their health have found much to fear in recent studies. The inclusion of corn in so many of the foods Americans eat was exposed in Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis’ hit documentary King Corn and Michael Pollan’s bestselling book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. These works highlighted the homogeneous nature of the modern diet and its inherent health risks. Barbara Kingsolver’s bestselling book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle chronicled her family’s attempts to grow and raise all the food they needed over the course of a year.

Here in the Columbia Gorge, these battles are easy to win. The adjacent communities have utilized conditions ideal for growing some of the country’s best fruits, raising livestock and producing a wide variety of wines. These cities and towns don’t simply produce great foods, they celebrate them.

This summer visitors and residents alike will join together in commemoration of the local fruits. In July, Hood River celebrated the cherry and in September it will celebrate, the pear. Early estimates hinted at as many as 16 to 18 million boxes of cherries to be picked this season. Gravenstein apples will have their time in the sun in August. Even the lesser known and often overlooked fruits get in on the party. Apple Valley Country Store will celebrate the Huckleberry August 15 and 16.

These fruits are as local as can be. The celebrations often take place right in the fields and orchards where the produce grows. The popularity of selecting your own apple or pear right off the tree has led to U-pick orchards blossoming all over the region.

The stores and markets from Goldendale to Troutdale never miss a chance to tout their local products. Jellies, jams, syrups and sauces are made from almost every regional fruit.

Locally raised or caught meats, from lamb to salmon, can be found at area markets and grocers. Being a resident of the Columbia Gorge means there’s little challenge to putting together a meal that is 100% local, and there is no lack of variety to this diet either.

Don’t have the time or desire to cook? Many of the restaurants that dot both sides of the Columbia River feature fresh local ingredients. Area chefs pride themselves on utilizing indigenous flavors in unique and consistent ways. Menus have to be more adaptable in order to embrace these neighborhood ingredients. Chefs like Matt McGowan of The Glass Onion in Goldendale are constantly changing menus to offer ripe vegetables and fruits, and to take advantage of seasonal events like salmon runs. As Riverside Grill chef Mark DeResta recently said in our Summer issue, “if it’s not fresh, we won’t use it.”

There is no better pairing to the fare of the region than Columbia Gorge wines. Red or white, dry or robust, simple or complex, they are second to none. A visitor to the area could spend the whole summer exploring the different wineries. Even residents who have lived their entire lives here haven’t run out of new wines to taste. Whether you find yourself at Erin Glenn Vineyards sampling any number of local varieties, at McMenamins Edgefield enjoying great music with your wine or you’re just purchasing an award winning bottle from Cathedral Ridge to share with that special someone, there is a neighborhood wine for you.

Those who live in the Columbia Gorge display great pride for the products they bring to the table. There is a feeling of satisfaction and delight when you can locate the farm that raised the beef you are serving. Grandma can dish out cherry pie filled with the cherries her grandkids picked earlier that day. From seed to tree, from calf to cow, so many of the foods eaten in the Columbia Gorge come from farms and orchards just down the road.

If you’re visiting this summer, or just passing through, don’t forget to ask a nearby business, grocery or shop owner what’s good this time of year or where to grab a great meal. Tasting the perfect filet of salmon caught right outside the front door, prepared in exquisite fashion and paired with a wine from just a few miles away is an experience unique to the Columbia Gorge.

There is a feeling of satisfaction—a sweeter taste—when you know you’ve helped out the environment, done something healthy and boosted the local economy while simply eating your lunch.

The Columbia Gorge has many fascinating sites and recreational opportunities. A series of geographical evolutions produced glaciated peaks, rocky outcrops and the hydro-carved chasm that centers us all. Of the seemingly endless potential for adventure that awaits, hiking, peak bagging and climbing offer more than just a blip on the adventurer’s radar screen.
The greatest challenge of exploring all the pedestrian adventure options is to actually pick one. There are trails and peaks for just about every hiker or climber, and if it is your first time, don’t sweat it, virtually every option is worth the effort. Remember that a majority of the hikes in the Columbia Gorge, and surrounding the Cascade peaks, require a fair amount of elevation gain. Although the topography is steeper than that of many Northwest areas, the incredible vistas and world-class panoramas are well worth the weight of your sweat.

TROMPING ABOUT

Some consider the series of switchbacks leading to the top of Dog Mountain a great trail run. For the rest of us, a steady pace will get nearly all hikers to a point where they can observe one of the area’s most tremendous views of Mount Hood. During the wildflower season, which generally runs between April and July, hordes of flower identification book packing hikers descend upon the Washington side trailhead. As holds true with many of the Columbia Gorge hikes, once up the trail a few minutes, even the busiest of days will often give you plenty of alone time on the trail. Make sure you pack a lunch, because when you pass the final switchback, you will want to spend some time reaping the benefits of your uphill grind…

The Oregon of February 14, 1859, was a vast wilderness, slowly taking on a patchwork of farms and small settlements. Pioneers coming west from more settled parts of the continent formed a government that embodied their aspirations and ambitions for the new land they would call home. It reflected what they had experienced before embarking on the arduous physical and emotional journey across a continent rife with peril and lacking pity.

As early as the 1840s, pioneers were seen along the Columbia River with the first wagon, driven by Dr. Robert Newell, making its way across the plains to the river in 1840. In 1843 the first large wagon train came through, carrying more than 800 people to the area. That fall, transportation routes began to appear throughout the territory, and Oregon was well on its way to becoming recognized as a state.

JOURNEY OF HUMAN SPIRIT

Citizens of modern day Oregon have much to celebrate, reaping the benefits of the weeks, months and years of hardship endured by their forefathers while travelling across the continent. They enjoy mobility in ways that could not have been foreseen by those early settlers in the vast Western wilderness. All that is modern in the state is owed to those men and women who sustained the journey of the human spirit, and gave it life beyond their own years.

In January 2007, Governor Ted Kulongoski embraced the vision and plan presented to him by the board of directors of Oregon 150, a non-profit corporation charged with implementing the sesquicentennial celebration. Since its inception, the plan has been invaluable as a guideline for community groups statewide in their efforts to provide meaningful public celebrations throughout the year…

The bowling ball flies down the lane, crashing into the pins at the end, toppling all but one. Chris Cook cheers, eliciting a “nice job,” from his friend Mike Kilkenny.

Cook and Kilkenny, residents of The Dalles, spend a couple of hours a week together doing everything from bowling to hiking, but they’re an unlikely pair. They’re not related. A year ago, they didn’t know the other existed. They’re not even close to the same age. One’s in middle school, the other’s well into adulthood, family life and a career. Yet they call each other “brother,” and they love hanging out together.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Columbia Gorge, a branch of the non-profit organization The Next Door, Inc., is responsible for their friendship and many others. The program matches children between the ages of six and 14 with adult mentors who spend at least two hours with their little “brother” or “sister” each week. Often they do simple activities like cooking, riding bikes or playing board games.

“It’s really fun,” Cook, 11, said. “I like it because once a week I can get out of the house and do something fun.”
Last year, the program had 86 mentor-child matches. So far this year, there have been over sixty. The program helps “littles,” as child participants are called, become successful adults.

“Every child can be more successful if they have caring adults in their life in addition to their parents,” said Jenny Halsch, Columbia Gorge program manager. “Children with a mentor are more likely to have increased self esteem, so when pressured to participate in risky behaviors they will be more likely to have the self-confidence to say ‘No.’”…

The county is home to more than 31,000 acres of forestland, managed by the Hood River County Forestry Department primarily for timber production. The vast majority of this land doubles as an intricate web of multi-use trails crisscrossing timberlands, bordering communities and providing some breathtaking views.

This heretofore unorganized system of recreational trails has been in use by motorized and non-motorized vehicles and equestrians for decades. Over the years, trails have been user-created without proper design features for safety, sustainability, stream habitat protection or erosion control. People have come from far and near for recreation, independently developing parking and staging areas, ramps, jumps and other man-made technical features.

As a result of efforts on the part of these determined and dedicated individual users, a valuable resource has been created. Despite its imperfections, the trail system, being located in such close proximity to the Portland metropolitan area, has gained much recognition. Use by locals and tourists alike has increased steadily in recent years.

As stewards of the acreage, the Hood River County Forestry Department (HRCFD) was mandated by an ordinance in 2003 to establish a Forest Recreation Trails Committee to map and organize the maze of trails and roads, focusing on ensuring environmental sustainability and safety. The committee is comprised of a cross-section of community citizens and members from each of the various user groups that utilize the trail system.

One of the committee’s first projects was to oversee global positioning system (GPS) mapping of the most expansive and widely used section, a 10,000-acre parcel known as the Northwest Area. Using the GPS coordinates, the committee has published a comprehensive map of the 74 miles of trails in this area with rules for rider safety and trail etiquette, as well as the operating requirements for all venues…

http://columbiagorge.com/category/business/food-drink/wineries/