The stalk, the flight

The frigid November winds tore out of the northwest, bent on sweeping across the foothills to assault the conifer trees on the ridge top. The squalls stung at bare skin, and I pulled the hood of my shell over my head and closed it, and only a small part of my face was exposed.

The bunch grass waved steadily in the relentless breeze, in defiance of the cold. A thin shell of snow covered the north slopes, out of reach of the radiant heat of the sun, leaving the rest of the slopes painted in browns and grays. Scattered bitterbrush seemed to shrug off the wind like it didn't exist, its stiff branches poking fun at the gusts.

The wind was troublesome on the ridge top and I decided to side hill to the bottom of the canyon, and the footing was slick with snow and mud, making me step carefully to avoid falling. The winds slacked off about half way down, and a timid breeze wafted through the unwavering willows along the dry stream bed.

I kept a eye out for soaring hawks, but there were none to be seen, as if they were holding out for better flying weather. Who could blame them, for staying grounded, perched comfortably in some tall cottonwood, rather than attempting to fly into November gales, and muffing some spectacular aerobatic maneuver.

I spotted two mule deer across a low ridge, some 300 yards away, and I quickly dropped lower into the gulch, before they could spot me. The deer would be unable to catch my scent, because I was downwind of them, and that would make my stalk easier. I quietly walked across a swale and started up next rise, knowing the deer were near the top of the next ridge. I watched my footing carefully to avoid making noise, and stayed away from any brush that could scrape across my clothing.

I climbed the first small rise and spotted two deer with their heads down, browsing on shrubs. I inadvertently stepped a bit side ways and my pants legs rubbed together and with that smidgen of an alarm the deer looked up, their eyes locking on mine, and they started to move to the top of the ridge. I brought up my barrel and triggered the shutter and started to take pictures.

The two-some merged with 5 more muleys, that were hidden in a thicket and formed up in a herd, and suddenly one of the deer whirled around and started a downhill retreat, followed by the other deer in a straight line. The band headed towards the bottom of a deep canyon, running, bounding and leaping over rocks and shrubs, in what seemed an effortless motion.

I am always amazed at mule deer and how fine tuned they are to survival in rough and steep country, with steel like legs and fine tuned senses of smell, hearing and sight. They are quite adept at fleeing from predators, even ones armed only with a 300 mm camera.

Following Lewis & Clark Through Wallula Gap

On a windy cold day this October we stopped at Hat Rock State Park in Oregon. I climbed the small hill below the basalt monolith called Hat Rock and took a couple of photos. The hill below the rock was covered with bunch grass and scattered bitterbrush and rabbitbrush mottled the slope. The Lewis and Clark expedition navigated down the Columbia River past Hat Rock on October 19th, 1805, on their trip to the Pacific Ocean. Hat Rock appears like a man made object, a totem or ancient megalith, and it stands in defiance of wind and rain, a survivor of dozens of humongous floods from eons ago, when Glacial Lake Missoula drained, pummeling the banks of the Columbia with 500 foot high waves laden with silt, sand, rock and icebergs. One would think that this small monolith would have been obliterated many decades ago, but the tough basalt armor has proved to be invincible.


Clark writes in his journal on October 19th, 1805.

".....14 miles to a rock in a Larb. resembling a hat just below a rapid at the lower Point of an Island in the Midl. of the river 7 lodges and opposite the head of one on the Stard. Side 5 lodges..."

Not far from that location Clark ascended a high cliff about 200 feet above the water and wrote

"....I descovered a high mountain of emence hight covered with Snow, this must be one of the mountains laid down by Vancouver, as Seen from the mouth of the Columbia River...".

Clark thought he had spotted Mt. Saint Helens but the high peak he saw was in all probability Mt. Adams, in the Cascade Range. Lewis and Clark were familiar with the voyages of Captain George Vancouver of the Royal Navy, and his explorations of the west coast and the Columbia River, and they must have been thrilled to see terrain that they previously read about. Vancouver had made note of several mountains from the mouth of the Columbia River but he also had sent an expedition up the Columbia River in 1792, lead by Lieutenant William Broughton. This expedition traveled as far as the Columbia River Gorge, sighting and naming Mount Hood.


We continued our drive to the north and entered the Wallula Gap, where the Columbia River knifes through a high basalt ridge that is several hundred feet higher than the water. The Lewis and Clark Expedition camped near Spring Gulch on the river, just south of the gap, on Oct. 18th, 1805 on their way west.

The day was cool and windy and the waters of the Columbia were sparkling blue, rippled by 2 foot high waves, and subdued within its channel of blackish basalt cliffs trimmed with brownish prairie. Just past the Wallula Gap the Walla Walla River taps the Columbia, marking another Lewis and Clark campsite of April 27, 28th and 29th of 1806.

There is a great deal of history in the Wallula gap area, of ancient Indian villages and trails and those of explorers, grown over with bunch grass or flooded by reservoirs. The geologic history is perhaps even more spectacular even though hard to imagine, that icebergs from what is now north Idaho and Montana, streaming through this narrow gap during an enormous flood, some 13,000 years ago. The refuse of a huge glacier breached by the Clarks Fork of the Columbia.

The only thing to dodge these days is the busy auto traffic on State Highway 730 but the views of Hat Rock and Wallula gap make this one of my favorite excursions.