USA Day 12 – Central Oregon, cold water and dam-ation

Yesterday spent the day traipsing around Central Oregon With Andrew Linn. We had a canoe on the roof and a boat behind.

The boat behind was a delivery – Andrew had sold a Laser look alike – a now defunct class.

And was pretty nice to get foot mobile and do some short bushwalks.

So not a boaty day – though we talked about boats and I got a bit intimate with Cedars and Spruces.

In each case the spruces were garden variety, but the cedar was the real deal in the forest.

So slightly arty orientation of this lot of pics.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/boatmik…7622444035942/

The first stop was Foster Lake. We were about half an hour behind the release of 25000 salmon – they are trying desperately to save the fishery. Found out later that Andrews Mum had spent hours clipping one of the fins of fingerling salmon so they could track the progress of the cultivated fish.

Some had not made it … but the others were out there wondering where the edges of the tank were.

This one looks like people. It is part of an old sawmill and mill pond that some of the PDR people and the local community are trying to make useful. They plan to reflood it and make it a municipal lake.

Rain forest.

This was part of an offshoot of the wagon train trail . There was serious competition between the towns to see which could grow into a city by attracting settlers. Very cutthroat – sabotage, strandings.

Clear Lake is correctly named. You can see the 6 or 10 ft to the bottom very clearly here. Mountain spring lake with huge flow. it is 35 degrees F all year … no variation.

This is a representation of how much the earth has been torn up by earthquakes etc in the past.

Remember when the top of Mt St Helens blew off. There are piles of dirt everywhere further north where they have swept the dust of bridges, buildings, roads.

But here is a huge lavafield. Forest all around … but there are stories of wagoneers bringing the wagons across this mess.

It is miles and miles wide and long. It happened within the memory of the American Indians.

Then off to the dams on the Crooked River. Big hydroelectricity dams. It is these that are wiping out the salmon, but they are still beautiful in their own right.

I am off to Utah today.

MIK