Cliffs Park

Columbia Prickly Pear?

/ Tom Kloster / 4 Comments

Columbia Prickly Pear colony thriving on the morning side of WyEast

I am a cactus fanatic. As a seven-year-old, I had a row of them in my bedroom window. They were little collectibles in 2-inch pots that you could buy at Fred Meyer for 49 cents. On my first road trip to the Desert Southwest in 1984 I couldn’t get enough of them. That was the first of many trips, often timed to capture cactus in bloom – to me, the ultimate in wildflower beauty.

Cactus are the rattlesnakes of the desert wildflower community. They combine exquisite beauty with remarkable evolution for a strong self-defense. Did you know that cactus spines are really their leaves, modified for both defense and shade? Or that the pad on a prickly pear cactus is really a thickened stem that carries out photosynthesis in the absence of green leaves? They have evolved to a point that seems downright alien to most other flowering plants.

Brittle Prickly Pear colony growing in the Painted Hills Unit, John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

A few years ago, I came across my first prickly pear cactus in Oregon. It was one of our native species, Brittle Prickly Pear, growing in the John Day National Monument at the Painted Hills Unit. I revisited that patch a couple of times over the years, and finally saw it in bloom – another highlight! 

Since then, I have found dozens of Brittle Prickly Pear colonies all around the Painted Hills and adjacent Sutton Mountain areas, often covered with blossoms in late May and early June. Even in bloom, these plants are easy to miss in their native desert habitat. Their compact pads are rounded, about the size and shape of your thumb, and covered in grey spines that also act as camouflage against the desert floor. A mature plant has 20 to 30 pads growing in a low mat that is usually less than 6 inches tall. 

Brittle Prickly Pear blossoms at Sutton Mountain, near the Painted Hills

Brittle Prickly Pear bear fruit after blooming and can spread by seed, mostly by birds who navigate the cactus spines to feed on the soft inner part of the fruit. Called “tunas”, their fruit is sweet, putting the “pear” in their common name. Like other Prickly Pear species, they have long been used by indigenous people as a food source and medicinally. Fruit from larger Prickly Pear species is still used to make jams and other foods in Native American and Mexican culture.

Their heavy coat of spines and the ability of pads to freely break away is how Brittle Prickly Pear most commonly reproduce. When kicked loose by deer hoof or hiking boot, a stray pad is given a chance to take root and start a new patch in a local colony of cactus. This is how these “brittle” cousins in the Prickly Pear family earned their common name.

Our northern cactus may be diminutive in stature, but they are built small for a reason. Unlike their much larger relatives in the Sonoran Desert, ours endure bitter winter cold and months of winter storms that would flatten the larger cactus you might see in the Sonoran deserts of Arizona or New Mexico. 

Ahab and Moby Cactus…

Given my cactus obsession, I had it in my mind to someday see another of our local cactus: the Columbia Prickly Pear, a species that only grows in low-elevation deserts of the Columbia River and Snake River basins. It became my white whale, and I was determined to see Moby Cactus!

There is still some debate as to whether these are a separate species or a hybrid of our Brittle Prickly Pear and Plains Prickly Pear. The latter is a much more common species that grows across much of the West. Botanists have yet to fully agree on this, so for now Columbia Prickly Pear is called Opuntia Columbiana X Griffiths. The last part of the Latin name comes from botanist David Griffiths, who first documented the species for Western science in the 1920s. 

Pioneering western botanist David Griffiths in 1903 (Università di Padova)

Griffiths was from a Welsh family that immigrated to South Dakota in 1870, when he was just three years old. He earned a doctorate in botany from Columbia University in 1900, and went on to distinguished career as a groundbreaking scientist working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). There, he spent the first part of the 20th century traveling across the American West documenting plants and photographing the range conditions of the Great Basin at a time when the impacts of fencing and heavy grazing on the desert ecosystem were first beginning to appear. 

His work was seminal in helping the USDA improve range management practices on our public lands across the West. When Griffiths died in 1935, he donated his botanical records and collection of glass-negative photographs to The Smithsonian National Museum, along with hundreds of Opuntia specimen that he had collected over his career. The Smithsonian describes his archives in bulk terms — 43 cubic feet, to be exact!  Griffiths’ field research legacy is still cited by today’s botanists and rangeland scientists, and his name lives on in our local Columbia Prickly Pear.

One of David Griffiths dozens of field notebooks. These pages describe the inside of Prickly Pear fruit. He is believed to have sliced fruit open and simply pressed them against the page to create these images (Smithsonian Museum)

Though David Griffiths has come to be remembered mainly for his passion for the Opuntia family of cactus, his interest in these tough, versatile survivors initially came from a belief that they could somehow be a livestock feed source on the open range. As odd as this sounds, the pads and fruit are already important for deer, antelope, squirrels and other wildlife who either consume the pads whole or work around the spines to get to the flesh. Other wildlife are more opportune, and consume Prickly Pear after range fires have swept through, searing their spines off. This is precisely how indigenous people prepared the nutrient-rich pads and fruit as a first food for millennia, though the spines were also used for sewing, fish hooks and other purposes.

Not too long before Griffiths first cataloged Prickly Pear cactus, white immigrants to the American West discovered them, as well – and not in a good way.  Journals from the Oregon Trail describe the misery of migrants stepping through prickly pear as they crossed the western plains in worn out shoes, as most who traveled the Oregon Trail walked beside their wagons for much of the journey.

Our native cactus are easy to miss in the wild. There are at least five patches of Columbia Prickly Pear in this colony along the Columbia River – marked by arrows. In spring, they are especially well-hidden in new, green grass

Having skewered myself a few times with their spines, I can attest to the lingering soreness that comes with getting poked by a Prickly Pear. I suspect native peoples were more adept at navigating them — even nurturing them, perhaps, since they were valued for their food and cultural value. The photo above gives a sense of how well-camouflaged our Columbia Prickly Pear are in the desert grasslands and sagebrush country of the eastern Columbia River Gorge. The arrows point to several patches of cactus in this colony, each no more than 10 inches tall, yet wide enough to snare an inattentive foot!

The 2025 cactus hunt…

Local wildflower buffs and botanists had already done the hard work and locating Columbia Prickly Pear in the east Columbia River Gorge, making my mission much simpler. There were at least three well-documented colonies, and knowing this, I made 2025 the year that I would see them for the first time – and perhaps even photograph them in bloom.

I initially set out over the winter to simply locate the known colonies from fairly general maps posted online. The first colony was located across the river from the Dallas Dam in a most unlikely spot, surrounded by buzzing transmission lines from the dam and traffic noise from interstate 84. However, this colony was also safely within the confines Seufert Park, a Corps of Engineers site adjacent to The Dallas Dam visitor center.

Columbia Prickly Pear thriving just upstream from the Columbia River Bridge in The Dalles. While these can be tough to spot in spring and summer, they stand out strikingly in winter with their spines capturing the low-angle sun and surrounding grasses dormant and flattened by the winter elements

A short trail hike and a bit of cross country exploring took me straight to a colony of about a dozen cactus patches. They looked much like their Brittle Prickly Pear cousins, though their pads were more flattened and slightly larger. It was a thrill to see them growing right here in WyEast country, with the Columbia River spreading out below and Mount Hood shining on the horizon. I’d found my whale!

The next stop took me across the river to Avery Landing, another Corps of Engineers recreation site, just upstream from Columbia Hills State Park and Horsethief Butte. Expecting to find a similar colony here,  I wasn’t prepared to find a much larger group of much larger plants! The pads on these plants were as much as 6 inches across, and flat like the Prickly Pear cactus I had seen in the Desert Southwest. These plants stood as much as 2 feet high, and were growing on a high, rocky bench with a beautiful backdrop of the Columbia River and Mount Hood, beyond.

Prickly Pear cactus at Avery Landing grow on a rocky bench, a few hundred feet above the park and Columbia River. These are much larger plants than what I saw at Seifert Park.. why?

With the summer grasses and wildflowers dormant, the structure of Prickly Pear on these very large plants was easier to understand. New pads – the modified stems – grow from nodes on the edge of older pads, with typically 1-3 new pads emerging each spring, as shown below. 

How Prickly Pear grow, typically with one to three new pads forming on the margins of an older pad

Over time, this growth habit eventually tips the plants over from the successive weight of each new pad, making them seem to be growing horizontally. When pads touch the ground, they can easily take root, forming a new plant and helping further spread the patch from the original, parent plant. In the image below, each successive pad marks at least one year of growth, as new pads don’t always form on old pads. Thus, this stem of four successive pads is at least four years old, with the newest pad nearly touching ground where it might take root.

This chain of Prickly Pear pads originally stood upright, but has gradually tipped and sprawled with the weight of each successive new pad. Eventually, these pads can root and form new plants if they touch the ground

Though not as common, some older pads that support many newer pads eventually become woody stems to support the load. The image below shows how these stems gradually change from green, energy-producing pads to brown, more conventional stems. The pad near the woody portion of the stem is undergoing this transition, having lost the chlorophyll from the lower portion of the pad.

This Prickly Pear at Avery Landing has developed a woody stem from what was once a green pad in order to hold up the heavy load of successive pads that have emerged

For a cactus fanatic, exploring the colony at Avery Landing was a heady experience! But I had one more colony to visit in completing my initial tour of Prickly Pear in the Gorge.

The final winter stop took me Cliffs Park, yet another Corps of Engineers site, located on the Washington side of the river at John Day Dam. This is a familiar place to me, as I have photographed the beautiful river scenes and ancient gravel beaches that line the Columbia here many times. Using online maps, I found just two small plants that were about the same size in stature as those in Seaford Park, but in much smaller patches. It was a disappointing stop, especially compared to the large colony of very large Prickly Pear at Avery landing. Did I miss something?

Like the Columbia Prickly Pear at Seifert Park, the small colony at Cliffs Park grows in the shadow of one of the massive Columbia River Dams. The John Day Dam rises above this cactus patch

However, as I was photographing the small colony at Cliffs Park, I noticed new buds emerging from some of the pads (below). Were these flower buds or new stems? Surprisingly, some of the buds were also located on the flat side of the pad in addition to the edges. This was quite different from what I had seen at Avery Landing. I was now determined to come back and do a more thorough search in this area and document the growth of these buds in spring.

The arrows point to new buds emerging from this Columbia Prickly Pear at Cliffs Park in early March. Are these flower buds or new pads forming?

As spring approached, I made several more visits to the impressive colony at Avery Landing, and was especially excited in early May to find the plants loaded with flower buds (below). These buds developed very quickly, over just a couple weeks. 

Hundreds of flower buds were nearly ready to open at the Avery Landing Prickly Pear colony in mid-May

When the Avery landing colony finally began blooming in late May, I was there with my camera to capture it all, including a photo with the trifecta of cactus blossoms, Mount Hood, and the Columbia River that I had been hoping to capture (second photo, below).

The first Prickly Pear blossoms to open in the Avery Landing colony in late May

Trifecta! Blooming Prickly Pear, the Columbia River and Mount Hood a few days after Memorial Day in late May

However, this is where the story takes an unexpected turn. When I took these photos, I thought the Prickly Pear colony at Avery Park to simply be a more vigorous, over-achieving version of the same Columbia Prickly Pear growing across the river, at Seufert Park. Perhaps their much larger size was simply a reflection their habitat? Where the Seufert Park and Cliffs Park colonies were growing on arid, thin soils atop basalt outcrops, the Avery Park colony grows in deep, sloping sand and gravel deposits left behind by the Missoula floods. Perhaps these soils simply offer more moisture and nutrients than are available to their smaller neighbors across the river?

Only after sharing photos of the Avery Landing colony in an online wildflower community, did I learn that the Avery Landing cactus were not our native Columbia Prickly Pear at all! Instead, these are Desert Prickly Pear, an introduced species known as Opuntia Phaeacantha that grow across much of the desert southwest and into the southern Great Basin. Fact is, their true identity wasn’t completely surprising to me, as the growth habits and size of the two species are so different. But it was disappointing.

Desert Prickly Pear is the true identity of the introduced cactus species growing at Avery Landing

It’s hard to say whether these Desert Prickly Pear were planted here intentionally or arrived here accidentally, but they are thriving now. They have formed an extensive colony of at least 25 separate groups that span a 100-yard long bench above the Columbia River. Their size and the extent of the colony suggests they have been here for some time – likely decades or longer – so they are clearly here to stay.

It’s hard to know exactly how the Desert Prickly Pear cactus have been spreading in the Avery Park colony, but because they are mostly clustered along an abandoned road grade (as highlighted on the map below), their spread here could simply be from human or wildlife activity kicking pads loose to root and begin a new patch.

The Desert Prickly Pear colony at Avery Landing grows on a gravel bench that splits off the access road to the park. The separate groups that make up the colony fall within the highlighted area on this map

However, when I visited the colony again in mid-June, the blossoms had mostly faded and the colony was busy forming hundreds of fruit – tunas – that I think might be the primary explanation for the size of the colony. That’s because there is plenty of wildlife sign here, including a very active colony of California ground squirrels living in the basalt outcrops that border the bench. I suspect they are among the wildlife species feeding on the fairly large tunas and thereby spreading their seeds.

Desert Prickly Pear blossoms have dried up on this plant by early June. They will soon drop off as the fruit beneath ripens

Desert Prickly Pear fruit after blossoms have fallen off in mid-June. They will eventually turn to a reddish-purple color as they ripen

As disappointing as the revelation of their true identity was, the colony of Desert Prickly Pear at Avery Landing is nonetheless a spectacular sight. We may be seeing our future here, too, as climate change spurs plant species from across the spectrum to migrate northward as our Pacific Northwest climate becomes warmer. Already, this colony of Desert Prickly Pear is proving the eastern Columbia River Gorge to be an ideal habitat for a species whose native range is nearly 1,000 miles to the south.

Because I had spent much of the annual bloom window in May at Avery Landing, focused on what I thought were Columbia Prickly Pear cactus, I hurriedly doubled back to the colony at Seufert Park hoping to catch the colony there in bloom. No such luck. By the time I returned there in early June, they were completely bloomed out. Still, I was encouraged to see so many dried blossoms on these plants. I knew I would have another chance to photograph them next year, and a fair estimate of their bloom window in late May.

Columbia Prickly Pear at Seufert Park, with dried blossoms just days after the annual bloom cycle. Blossoms here were much less prolific than on the Desert Prickly Pear at Avery landing. The arrows mark just two blossoms on this large patch

Dried Columbia Prickly Pear blossoms at Seufert Park. The fruit (or “tunas”) beneath the spent blossoms were developing quickly here, already turning to their characteristic ripened hue of deep reddish-purple

Finding only dried blossoms at Seufert Park, I headed east on a very hot June day to revisit the tiny group of Columbia Prickly Pear I had seen at Cliffs Park by the John Day Dam. Perhaps these might still have a few blooms? This time, I ignored the online documentation on the colony and explored the basalt outcrop they grow on more broadly. Sure enough, just 50 yards from the two small plants I had seen on my first visit, I came across at least two dozen well-developed patches in a colony that surpassed Seufert Park. Eureka!

However, the desert grassland had completely browned out for the summer at Cliffs Park, and the cactus were completely bloomed out, too. Still, I was excited to find so many plants here and spent much time that day exploring and photographing them.

Part of the surprising Columbia Prickly Pear colony at Cliffs Park (John Day Dam in the distance). Each arrow marks a separate patch

Then, just as I was getting ready to leave the Cliffs Park colony, I came across one last patch of Columbia, Prickly Pear with a single blossom still hanging on. Fortunately, nobody was around to hear when I let out a whoop! I set up my camera and documented that lonely cactus blossom like no flower has ever been photographed. Ahab had finallyfound his whale!

A straggler! One last Columbia Prickly Pear blossoms (center right) was hanging on for my visit to Cliffs Park in early June. And yes, a trifecta – snowy WyEast and the Columbia River are in the distance

Last of the Columbia Prickly Pear blooming at Cliffs Park in early June

Though I missed most of the spring cactus bloom at Cliffs Park, there was plenty of evidence that it had been a good year, with ripening fruit throughout the colony. And while the blooms had been fairly scattered across the colony, there were also plenty of new pads that had developed over the spring, with new, soft spines that were still hardening into new armor.

Fruit forming beneath dried blossoms on Columbia Prickly Pear at Cliffs Park

The Columbia Prickly Pear colony at Cliffs Park is healthy, with several blooms and many new pads emerging this spring. In this view, four new pads have formed. They can be identified by their short spines that have yet to fully mature

It was already hot and dry at the Cliffs Park colony by early June, so these plants won’t get much moisture until well into September, putting their unique water storage ability into use, once again. 

Columbia Prickly Pear at Cliffs Park ready for the summer dry season. This plant has added just one new pad this season (lower right), illustrating how slowly these plants grow in their harsh environment

While the rest of the desert goes dormant until the rains return, these unique plants will remain green and producing food for their root systems throughout the summer and their spines will help protect them when most other forage is long dried up in the desert landscape. This is the genius of their evolution.

They seem to like it on the rocks…

Learning that the Avery Landing cactus colony was an introduced species and not the native Columbia Prickly Pear we have at Seufert Park and Cliffs Park helped me understand the preferred habitats for both species, as they are quite different. 

The Desert Prickly Pear at Avery Landing is happy on flat or steep slopes, provided that it can grow in loose, sandy or gravely soils. The Gorge has plenty of this with deep Missoula flood deposits lining the river on both sides, sometimes hundreds of feet deep. 

Desert Prickly Pear at Avery Landing seem to prefer the loose benches of Missoula Flood sand and gravel that were left here by ice age floods

Desert Prickly Pear seem highly adaptable, some growing in flat areas and hollows, while others thrive in steep ravines and slopes

Sandy soils seem to be key to the flourishing Desert Prickly Pear colony at Avery Landing 

Colorful Missoula Flood gravels are mixed with the sandy soils at Avery Landing, another ingredient the Desert Prickly Pear seem to favor

In contrast, the Columbia Prickly Pear colonies at Seufert Park and Cliffs Park are growing in loose scrabble directly on top of exposed basalt outcrops where the Missoula Floods scoured the bedrock. These are harsh places that seemed impossible for a plant to survive, yet our native Columbia Prickly Pear seems to prefer them. 

Columbia Prickly Pear at Seufert Park grow in thin, gravelly soils on a basalt bench above river. A second cactus patch in this view is shown with an arrow

This Columbia Prickly Pear at Cliffs Park is growing from a narrow crack in the basalt

This young Columbia Prickly Pear at Cliffs Park has somehow found a toehold on top of a basalt slab

This is especially apparent at Cliffs Park, where the colony is scattered across a low basalt table, despite being surrounded by deep soil deposits of gravel and sand on three sides.

The Cliffs Park colony favors the top of this dry basalt ledge over the deeper soils that surround it, perhaps because there is less competition there from other plants?

The best explanation might be simple competition, as the sandy areas with deeper soils support much more vegetation, including several wildflower species, where the basalt table is mostly limited to grasses, moss and lichen. Where a thin layer of soil has accumulated on the table, the Columbia Prickly Pear seem most at home. Their unique ability to withstand extreme drought also makes them uniquely able to grow under these harsh conditions.

Helping the Columbia Prickly Pear thrive?

While our Columbia Prickly Pear are not common, they are (fortunately) neither rare nor threatened. They’re just quite hard to find. That’s a shame, because they are unique and deserve to be more widely known and appreciated. This article was written in that spirit (including some general directions for finding them, below). 

Were Columbia Prickly Pear much more common in the Gorge when Benjamin Gifford took this photo in 1899 at today’s Cliffs Park? I think so…

Why are they so uncommon? My theory as to their present scarcity is simply the wear and tear on the Columbia Gorge since the era of white settlement began nearly 200 years ago. Heavy grazing, first by sheep, then cattle, surely had an impact. Railroad, highway and dam construction followed, and – most recently – windmills. All disrupted our native flora and fauna. Unlike most other wildflowers, cactus are slow growers, and I suspect they are simply more vulnerable to frequent disturbance. This might be another explanation for colonies living atop rocky basalt outcrops where not much else survives.

To help remedy this state of affairs for our Columbia Prickly Pear in a small way, I’ve taken on a project that I thought I’d share here. 

The oddly small number of our native cactus in their native landscape inspired me to try propagating them with the intent of starting some new colonies. My (perhaps half-baked) plan is to offer them to public land managers in the Gorge interested in to establishing new Columbia Prickly Pear colonies in a few new spots of similar habitat along the river – of which there are many.

With that goal in mind, I had collected some pads at Avery Landing last winter for propagating before I knew these to be a different species than our native Columbia Prickly Pear. They rooted nicely, but now they will be donated to a garden in Portland – not the Gorge. 

Prickly Pear propagate readily, even from the somewhat withered, bedraggled state of these Desert Prickly Pear cuttings in March

By May the Desert Prickly Pear starts had plumped up from their withered state, showing they had quickly grown new roots. Soon, they began pushing out buds for new pads just two months after I planting. Three new buds are numbered here

By early July, the Desert Prickly Pear cuttings were fully rooted and forming new pads

More recently, I collected some pads from our Columbia Prickly Pear. I’m hoping to root them over the summer and offer them to any interested public land managers, especially state parks. Collecting the pads was simple and discreet – as in, I left no trace. The tools involved a pair of kitchen tongs, a paring knife, leather gloves and a paper grocery sack (as I said in my opening, I’m a cactus fanatic, and growing them is in my wheelhouse!). Once harvested, I gave them a few days for the cut to form a callous before planting them in a 50/50 mix of potting soil and perlite.

Columbia Prickly Pear pads collected for propagation in mid-June

Columbia Prickly Pear pads ready for potting in mid-June

The Columbia Prickly Pear nursery in the foreground (smaller pads with yellow-green coloring and white/grey spines) is clearly different in this side-by-side comparison to the much larger Desert Prickly Pear starts (in back, with blue-green pads and red/brown spines) 

And then there’s the little cactus shown below. As I was exploring the colony at Cliffs Park, I found this seedling growing on the gravel shoulder of the park road, just a few inches from the asphalt pavement. I had nearly flattened it when I parked on the shoulder! It was clearly doomed there, so thanks to a small trowel I carry my trail car, this little rescue is now growing happily in a pot, waiting to be planted in some permanent location where it might start a new colony.

The little rescued cactus also gave me a good look at their root systems in the wild. They are surprisingly shallow-rooted! It makes sense when you consider their ability to store water in their pads, and their preferred habitat in shallow, rocky soils.

The Cliffs Park rescue cactus gave me my first look at the surprisingly small root system these plants have in the wild

The Cliffs Park rescue cactus potted and growing in his (her?) new home for a while

I don’t have a specific plan for this project beyond propagating a few plants, but my lifelong cactus obsession would not let me do otherwise. I just think that more people should see these amazing plants in places where they likely used to grow in the East Gorge, before white settlement.

Should you propagate these plants? It’s perfectly legal to take cuttings, so if you own property in the East Gorge with the right habitat and are looking to add native species, yes. You would be helping this unique species thrive. Otherwise, simply admiring them in the wild is the best plan. They don’t make for great ornamental cactus for urban settings compared to the many cultivars out there that have been bred for our gardens.

Where you can see them…

If you are interested in seeing cactus growing right here in the Columbia River Gorge, the colonies at Avery Landing and Cliffs Park are very easy to visit. Both bloom from mid-May into early June. Like many cactus species, the blossoms seem to open during the middle of the day and into evening, so afternoons are the best bet for a visit. However, they are fascinating plants to see any time of year, not just during the blooming cycle.

The Columbia River Gorge Prickly Pear tour begins in The Dalles (and ends at Big Jim’s for a milkshake, of course)

[click here for a large, printable map]

While the Avery Landing colony of Desert Prickly Pear are not native, they are beautiful and grow in a spectacular setting. Most of the colony grows along an old road grade that splits off the paved access road to the park. Watch for it heading off to the right just past the winery at the top of the hill. If you cross the railroad tracks, you have gone too far. Here’s a view (below) of the road grade looking back toward the park road and winery – you can park where I did.

Looking east along the old road grade that is home to a large Desert Prickly Pear colony

Part of the Avery Landing colony is on private land, and clearly defined as such with the fence gate. Please respect private property rights. 

To see our native Columbia Prickly Pear, you can visit them along the paved access road to Cliffs Park, located on the Washington side of the river at John Day Dam. Follow the road into the park, and pull off just before it turns to gravel. Here’s a wayfinding photo – watch for these signs and pull off just beyond them. The cactus colony is on the low basalt bench just ahead, on the right (north) side of the road.

The Cliffs Park colony is located on the low, rocky bench directly beyond these park signs

Walk slow and carefully to avoid stepping on them – both for your benefit and theirs! And as with any desert hiking, watch your step for rattlesnakes, too. While you’re not likely to see one, they do like to bask in late morning and early afternoon in rocky areas like this.

The towering backdrop to the Cliffs Park colony are the sacred bluffs that I described in this article (you’ll need to scroll down). This is the area where a proposed energy project is being contested by area tribes and many other groups. 

If you’d like to learn more about the controversial project from the perspective of the Rock Creek Band of the Yakama Nation, a powerful new documentary called “These Sacred Hills” is currently being screened around our region.  https://sacredhillsfilm.com

The sacred hills rise above the Cliffs Park colony of Columbia Prickly Pear

While you are at Cliffs Park, consider traveling a bit further down the gravel road to visit the expansive pebble beach composed of Missoula flood deposits. Mount Hood floats on the horizon, making this one of the most beautiful spots on the Columbia River.

Mount Hood rises above traditional fishing platforms and the vast beaches of Missoula Flood rocks at Cliffs Park

This is a traditional Indian fishing spot, and you will see several fishing platforms here. The park is open to everyone, but please respect the tribal fisheries and the native fisherman who may be working here. I personally choose not to photograph indigenous people fishing, even on public lands.

I did not include Seifert Park on this itinerary for a couple reasons. First, the cactus here are harder to find than those at Avery Landing and Cliffs Park. Also, while it is public land and open to anyone to explore, the park also includes treaty-protected tribal fisheries. If you do go there, please respect the rights and privacy of the tribes. 

These rocky outcrops are home to the Seifert Park colony of Columbia Prickly Pear, but they are also protected tribal fisheries. Please be respectful if you explore here

To see our little Columbia Prickly Pear cactus growing in the most unlikely of places gives a sense of the timelessness of nature, despite these colonies being surrounded by transmission towers, the noise of the dam spillways, railroad and highway traffic and the bones of abandoned industries. While the hand of man has not been kind to these areas, the resiliency of nature is truly impressive and inspiring. 
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Tom Kloster • July 2025

Gorge Roundup (addendum)

/ Tom Kloster

Tribal fishing platforms line the Columbia River as Mount Hood floats on the horizon at the proposed Columbia Hills pumped energy project site

A few folks had questions about the Goldendale Energy Project (what I called the “Columbia Hills Energy Project” in my last post), so I thought I’d post some resources for anyone looking to learn more about the project and how to help the coalition of opponents.

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Recent coverage by Northwest Public Broadcasting:

‘It’s Irreversible’: Goldendale Green Energy Project Highlights a History of Native Dispossession

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February 2020 letter to Governors Jay Inslee and Kate Brown from the coalition of opponents:

RE: Opposition to ​Rye Development’s proposed Goldendale Energy Storage Hydroelectric Project 

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Columbia Riverkeeper statement and Q&A on the project:

Stand in Solidarity with Tribal Nations

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November 2020 announcement of acquisition of the project by foreign investors:

Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) Acquires Pumped Storage Project

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Washington Department of Ecology website for the project:

Industrial Facilities Permits: Goldendale Energy

2021 Campaign Calendar!

/ Tom Kloster / 7 Comments

As I write this annual year-end post after a calamitous 2020, the world seems just a bit more hopeful. The presidential election will shift public lands policy 180 degrees back toward conservation and restoration, and with the release of two COVID-19 vaccines, the end of the world pandemic is finally on the horizon.

And so, I share some of the stories behind this year’s Mount Hood National Park Campaign scenic calendar with a cautious spring in my step (or my fingers as they type this sentence, at least). You can pick up a copy of the calendar here for $29.95:

2021 Mount Hood National Park Campaign Scenic Calendar

As always, all proceeds will go to Trailkeepers of Oregon (TKO) to support their ongoing effort to care for trails as gateways to our public lands. Zazzle prints these calendars with exceptionally high quality, and they also have large enough boxes to be quite functional for tracking important dates and your trail plans. They make nice gifts, too, of course!

Over the years, I’ve described the Mount Hood National Park Campaign as “an idea campaign” with the simple goal of keeping alive the promise of better protections and restoring the grandeur Mount Hood and the Gorge. I started the project in 2004 as a way to continually remind Oregonians and Washingtonians living in WyEast Country that national park protection was proposed at least three times in Congress, in the 1890s, 1920s and the 1930s. Each time, logging and other extraction industries (and later, the emerging ski industry) were the chief opponents — along with the Forest Service, itself.

Thomas Cole painted this idyllic scene of Native American life in WyEast Country in the 1870s. The mountain continues to be beacon of inspiration and awe for people living in its shadow to this day

If you’ve watched Ken Burns’ magnificent National Parks series, you know that every park was a battle, typically between short-term exploitation interests and progressives looking toward posterity for future generations. There were no easy wins.

And, so it will be for Mount Hood and the Gorge until enough locals (or our children and grandchildren) recognize national park protection as both urgent and deserving for these world-class places. We haven’t treated them too well over the past 150 years, but real change is suddenly afoot in 2020. What? Yes, you read that correctly… and I will share more about that exciting news in future blog posts!

This beautiful cove at the foot of Crown Point was called “Echo Bay” when it was still connected to the Columbia River in this 1870s photo. This was among the spots that inspired the first Congressional effort to create a national park here

But until then, this article is a tour of some of the places that make WyEast country special, and are featured in the 2021 MHNP Campaign scenic calendar. As always, every image in the new calendar was captured over the past year and, as in past years, there are some lesser-known places mixed in with some of the more familiar.

The 2021 Calendar Images

Salmon River in late Autumn

The cover image for the 2021 calendar comes from a very familiar spot along the Old Salmon River Trail, near the community of Zigzag. This quiet trail was bypassed — and spared — when the Salmon River Road was built in the post-World War II logging boom. Today it offers one of the most accessible trails into ancient rainforest anywhere in the Pacific Northwest. This photo was taken just a few weeks ago, too. Because of its low elevation, it’s a trail you can hike year-round. Here’s the Oregon Hikers Field Guide description of the trail.

For January, I chose an image captured from above the West Fork Hood River Valley, on Butcher Knife Ridge. In this scene, Mount Hood is emerging from the clouds after the first big winter storm of fall. I’ll be posting more articles in 2021 about the West Fork valley, as there is some very exciting news to share about this area.

Mount Hood’s rugged northwest face in early winter as viewed from Butcher Knife Ridge

The February image is a familiar view of Wahclella Falls on Tanner Creek, one of the premier trails in the Columbia River Gorge. Before the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire, I visited this trail several times each year, as it’s not only a personal favorite, but also a trail that makes for a great introduction to the Gorge for new hikers or visiting family.

Wahclella Falls on Tanner Creek

The image in the new calendar is from a visit last winter, and it was my first since the fire. Though the fire did burn through the lower Tanner Creek canyon, many trees survived, especially around Wahclella Falls. Notably, a pair of big trees familiar to hikers also survived — the twin Douglas firs flanking the lower trail (below). As of this year, their upper canopies are still green more than two years after the fire, and that bodes well for them to survive for many years to come.

The familiar twin Douglas firs along the Wahclella Falls Trail have survived the 2017 Gorge fire… so far

What I couldn’t have guessed is that the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions kicked in just a couple weeks after my visit, and Wahclella Falls was once again closed to the public.

As hard as these Gorge trail closures have been for hikers, there are a couple of silver linings. First, they have allowed trail volunteers from TKO, the Pacific Crest Trail Association (PCTA) and other volunteer trail organization to continue the hard work of restoring trails damaged by fire without having to accommodate hiker traffic. Perhaps more importantly, the closures have also allowed forest recovery to begin within the pressures that heavy visitation on popular Gorge trails brings.

Lower White River Falls in spring

The March image (above) features Lower White River Falls, a lesser-known cascade downstream from the main falls at White River Falls State Park. Where the main falls is a raucous spectacle, the lower falls is quiet waterfall in a secluded canyon, where it is framed by desert wildflowers in late spring.

Poison likes to grow in the shade of boulders along the White River — watch where you sit!

The user path to the lower falls has become increasingly prominent in recent years as more visitors discover this pretty spot (and its excellent swimming hole), but be forewarned, the path is lined with Poison Ivy. This relative of Poison Oak bears a close resemblance, but grows as a ground low ground cover in the sandy floodplain along the river, often in the shelter of boulders and old logs.

Lower White River Falls

For April, I selected another scene from Mount Hood’s rain shadow, a wildflower meadow on the edge of the tree line where forests give way to the desert country east of the Cascades. This bucolic scene looks across the rolling wheat country of Wasco County, toward the Columbia Hills and the Columbia River, on the horizon (below).

Wildflower meadows on the east slope of the Cascades near Friend

Though you wouldn’t know from this photo, the South Valley Fire swept through this area in 2018, one of three major range fires that combined that year to burn nearly 200,000 acres. Two years later, and only the scattered snags of Ponderosa pine, Western juniper and burned fence posts hint at the fire, as the sage and grass savannah has recovered in a remarkably short time. But the fires had a human toll, too. Homes and barns were burned, as well as several historic farmsteads that can never be replaced.

Only a few charred remains tell the story of the 2018 range fires east of Mount Hood

Switching back to the west side of the Cascades, I chose a scene from a visit to Silver Falls State Park for the May image. With many of the Gorge waterfall trails still closed by the aftermath of the Eagle Creek Fire, Silver Falls visitation has exploded over the past couple years, as hikers look for new places to get their waterfall fix.

Visiting Silver Falls State Park is pretty close to a national park experience, as the park is loaded with 1930s Civilian Conservation Corp construction and the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department do an excellent job maintaining and curating the park’s network of scenic trails. Lower South Falls (below, and the May image in the new calendar) and nearby Middle North Falls are favorites among photographers in the park, and they have some similarities. Both begin as a wide curtain of falling water before crashing onto the rocky basalt aprons that make up their base, and both have a trail behind them.

Lower South Falls on Silver Creek

A few years ago, a local Republican legislator introduced a bill proposing National Monument status for Silver Creek. The bill didn’t go anywhere, but it was a nice opportunity to showcase the area and a reminder that seeking national park status can be a bipartisan effort, even in these days of deep political division.

Pandemic-compliant blogger at Silver Creek State Park

Visiting Silver Falls State Park (and most other state parks) in 2020 also meant controlling the COVID-19 virus while huffing and puffing on a buy trail. While I was discouraged by the disregard for masks on my trips to Silver Falls last spring (maybe 1 in 5 had one), there has been a noticeable uptick in mask use in our state parks national forests since. That’s good, because in a year of pandemic shutdowns and closures, the benefits of being outdoors and connecting with nature have never been greater.

Crowds of pandemic-defying hikers at Silver Falls State Park on Memorial Day 2020

For June, I chose a scene from just off the Timberline Trail, along the rim of the White River Canyon (below). This expansive Lupine meadow is only a few steps from the trail, but just out of view and thus known to surprisingly few.

Summer Lupine meadows along the rim of White River canyon

If only this blog had a virtual scratch-and-sniff, as there is nothing quite as heady as the sweetly-scented mountain air in a Lupine meadow, and this one was no exception. For those who haven’t had the experience, Lupine are in the pea family, and have the same sweet aroma as garden sweet peas — but with a mountain backdrop!

For July, I chose another wildflower scene, though this one fits more of a rock garden motif, featuring yellow Buckwheat and purple Penstemmon among the chunks of andesite scattered here. This is the historic Cooper Spur shelter, just off the Timberline Trail on the mountain’s north side. Cooper Spur, proper, rises to the left and the Eliot Glacier tumbles down Mount Hood’s north face to the right of the shelter. This is one of several stone shelters built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the early 1930s and today is one of just three that still survive (the other survivors are at McNeil Point and Cairn Basin).

Cooper Spur Shelter in summer

Follow the climbers trail to the right of the shelter to the nearby moraine viewpoint (marked by large cairn) and you’ll have a front-row view of the Eliot Glacier. While I was there, a house-sized ice blocks suddenly collapsed (below), filling the canyon with a roar! It’s always a thrill to see and hear our glaciers in action.

Icefall collapse on the Eliot Glacier!

Another mountain scene fills out the summer as the August image in the new calendar. This multi-image composite assembles the impossibly massive scene at the western base of the mountain, where the Timberline Trail fords the twin branches of the Muddy Fork (below). From here, the mountain rises more than 7,000 vertical feet above the scene, and dramatic waterfalls tumble down the 800-foot cliffs that frame the canyon.

The wide-open scenery of the Muddy Fork canyon

The Muddy Fork valley is a volatile, continually changing landscape. In the early 2000s, a massive debris flow swept through, felling an entire forest and leaving a 25-foot layer of rock and sand on the valley floor. The Muddy Fork has since carved through the debris, all the way down to the former valley floor, revealing the stumps of trees that were snapped off by the event. Some are visible along the stream at the center the above photo. Meanwhile, the rest of the Muddy Fork debris flow is already dense with Red Alder, Cottonwood and Douglas Fir pioneers that are quickly re-establishing the forest, continuing the eternal cycle of forest renewal.

Several photos in this year’s calendar are from the dry country east of Mount Hood, in the rain shadow of the Cascade Range. I made several trips there while researching the strange desert mounds unique to the area (see “Mystery of the Desert Mounds“) and I fell back in love with the landscape, having spent time living there in the early 1980s. The September image in the new calendar is of a lesser-known gem in this area, the historic Nansene Community Hall (below) located on the northern slopes of Tygh Ridge.

Remains of the historic Nansene Community Hall on Tygh Ridge

The community hall dates back to the early 1900s, when sheep ranching was still the dominant industry in the area. Sprawling wheat fields and cattle have long since replaced the sheep herds, but thanks to the arid climate, abandoned wood structures from the early white settlement era can survive intact for a century or more. But they can’t survive fire, and while many historic homestead structures were destroyed by the 2018 range fires that swept through the area, Nansene Hall was among those spared.

Thankfully, the iconic grain elevator at Boyd survived the fire, too, and this photo (below) was a candidate for the calendar, save for the fact that Mount Hood isn’t peeking over the horizon!

Grain elevator on Fifteenmile Creek at Boyd

Several historic schoolhouses in the area also survived the fire, including the picturesque Center Ridge Schoolhouse (below), located a couple miles northeast of the Nansene Commumity Hall. This amazingly intact old building was designed with more aesthetics in mind than you might guess. The big windows along the west side of the structure define its single classroom, but the building was sited at an angle to ensure that Mount Hood filled the horizon through those windows, while Mount Adams looms to the north of its playground!

Center Ridge Schoolhouse and Mount Adams

While exploring the Tygh Ridge area this year, I happened upon a toxic creature that was unknown to me: the Green Blister Beetle (below), part of the legendary family of bugs that Spanish Fly is derived from. This iridescent native of the western states is highly toxic to the touch, though I only learned that later, when I was trying to identify this bug from photos I had taken while surrounded by a swarm of them in the field!

Don’t touch the Green Blister Beetle! (though the smaller beetles in this photo don’t seem to be bothered by their toxic neighbor)

Fortunately, I did not handle them, as that can lead to a potentially dangerous reaction. So, while we don’t have many toxic plants and creatures to navigate in the Pacific Northwest, here’s a new one for the list of those to avoid.

The Blister Beetle confab was unfolding in the historic Kingsley Catholic Cemetery, one of the more photogenic spots in the Tygh Ridge area. While walking among the pioneer graves that day last June, I also spotted this wonderful note hanging from a tree, a most welcome bit of hope and optimism in an otherwise grim pandemic year:

Sometimes a simple note can make a tough year a little better…

I later shared the note with a friend in the Dufur area, who in turn shared it in local circles there, hopefully drawing some interest. Little discoveries like this are poignant reminders that the future is always bright through young eyes, and it’s our job as elders to embrace their optimism and sense of promise.

For October, I selected a scene familiar to many (below). This is the view from just below the Vista Ridge trailhead, where the mountain suddenly unfolds for arriving hikers. It’s a popular roadside spot for evening photography, especially in fall when Vine Maple light up the scene.

The popular photographers’ tableau at Vista Ridge

However… when I stopped there this fall, I was quite annoyed to see that Forest Service contractors hired to brush out the road had dumped their slash right in the middle of this lovely talus slope! Sacrilege! So, I took a deep breath, put on a pair of gloves and spent a couple hours dragging the slash down the road to another debris pile that was out of view in a nearby wooded area.

Aargh!

Sacrilegious!

Why get my dander up over this? Because talus slopes are special. They’re scenic and offer welcome views in our heavily forested region, of course. But they’re also home to species that depend on these unique places to survive. The best known are the tiny Pika who live exclusively in talus fields, but they are just part of the unique web of plants and animals found in these rocky islands. They deserve to be revered as unique places in the same way that our understanding of deserts has evolved in recent years to see them as places full of life, despite their lack of trees.

For November, I went back to yet another image from the slopes of Tygh Ridge (below). This is a view looking north across the broad, gentle apron of the ridge toward Mount Adams, shining on the far horizon. Less obvious in this autumn view are the many fallow fields where wheat was once planted, but now are carpeted with wildflowers and native grasses. What gives?

Tygh Ridge Locust trees frame Mount Adams

This photo (below) from a nearby spot was taken in June, and shows the expansive meadows that now cover formerly plowed land on Tygh Ridge. It turns out that these areas have been allowed to recover with native grassland species to benefit wildlife as part of the federal Conservation Reserve Program. It’s an opt-in program that compensates farmers for making long-term commitments (typically 10 or 15 years) to leave fields fallow for wildlife recovery. Hundreds of acres on Tygh Ridge are now part of this program.

Lupine meadows on Tygh Ridge are part of the Conservation Reserve Program that compensates famers for allowing fields to revert to natural cover to benefit wildlife

Heading back to the west side for December, I chose another image from beautiful Silver Falls State Park, though not of one of the iconic waterfalls. Instead, this scene (below) captures a classic winter rainforest scene, with the bare, contorted limbs of moss-draped Bigleaf maple revealed, now that their summer jacket of leaves has been discarded for the winter.

North Fork Silver Creek in winter

With all of the tragedy and trauma that 2020 brought to the world, this simple scene seemed most appropriate for closing out the calendar for the coming year: calming, cool and reflective, and with a needed sense of order and eternity that a misty day in the rainforest can bring us.

Remembering 2020..?

Riverside Fire exploding into a conflagration in September

Assembling this year’s calendar was yet another reminder of the horrendous year we are leaving behind. While spending time in the outdoors is always a needed escape, in 2020 we suddenly found many of our favorite forest sanctuaries closed by COVID-19. Later, the massive Riverside and Beachie fires roared through the Clackamas and Mount Jefferson areas, perhaps closing them for years to come, and with little known about the full impact of these fires at this time.

As I sorted through about 130 images that I’d set aside over the year, everything fell into two categories: burned in the fires or not. We still don’t know just how extensively the Riverside Fire burned the Molalla River watershed, for example, though we do know that it reached all the way to the Willamette Valley, causing evacuations in several communities on the valley floor — an unthinkable development in our recent history with fire. The Molalla River corridor remains closed, and it could be years before the Bureau of Land Management reopens the area to the public.

The Molalla Eye… before the fire

Some spots were spared, if just barely. Just south of the Molalla corridor, the Riverside and Beachie fires converged and bolted Silver Falls State Park. The park was spared, but not nearby Shellburg Falls, which was intensely burned, with no surviving forest. The Little North Fork valley was equally charred, including historic structures at Opal Creek.

Upper Butte Creek Falls… spared by the fire

Meanwhile, the fires followed ridgetops above Abiqua and Butte Creeks, but left the waterfalls and big trees there intact. Butte Creek was on my mind, as I had just made a trip there last June, when I ran into a family learning to fly fish at Upper Butte Creek Falls. While this spot didn’t burn, it will still likely be affected by the fires. As we’ve learned following the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire in the Gorge, stream corridors spared by the actual fire will soon fill with logs downed by the burn, and this will likely be the case in places like Butte Creek in coming years.

Fishing at Butte Creek

I’ve posted many articles about fire, and our need to come to terms with both its inevitability and benefits. And while it was frustrating to learn that the Riverside Fire was — once again — human-caused, it’s also the case that the forest will recover. With that recovery comes opportunities to rethink how we manage the Clackamas River watershed, and I’ll be posting more on that topic in the coming year. If catastrophic fires are a reset for the forest, then they can also be a reset for how we manage them.

While the wildfires took center stage in Oregon in September, the COVID-19 crisis is the tragedy that will forever mark 2020. Like many, social distancing took me outdoors, but I quickly found that my usual haunts were packed with people, and too many were without masks or observing basic precautions for preventing transmission of the virus.

So, I ventured a bit farther afield in WyEast country, visiting several places for the very first time, but also taking great pains not to interact with others and risk accidentally being a spreader, myself. Once such place was Cliffs Park, a remarkable spot along the Columbia River that offers a stunning view of the Columbia River. On a quiet Sunday, I had the place to myself, but the empty fishing platforms were a reminder that indigenous peoples have been fishing these beaches for millennia — and that in our pandemic, Native Americans have been among the hardest hit by the virus.

Tribal fishing platforms at Cliffs Park

Cliffs Park

Looking downstream at Cliffs Park, WyEast rises above the basalt walls of the Gorge, and the scene seems timeless. Turn around and look upstream, and the John Day Dam fills the horizon, another reminder of the cultural devastation that white settlement brought to the indigenous societies that had flourished along the river for millennia — and the trauma they still carry from the loss of Celilo Falls, just downstream from Cliffs Park, and inundated by The Dalles Dam in 1957. This recent piece in Portland Monthly on the subject is well worth reading:

The Rise and Fall of Kah-Nee-Ta

It’s fairly easy to be socially distant (and completely alone) in the wide-open desert country east of Mount Hood, but what about some pandemic solitude on the mountain? It turns out to be in plain sight, if you’re willing to do some boulder-hopping. Over the summer, I made several cross-country forays into the White River flood zone, and to my surprise, the river channel abruptly changed sometime in late summer, before my final visit in late September.

The White River strikes back… again!

My guess is that a cloudburst or just some steady rain had kicked off a debris slide far up the canyon, but the volume was such that the entire floodplain was affected, with a couple feet of new sand and cobbles left behind by the flood. On my visit, the river was still trying to find its new course, and made a wonderful clattering noise it rocks and pebbles rolled down the stream in the muddy water.

The White River finding its new path

It’s not the first time the White River has changed course, that’s for sure, and it certainly won’t be the last. Seeing the raw forces of nature steadily at work was also quite reassuring. Yes, humanity has been struggling with a pandemic this year, but the mountain didn’t even notice. Nature has a way of putting our human frailty in helpful perspective, and reminding us that we’re temporary features here.

And, on a personal note…

Everyone has their list of reasons to hate 2020, and I certainly have mine. I’ll start with an odd one that connects some dots, and it’s about my photography. After decades of making some of the most innovative, compact cameras that seemed to be designed with hikers and active photographers in mind, Olympus announced last June that it would be selling off its camera division. What..??

It turns out that like all traditional camera makers, Olympus had seen sales sag with the explosion of smartphone and their amazingly good photo capability. No surprise, there, and I’m no exception. I marvel at what my iPhone can do. But I’ve also been a loyal Olympus user since I was 18 years old.

End of an era for this photographer? Not a chance! My newest Olympus (complete with collapsing 14-45mm zoom lens) sitting in the palm of my hand…

The good news is that the buyer of the Olympus line is planning to continue offering a full lineup under the old brand name, so we’ll see how that goes. But in the meantime, I used this troubling news as rationale to double down and pick up a few lenses and another camera body that will help me keep this blog full of photos for years to come!

Here’s where I will connect some dots, as the Olympus news had deeper significance with me, as I got the photography bug from my oldest brother Pete, who died in 2017. Pete is on my mind whenever I’m out in the forest or up in the mountains shooting with my beloved Olympus cameras. He helped me pick out my first Olympus camera when I was a teenager.

Me (left) as a 20-year old with my late brother Pete and my first Olympus way back in 1982. Pete was my photography inspiration and my mentor

Pete and I had a special connection that went beyond photography, and I’m thankful for the time I had with him, but I’m especially thankful for the time I still have to be out exploring the world. I’d wish he could still join me, and after losing him, I’ll surely never take my time on this earth for granted again.

This regrettable year also marked the passing of my dad on September 1. He was 91 years old, and like my brother Pete, had a huge impact on my life. Dad moved our family out here from Iowa in 1962, just few weeks before I was added as the last of five kids (and the only one born in Oregon). Dad was drawn to the Pacific Northwest by the active outdoor life, and passed that appreciation on to his kids — and to my mom, who passed away in September 2018. Together, they climbed mountains, backpacked, camped, fished and when it came time to retire, lived out their years on a forested hilltop.

My folks enjoying a pitcher and pizza just three years ago, in September 2017. These transplanted Iowans gave me my love of the Pacific Northwest outdoors

Needless to say, my life moving forward has changed forever with the loss of both parents and my oldest brother. But if every kid wants to make their family proud, I felt good when it came time to sort through the things my folks left behind. Their home was full of photographs, sketches and sculptures that I’d made for them over the years, and they had even saved every Mount Hood calendar I’d printed since starting these in 2004!

So, I know they were pleased that they had successfully planted that outdoor life and conservation ethic in me, and whatever I can do as a conservationist and advocate in my remaining life, it will be an extension of their influence — and Pete’s, too. I’ll always miss them, but whenever I’m in the outdoors, I’m really still with them!

Their passing is also a reminder to me (and all of us) that an essential part of being a conservationist and steward for our public lands is to pass along that ethic and passion to those who will follow us, a role that is now even more prominent in my own mind.

Looking forward to 2021!

What’s coming in 2021 for this blog? As always, I have lots of articles underway, and as I mentioned at the top, the potential for some very big news for the mountain. I will post on that topic as soon as I learn more. I also hope to see some of the Riverside Fire aftermath first-hand and report on what the Clackamas watershed looks like today, along with ongoing visits to some lesser-known spots in WyEast country.

The author at Lower White River Falls in June (with mask in stored position!)

Most of all, a return to life beyond the pandemic is on all of our minds, perhaps as soon as next summer. Until then, thanks for reading the blog and for indulging me in these annual reflections. Best to you in 2021, and I hope to see you on the trail, sometime!

Tom Kloster | December 2020