COFFEE BREAK
B6 — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD
SATuRDAY, JunE 4, 2022
Daughter feels powerless to help aging father
required to attend every event.
During COVID I moved just a
few states away, and that’s when
I got the full picture. Ruth took
away Dad’s cellphone and sold
his car, so he is virtually stuck.
She will not even let him men-
tion purchasing a vehicle. He’s an
artist, and she never “allowed”
him to get a studio.
The list is long, sad and frus-
trating. He forbids me to con-
front her, but it is giving me daily
stress because I love my dad and
I fear her control is something
he has grown accustomed to.
Any advice? — DISTRESSED
DAUGHTER IN THE SOUTH
DEAR DAUGHTER: As
repugnant as the situation may
be to you, I do not think you
DEAR ABBY: My dad, who
is nearing 80, has been mar-
ried to my stepmom, “Ruth,” for
nearly 35 years. She has always
been temperamental and con-
trolling to a degree, but during
the last few years it has become
abundantly clear that she’s emo-
tionally abusive to my dad.
Twenty years ago, I moved to
another coast, and although Dad
wanted to visit, the decision was
always up to Ruth, so they never
did. However, when it comes to
her immediate family, Dad is
SNOW
Ethan Shaw/Contributed Photo
A fresh dusting of early fall snow on the perennial snowfield in the
northeastern cirque of the Matterhorn in the Wallowa Mountains.
that helped produce them,
leaving behind prime
“habitat” for modern-day
snowpatches.
Indeed, small glaciers
were able to reform in those
Pleistocene cirques and hol-
lows in more recent mil-
lennia under favorable cli-
mate regimes. Some of
the Wallowa snowfield
sites I’m monitoring are
those that the Oregon Gla-
ciers Institute (with whom
I’m collaborating on this
project) identified — aided
by local expertise — as
likely holding glaciers well
into the 20th century. That
includes, but isn’t limited to,
the well-known ex-Benson
Glacier above Glacier Lake.
Last summer — that excep-
tionally dry summer of
2021, on the heels of spring
drought and wracked by
heatwaves — gaunt ice-
patches lay exposed in those
former glacier beds.
While the Wallowas
don’t support active glaciers
any longer, persistent snow-
fields occupy something of
a middle ground between
snow and ice. Snow is in
a constant state of flux. A
long-lying snowfield, sub-
jected to melt-freeze cycles
and pressure compaction,
transforms into a denser
snow form known as firn —
German for “of last year,”
referencing snow that sur-
vives for more than one melt
season (and maybe many
of them). And some may
contain a core of ice, blur-
ring the line between snow-
patch and what’s known as
a “glacieret.” The so-called
snowfields I’m monitoring
also encompass firn- and
ice-patches.
But while such resilient
snow, firn, and ice bodies
are the primary focus, this
work also considers short-
er-lived features, such as
more exposed or lower-el-
evation slopeside snow-
patches and shaded forest
snowbanks often holding
out into early summer.
Their seasonal layout and
timetable are interesting to
track in and of themselves.
So are more general pat-
terns of regional “snow-lie”:
the transient up-and-down
snowline, the when and
where of the last major dust-
ings of spring and the first
of fall.
Easy to overlook, our
snowfields are also easy
to take for granted. They
recur on the landscape on
a yearly basis, but never in
exactly the same way, and
changes to those patterns
link to broader dynamics
of snowcover and runoff. A
weather
| Go to AccuWeather.com
Pilcher Creek
Reservoir
Reservoir is about half
full. The boat ramp nearest
the parking and camping
areas is now usable and the
other boat ramp is under
water. Fishing will prob-
ably be best over the next
couple months as long as
the reservoir doesn’t drain
too low.
Astoria
Reservoir has been
stocked with trout
throughout the spring.
Flying ants recently
have been common, and
fishing with dry flies
has been a good way to
catch both rainbow trout
and pikeminnows. Perch
fishing has been slow, but
some bank anglers have
been catching perch.
The reservoir is still
St. Helens
La Grande’s
Certified Master Arborist
Call Us for your
Summer
Trimming Needs
M ICHAEL
Certified Tree Care
Planting • Pruning • Removal
M. Curtiss PN-7077A
541-786-8463
CCB# 200613
michaeltcurtiss@yahoo.com
Kennewick
59/65
58/67
Condon
59/72
59/66
58/65
WED
Rain and drizzle
Mostly cloudy,
downpours
A morning
shower in spots
Mostly sunny
Clouds and sun
62 38
69 43
72 46
Eugene
9
10
10
57/70
62 43
68 50
72 49
9
10
10
Comfort Index™
Enterprise
3
4
49 61 41
Comfort Index™
0
66 50
8
10
10
TEMPERATURES Baker City La Grande Elgin
NATION (for the 48 contiguous states)
High Thursday
Low Thursday
High: 108°
Low: 21°
Wettest: 2.83”
78°
47°
80°
50°
85°
51°
0.21
0.21
0.09
4.19
4.43
0.09
0.12
0.11
6.48
8.80
0.06
0.06
0.16
14.23
12.84
PRECIPITATION (inches)
Thursday
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Normal year to date
AGRICULTURAL INFO.
HAY INFORMATION SUNDAY
Lowest relative humidity
Afternoon wind
Hours of sunshine
Evapotranspiration
60%
S at 7 to 14 mph
0.0
0.11
RESERVOIR STORAGE (through midnight Friday)
Phillips Reservoir
Unity Reservoir
Owyhee Reservoir
McKay Reservoir
Wallowa Lake
Thief Valley Reservoir
15% of capacity
98% of capacity
43% of capacity
98% of capacity
43% of capacity
102% of capacity
STREAM FLOWS (through midnight Thursday)
Grande Ronde at Troy
8430 cfs
Thief Valley Reservoir near North Powder 222 cfs
Burnt River near Unity
82 cfs
Umatilla River near Gibbon
438 cfs
Minam River at Minam
2160 cfs
Powder River near Richland
201 cfs
Ocotillo Wells, Calif.
Albany, Wyo.
Monticello, Ark.
OREGON
High: 88°
Low: 36°
Wettest: 0.31”
Ontario
Sunriver
Redmond
WEATHER HISTORY
High and low records were set on June
4, 1985. Williston, N.D., had a low of 31
that broke the record from 1910. Macon
and Augusta, Ga., reached 100 degrees
or higher.
SUN & MOON
SAT.
Sunrise
Sunset
Moonrise
Moonset
SUN.
5:06 a.m. 5:06 a.m.
8:35 p.m. 8:36 p.m.
9:21 a.m. 10:27 a.m.
12:26 a.m. 12:55 a.m.
MOON PHASES
First
Jun 7
Full
Jun 14
Last
Jun 20
52/66
New
Jun 28
Brothers
50/63
Beaver Marsh
42/63
Roseburg
59/73
Jordan Valley
51/66
Paisley
48/68
Frenchglen
52/67
Klamath Falls
46/68
Hi/Lo/W
60/50/sh
67/44/c
70/51/sh
60/49/sh
69/40/sh
62/51/sh
67/50/r
65/48/sh
63/44/sh
70/51/r
75/55/sh
67/53/sh
67/50/sh
67/47/sh
63/41/sh
77/57/sh
68/36/r
67/39/sh
Hi/Lo/W
61/48/pc
66/42/pc
72/48/pc
62/48/pc
68/37/pc
62/44/pc
66/45/c
70/46/pc
61/42/c
70/46/c
74/53/pc
69/47/pc
65/46/pc
64/40/pc
58/37/pc
76/53/pc
67/36/pc
68/35/pc
Grand View
Arock
54/74
54/68
Lakeview
44/67
McDermitt
50/66
RECREATION FORECAST SUNDAY
REGIONAL CITIES
City
Astoria
Bend
Boise
Brookings
Burns
Coos Bay
Corvallis
Council
Elgin
Eugene
Hermiston
Hood River
Imnaha
John Day
Joseph
Kennewick
Klamath Falls
Lakeview
Diamond
52/66
52/69
Shown is Sunday’s weather. Temperatures are Saturday night’s lows and Sunday’s highs.
MON.
Boise
55/70
Fields
57/73
SUN.
56/73
Silver Lake
45/66
Medford
Brookings
Juntura
48/69
58/71
53/60
Ontario
54/76
Burns
46/69
Chiloquin
Grants Pass
Huntington
48/63
56/68
Coos Bay
53/65
55/71
Seneca
54/67
Oakridge
Council
49/65
52/67
Bend
58/64
52/66
48/60
John Day
52/69
Sisters
Elkton
Powers
Halfway
Granite
Baker City
Florence
56/57
THURSDAY EXTREMES
ALMANAC
53/68
Redmond
57/62
Comfort Index takes into account how the weather will feel based on a combination of factors. A rating of 10 feels
very comfortable while a rating of 0 feels very uncomfortable.
Monument
56/67
Newport
Enterprise
49/61
53/66
56/61
59/69
57/66
65 48
1
Corvallis
54/55
58 38
Elgin
52/63
La Grande
55/66
58/70
Idanha
Salem
TUE
53 66 47
56/69
Pendleton
The Dalles
Portland
Newberg
Lewiston
56/68
Hood River
57/70
MON
La Grande
Forecasts and graphics provided
by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2022
Walla Walla
60/77
Vancouver
59/65
SUN
7
Reservoir is about
half full. It recently was
stocked with fingerling
trout. As they grow, they
will become available
for anglers.
www.eomediagroup.com
58/65
TONIGHT
0
Balm Creek Reservoir
The most valuable and
respected source of local news,
advertising and information for
our communities.
Maupin
Comfort Index™
Holdover trout are
available. Get out and
enjoy this fishery while
it lasts. The reservoir
is currently quite low.
Launching a boat may
still be possible from the
access road just north of
the dam but the boat ramp
is high and dry with a mud
flat at the bottom where
it’s easy to get stuck.
Phillips Reservoir
Longview
56/60
TIllamook
49 65 43
Malheur Reservoir
AROUND OREGON AND THE REGION
56/61
Baker City
very low and is cur-
rently 14 percent full.
This spring may have a
small window when boats
can launch, but access to
launch a boat may become
very difficult if the res-
ervoir draws down much
below current levels.
Continued from Page B1
Ethan Shaw is an independent
naturalist and freelance outdoors/
natural-history writer based in
Cove. He has a degree in Wildlife
Ecology/Natural Resources and
has been freelancing on both the
research and writing fronts since
2009 (after a stint at The Observer).
█
some of my worst moments and
still showed compassion.
I’m genuinely torn between
these two and don’t know how to
choose because I don’t want to
lose either of them. What do I do?
— BOY CRAZY IN IOWA
DEAR BOY CRAZY: I have
good news. Because nowhere in
your letter did you mention that
either of these young men have
asked you for an exclusive rela-
tionship, you do not “have” to
make a difficult choice. Some
people like both chocolate AND
vanilla ice cream. I suggest you be
honest with them and enjoy seeing
them both until the answer to your
question becomes obvious. (Feel
free to write me again if you meet
a handsome redhead.)
FISHING
mountain snowpack disin-
tegrating into snowpatches
early in the season can fore-
tell summer water stress.
And if historically peren-
nial snowfields begin disap-
pearing more years than not
— in other words, if they
essentially turn into sea-
sonal snowfields — that’s an
important shift in the water-
shed to be aware of.
We know that a reduced
high-country snowpack, or
one that melts away earlier
in the year, has significant
consequences for stream-
flow and water supply.
Trends in the scanty and
scattered year-round snow/
firn features of the Wal-
lowas and Blues are part of
this big-picture story.
The Wallowa-Blue
Mountain Snowfield Project
will benefit greatly from
local knowledge and many
eyes on the ground. I hope
to soon formalize a way for
dayhikers, backpackers,
hunters, and other folks to
send in snowpatch observa-
tions and pics of their own
to aid in the effort. And in
the meantime, I’m working
on compiling historic photos
of regional snowfields, and
trying to track down as
many pictures of High Wal-
lowa snow/ice features from
the late summer and early
fall of both 2021 and 2015
(another supremely dry
year) as I can. If you have
any you’d like to share —
or, heck, any memories or
images of where snow used
to persist in the high Wal-
lowas and Blues — feel free
to get in touch at wallowa-
snowfields@gmail.com.
Continued from Page B1
Less well studied than
glaciers, snowpatches have
nonetheless been researched
in a fair number of far-
flung places: from the Scot-
tish Highlands to the Jap-
anese Alps, from the High
Atlas of North Africa to the
High Arctic. The Wallowas
— loftiest and snowiest
range in Eastern Oregon,
and bearing the heavy
stamp of past glaciation —
offer a prime location for
similar investigations of
these somewhat spectral
phenomena.
As the seasonal snow-
pack melts off, snowfields
persist in favorable niches.
The most persistent often
reveal topographic and
microclimatic subtleties —
special “topoclimates” —
buffered from sunlight and
heat, and/or nourished by
especially deep accumula-
tion of the white stuff. Those
include leeward ridgebrows
where snow cornices, slabs,
and pillows build up in
winter from wind-drift, and
the base of avalanche chutes
where snowslides regularly
rumble to rest.
The most obvious of
these snowfield-supporting
topoclimates are the shad-
owlands of north- and east-
facing cirques, cast in the
pall of ice-carved head-
walls. The perennial Wal-
lowa snowfields surviving
here summon the ghosts of
alpine glaciers that carved
the range tens of thousands
of years ago, scooping out
bowls and hanging valleys,
steepening canyon walls,
sharpening mountain horns.
Those vanished ice bodies,
formed in cooler, wetter
prehistoric times on aus-
picious aspects, enhanced
the very shadow-climates
“Derek” is blond and short, and
loves to go to the gym. He’s kind
and attentive, and he seems to
care very much for me. He invited
me to his formal dance, but I
turned him down because I didn’t
know him very well. He didn’t
take anyone else even though he
had plenty of time to find a date.
My friend at the dance said he
didn’t even talk to another girl, so
I know he’s very loyal already.
The other contender, “Shay,”
is taller and has dark hair. He has
kind, blue eyes and a shy person-
ality, although with me he really
opens up and talks. He always
checks in to see how I’m doing
when I’ve had a rough day. In the
simplest terms, he puts up with
my nonsense. He has seen me at
should try to reduce your stress
by creating more for your father.
He has forbidden you from con-
fronting his wife about her
hypercontrolling behavior, and
you should respect his wishes.
I don’t have to like it; you don’t
have to like it. But this is what
your father has been willing to
accept for the last 35 years. He
and only he could have put a stop
to it or left her if he had really
wanted to.
DEAR ABBY: I’m a col-
lege student who broke up with
my long-term high school boy-
friend a few months ago. He was
a cheating dirtbag, so I moved on
quickly. I have been enjoying the
single life, but now find myself in
a bit of a love triangle.
City
Lewiston
Longview
Meacham
Medford
Newport
Olympia
Ontario
Pasco
Pendleton
Portland
Powers
Redmond
Roseburg
Salem
Spokane
The Dalles
Ukiah
Walla Walla
SUN.
MON.
Hi/Lo/W
68/54/sh
65/50/r
63/46/sh
73/50/r
55/49/sh
63/48/r
76/52/sh
77/57/sh
70/52/sh
66/54/r
64/50/sh
69/44/sh
73/54/sh
69/53/r
62/48/sh
72/54/sh
63/40/sh
69/52/sh
Hi/Lo/W
71/52/pc
64/46/c
59/39/pc
74/47/pc
59/45/pc
63/46/c
77/50/pc
76/51/pc
68/51/pc
66/50/c
64/44/sh
65/40/pc
70/47/c
68/49/pc
64/47/pc
72/52/pc
58/37/sh
68/50/pc
Weather(W): s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain,
sf-snow fl urries, sn-snow, i-ice
ANTHONY LAKES
PHILLIPS LAKE
Showers around
Cloudy, showers
43
30
61
38
MT. EMILY REC.
BROWNLEE RES.
Afternoon showers
Cloudy, showers
54
40
69
50
EAGLE CAP WILD.
EMIGRANT ST. PARK
Cloudy, showers
Rainy times
47
31
56
39
WALLOWA LAKE
MCKAY RESERVOIR
Cloudy, showers
Showers
63
41
69
50
THIEF VALLEY RES.
RED BRIDGE ST. PARK
Showers
Heavy showers
65
43
66
47