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About Baker City herald. (Baker City, Or.) 1990-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 5, 2020)
6B — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2020 My husband works too hard EAGLE CREEK Continued from Page 1B In my penitent pose the glasses had escaped the dubious grasp of my shirt, and as I concentrated on dipping the bag into the fl ow I didn’t notice. By the time I realized this, about 5 minutes had elapsed. Which, given even the relatively modest pace of Eagle Creek as it tumbles along its bed of granitic boul- ders, was plenty of time to fl ush the sunglasses a fair distance. I don’t believe they are especially buoyant, as eyewear goes. But they also had no more mass than a slender twig, and the stream was clearly capable of propelling that sort of fl otsam. I was pretty sure, in any case, that the glasses were good and gone. Nonetheless I spent 10 minutes or so peering into eddies and check- ing riffl es. My daughter, Olivia, and son, Max, walked downstream a few hundred yards but their search was as fruitless as mine. I was reluctant to give up, but I knew that if the glasses had snagged on a branch or fetched up against a rock, the white frame and earpieces ought to have been conspicuous. I was disappointed. But I harbor no grudge against Eagle Creek. It is a diffi cult stream to dislike, in any case. Indeed I’ve long had a particular af- fi nity for Eagle Creek, in part because its status as a “creek” implies that it is a lesser feature than a river. This is decidedly not so. I think Eagle Creek deserves the title of “river” as much as the Lostine, the Wallowa, the Minam and the Imnaha do, to cite four whose headwa- ters are also high in the Wallowas. (I also believe certain other streams, creeks all rather than rivers, are simi- larly disrespected, including Cath- erine, Hurricane, Pine and Bear.) The canyon that an Ice Age glacier and then Eagle Creek have carved through the Wallowas is a place of great beauty, no matter the diminu- tive nomenclature. My wife, Lisa, and I had both hiked to the meadow about 5 miles up- stream from the Main Eagle trailhead at Boulder Park. But we wanted to introduce Max and Olivia to one of the grand alpine fi elds in the Eagle Cap Wilderness. We camped at Two Color, a couple miles down the road, and started up the trail Saturday morning. I enjoy the path for its variety. The Main Eagle trail boasts most of the attributes that beckon people to the Wallowas — dense forests and slopes spangled with wildfl owers and rivu- lets of chilly spring water that even short legs can hop across. (Not that feet necessarily remain dry, of course.) At about 3 miles the trail crosses Copper Creek, which plunges over a waterfall just west of the trail. You DEAR ABBY: I have a wonderful husband of almost 20 years and DEAR ABBY two teenage children. My husband is incred- ibly hardworking in his stressful career and has provided a very comfortable life for us. The trouble is, he puts work ahead of any self-care. He works most waking hours, doesn’t eat well, exercises rarely, is overweight — the list goes on. When I ask/encourage/nag him to make positive lifestyle choices, he reminds me of the life insur- ance he has and turns it around on me and says I am stressing him. Abby, I love my husband, and I worry that this will cut his life and our life together short. Can you help? — BESIDE MYSELF WITH WORRY DEAR BESIDE YOURSELF: I wish I could wave a magic wand and make your husband receptive to what you are try- ing to do for him. But until he’s ready to address these issues and do something about them, nothing will change. If he enjoys his career and takes pride in the fact that you and your children are — and will be — provided for, then he’s living the life he has chosen for himself. This does not mean you must give up entirely suggesting healthy lifestyle choices, but perhaps do it a little less often and in terms of activities he might enjoy. DEAR ABBY: After a long and successful life, my uncle re- cently passed away. His wife is my mother’s sister. During one of our phone calls, she told me she and my cousins had written his obituary and that it would be published soon. To my shock and dismay, I located the obituary and discovered that my sister and I were not mentioned as his niece and nephew. I am still terribly hurt. Why would they do this? My sister and I grew up spending every major holiday and birthday with my uncle. The obituary did include his other niece and nephew who live on the opposite side of the country and kept in touch only with an occasional phone call and holiday card. I included my cousins in my parents’ and sister’s obituaries, all of whom have passed in the last few years. I feel that I must address this with them, but I don’t want to add to the pain they are going through while they mourn their loss. I now dread attending the memorial because I’m worried friends of our family may bring it up, and I won’t know what to say. — HURT NEPHEW IN ILLINOIS DEAR NEPHEW: Even when a death is expected, many people go into a state of shock, which interferes with their abil- ity to sequence facts. It is entirely possible that the obituary was written when your aunt and cousins weren’t thinking straight, which is why you were omitted. If someone brings it up at the memorial -- which I doubt will happen -- rather than nurse hurt feelings, I hope you will point out that the family, including you, is grieving. Period. DEAR ABBY: How do you politely ask a neighbor to mow his lawn at reasonable times of the day? Mine seems to be doing it three days a week and always when we want to enjoy our backyard. — TRYING TO RELAX DEAR TRYING: If you are on speaking terms with this neighbor, explain that the noise from his lawnmower interferes with your ability to enjoy your backyard and ask POLITELY if he could schedule it at another hour of the day. If he is a good neighbor, he should be willing to accommodate you. weather Lisa Britton / For the EO Media Group Culver Lake, on the east side of the Eagle Creek Canyon. If You Go... The Eagle Creek trail starts at the Main Eagle trailhead at Boulder Park, the former site of a rustic resort at the end of Forest Road 7755. If you’re coming from the north through La Grande, drive to Union and follow High- way 203, the Medical Springs Highway, past Catherine Creek State Park. Two main forest roads lead to Eagle Creek — Road 77 starts at Catherine Creek Summit, and Road 67 starts at Medical Springs. If you don’t have a Northwest Forest Pass you’ll need to pay a $5 fee to parking at the trailhead. can see part of the falls from the trail but you’ll have to bushwhack a short distance to get a full view. And then there are the mountains. Always the mountains. The Eagle Creek canyon is mostly granitic rock, the whitish stone that at times seems to refl ect the sun as daz- zlingly as snow. (This feature isn’t quite so fetching after you’ve lost your sunglasses.) The light-colored slopes, as is the case in much of the Wallowas, are striped in places by the dark brown slashes of basalt. These are remnants of the vents that conveyed incred- ible volumes of soupy lava to the surface, where it fl owed west, in some cases reaching the Pacifi c Ocean. The Wallowas were a main source of the Columbia River fl ood basalts, which erupted between about 15 million and 17 million years ago. The glacier that carved the ancestral Eagle Creek canyon extended for about 13 miles, according to a paper by John E. Allen, emeritus professor of geology at Portland State University, published in 1975 in the magazine of the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. Allen wrote that the Eagle Creek glacier was one of nine in the Wallowas that exceeded 10 miles in length. AROUND OREGON AND THE REGION Astoria Longview 52/72 Kennewick 57/83 St. Helens 56/87 58/93 55/90 Condon 58/97 58/89 SUN MON TUE WED Clear to partly cloudy Mostly sunny and warm Mostly sunny; not as warm Sunny and pleasant Sunny and warmer 42 90 53 75 36 74 35 81 38 Eugene 10 10 9 52/91 80 38 74 36 86 37 10 10 7 La Grande 48 90 56 Comfort Index™ Enterprise 4 5 49 87 54 Comfort Index™ 4 70 41 82 49 10 10 8 TEMPERATURES Baker City La Grande Elgin NATION (for the 48 contiguous states) High Thursday Low Thursday High: 118° Low: 26° Wettest: 3.61” 91° 46° 94° 49° 98° 47° 0.00 0.00 0.06 2.99 7.15 0.00 0.00 0.07 13.06 10.98 0.00 0.00 0.07 25.31 15.18 PRECIPITATION (inches) Thursday Month to date Normal month to date Year to date Normal year to date HAY INFORMATION SUNDAY 15% NW at 4 to 8 mph 10.3 0.22 RESERVOIR STORAGE (through midnight Friday) Phillips Reservoir Unity Reservoir Owyhee Reservoir McKay Reservoir Wallowa Lake Thief Valley Reservoir 15% of capacity 34% of capacity 49% of capacity 60% of capacity 24% of capacity 20% of capacity OREGON High: 103° Low: 41° Wettest: Trace Medford Burns Brookings Strong southwesterly winds on Sept. 5, 1881, fanned fl ames into a mammoth for- est fi re on Michigan’s “thumb” region. The fi re consumed a million acres and killed over 500 people. SUN & MOON SAT. Sunrise Sunset Moonrise Moonset SUN. 6:19 a.m. 6:20 a.m. 7:22 p.m. 7:20 p.m. 9:11 p.m. 9:33 p.m. 9:36 a.m. 10:38 a.m. MOON PHASES STREAM FLOWS (through midnight Thursday) Grande Ronde at Troy Thief Valley Reservoir near North Powder Burnt River near Unity Umatilla River near Gibbon Minam River at Minam Powder River near Richland Death Valley, Calif. Walden, Colo. Owensboro, Ky. WEATHER HISTORY AGRICULTURAL INFO. Lowest relative humidity Afternoon wind Hours of sunshine Evapotranspiration Florence 606 cfs 63 cfs 104 cfs 50 cfs 91 cfs 32 cfs Last Sep 10 New Sep 17 First Sep 23 Beaver Marsh Powers 54/91 Full Oct 1 54/96 Silver Lake Jordan Valley 55/92 Paisley 53/95 52/94 Frenchglen 56/96 61/103 Klamath Falls 50/95 62/97 Lakeview 49/94 McDermitt 56/96 RECREATION FORECAST SUNDAY REGIONAL CITIES MON. City Hi/Lo/W Hi/Lo/W Astoria 72/54/pc 84/59/pc Bend 93/55/s 83/41/pc Boise 94/63/s 84/48/s Brookings 75/61/pc 77/60/s Burns 96/45/s 83/39/s Coos Bay 70/52/s 69/59/s Corvallis 91/57/s 91/61/s Council 92/54/s 81/38/s Elgin 90/53/s 80/40/s Eugene 91/57/s 94/58/s Hermiston 96/62/s 87/53/pc Hood River 93/62/s 90/57/pc Imnaha 91/54/s 79/41/s John Day 91/55/s 81/45/pc Joseph 86/50/s 74/33/s Kennewick 95/62/s 85/52/pc Klamath Falls 95/52/s 92/48/s Lakeview 94/51/s 90/48/s Grand View Arock 56/98 60/99 Shown is Sunday’s weather. Temperatures are Saturday night’s lows and Sunday’s highs. SUN. Diamond 56/93 Fields Medford Brookings Boise 63/94 57/100 53/75 55/97 49/96 Chiloquin Grants Pass Juntura 45/96 49/89 46/94 Roseburg Ontario 60/96 Burns Brothers 56/93 Coos Bay Huntington 50/89 52/93 Oakridge 53/92 61/96 Seneca Bend Elkton THURSDAY EXTREMES ALMANAC 55/91 49/95 Council 42/90 John Day 44/96 Sisters 49/70 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. 51/93 Baker City Redmond 46/66 51/68 Halfway Granite 47/84 53/92 56/91 55/90 75 36 6 Corvallis 49/93 53/91 Newport Enterprise 49/87 48/90 Monument 53/96 Idanha Salem TONIGHT 6 Elgin 47/90 La Grande 56/90 Maupin 4 64/92 Pendleton The Dalles Portland Newberg Lewiston 60/94 Hood River 58/92 TIllamook Comfort Index™ Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2020 Walla Walla 56/95 Vancouver 57/88 51/73 Baker City The point at which the trail emerges from the forest onto a bouldery slope above Main Eagle Meadow is among the more stirring sights in the Wallowas. Some people no doubt fi nd this scene most beautiful in early sum- mer, when the grass is green. But I prefer late summer or fall, when the grass has turned tawny, making a more compelling contrast with the green-black of the slender spires of the subalpine fi rs. The imposing peak at the head of the valley is Needle Point. The 9,018-foot summit, tallest in the Eagle Creek drainage, is aptly named. We stopped at Eagle Creek, which I presumed was our turnaround point. But then we got to talking about going on, as hikers are apt to do when other glorious destinations lie just over a nearby ridge. I had never forded the creek here and climbed the steep slope to the basins that hold a trio of lakes, Cul- ver, Bear and Lookingglass. But Lisa had made the hike, and she spoke highly of Culver. The kids were game so we sallied onward. We were amply rewarded for the extra effort, as is usual in the Eagle Cap Wilderness. Culver Lake is perhaps not so spectacular as, say, Ice or Glacier lakes. But this is rather like saying that most of the other Alps aren’t as dramatic as the Matterhorn. Culver was as pleasant a place as I would hope to spend a half hour on a brilliant August afternoon. Max and Olivia took a dip in its frigid water. We watched brook trout patrol. There was a big frog that enchanted the kids. And except for the occasional splash there was the awesome silence of the wilderness, a refreshing balm with no rival. I felt as perfectly at ease as a cat in a shaft of sunshine. And my sunglasses were safely perched on the bridge of my nose, neither of us recognizing how little time we had left together. City Lewiston Longview Meacham Medford Newport Olympia Ontario Pasco Pendleton Portland Powers Redmond Roseburg Salem Spokane The Dalles Ukiah Walla Walla SUN. MON. ANTHONY LAKES PHILLIPS LAKE Hi/Lo/W 94/63/s 83/59/s 89/49/s 103/62/s 66/51/s 82/55/s 96/59/s 98/61/s 92/61/s 89/62/s 91/61/s 96/51/s 96/60/s 91/58/s 88/59/s 97/65/s 88/50/s 92/64/s Hi/Lo/W 78/49/s 86/56/pc 77/38/s 102/63/s 74/60/s 84/52/pc 86/52/s 85/54/pc 83/46/s 89/63/pc 91/67/s 85/41/pc 97/61/s 90/64/pc 73/44/s 89/58/pc 76/35/pc 82/50/s Mostly sunny; mild Mostly sunny; warm Weather(W): s-sunny, pc-partly cloudy, c-cloudy, sh-showers, t-thunderstorms, r-rain, sf-snow fl urries, sn-snow, i-ice 68 47 87 53 MT. EMILY REC. BROWNLEE RES. Mostly sunny Sunny and warm 78 52 92 54 EAGLE CAP WILD. EMIGRANT ST. PARK Sunny and warm Warm with sunshine 74 45 84 48 WALLOWA LAKE MCKAY RESERVOIR Sunshine and warm Sunny and warm 86 50 91 62 THIEF VALLEY RES. RED BRIDGE ST. PARK Mostly sunny; warm Mostly sunny; warm 90 53 90 56
