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