COFFEE BREAK
B6 — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD
SATuRDAY, JuLY 31, 2021
Online relationship blossoms for older woman
any person I have ever known. Is
it possible to have a long-lasting
relationship when there is this
kind of age difference? — Found
Mr. Wonderful
Dear Found: It is possible,
but it is unusual. If you know
this person only online, I cau-
tion you to get to know him, his
family and his friends in person
before making any formal com-
mitments. I say this because he
may not actually be the person
he is representing himself to be,
and women in your situation have
been taken advantage of. This
man may be married. Because of
this, you should never send him
Dear Abby: Two years ago, I
met a wonderful man online. He’s
from Wales in the U.K. He’s 21
years younger than I am, so, natu-
rally, I’m cautious about how our
relationship will hold up through
the years. (He’s 42; I’m 63.)
He says I am everything he’s
dreamed of, and more. He’s non-
judgmental, kind, sweet and very
witty. His intelligence amazes me.
I love and respect him more than
no signs of jealousy. I’m pretty
sure my feelings are reciprocated
because when Ryder looks at me
with those big brown eyes, it’s as
though he is shooting love dag-
gers my way, and he winks at me
often.
Next week my husband and
I are having eye exams. Would
it be too much to ask him to get
colored contacts to match our
German shepherd? — Diana in
California
Dear Diana: That’s a dog-
gone good question. Since your
husband hasn’t objected to the
spooning and the licking, I’m sure
he would fur-give you.
better than you in her capacity
as worship leader. Then respond
to the compliment by saying,
“Thanks for the kind words, but
my sister is better than I am at ...”,
and mention several of them.
Dear Abby: I have been mar-
ried for 22 years but I have a
strong affection for my male best
friend, “Ryder.” He’s extremely
easy on the eyes, so much so
that even strangers comment on
how handsome he is. Sometimes
we nap together and take turns
being the big spoon. Occasion-
ally, he will put his tongue in my
ear, and I think it’s cute. My hus-
band is OK with it and shows
money, even if it’s only a “tempo-
rary loan.”
Dear Abby: My sister is the
worship leader at our church, but
I sometimes fill in for her. When I
do, I receive a lot of compliments
in the form of comparing the two
of us. For example, “Your sister
is great, but I like it better when
you sing.” It makes me uncom-
fortable because I want us both to
do well in life. I have no desire to
outshine my sister. How can I cor-
rect this when it happens without
shaming the person? — Embar-
rassed in Aurora
Dear Embarrassed: Make
a list of things your sister does
RIVER
frozen my fevered brow.
“Structures” seems to me
an inapt term, more sugges-
tive of blueprints than is war-
ranted. Nobody is planning to
hammer anything together up in
that remote canyon. The struc-
tures will consist of logs and
branches felled there and placed
in the channel (by mini excava-
tors, according to the document,
an internal combustion aid not
allowed in official wilderness) to
create pools and other habitat ben-
eficial to fish.
The Grande Ronde’s east fork
harbors chinook salmon, steel-
head and redband trout, all species
that need cold, clear water.
Work in the east fork and in
two other Grande Ronde tribu-
taries — Upper Fly and Squaw
creeks — would be a continu-
ation of a project, dating to the
1990s and focusing on the upper
Grande Ronde basin. The Wal-
lowa-Whitman, with assistance
from multiple agencies as well
as the Confederated Tribes of
the Umatilla Indian Reservation,
has done similar work — placing
what’s known as “large woody
debris” in the river channel —
along the mainstem, including
one logjam next to our campsite at
Spool Cart.
(Work is also ongoing down-
river, along Highway 244 near the
Bird Track Springs campground.)
I’m no salmon — there’s my
aversion to chilly water, along
with the absence of gills and
scales — but I suspect any anad-
romous fish that has battled
upstream from the Pacific would
find the east fork of the Grande
Ronde a hospitable sanctuary.
It’s cold anyway .
We turned back after a couple
miles, not far short of the conflu-
ence of the east fork and Little
Meadow Creek, according to my
map.
The map also shows that the
east fork heads a couple miles far-
ther to the east, where no roads or
trails go.
As goals go this strikes me as
a fine one, to find the spot where
that frigid water begins its long
and tortuous journey.
Continued from Page B1
road was almost wholly in shade
thanks to the dense forest on the
sunward south side.
We started up the trail and
my trepidation about whether
this would become one of those
ordeals was completely replaced,
within a quarter mile, by elation.
It was one of the more enjoy-
able trails I’ve hiked in years, the
more so because I hadn’t expected
anything like it.
My wife, Lisa, shared my
affinity for the route.
Our kids, Olivia, 14, and Max,
10, weren’t exactly entranced
by the setting, but they didn’t
complain.
As is common with roads that
follow a stream, this one climbs
at gentle grades interspersed with
essentially flat sections.
We had to clamber over half a
dozen or so logs, but many times
more than that have been cut over
the years.
Although I suspect decade
might be the more appropriate
measuring stick. Based on the
height of some of the lodgepole
pines and grand firs growing in
the road bed — 20 feet or more —
I don’t think it’s likely that motor
vehicles wider than motorcycles
have frequently gone this way
since the Reagan administration.
Also many of the logs,
including ones that have faded to
the light gray that suggests a con-
siderable span of time since the
tree fell, were cut so as to admit
passage of hikers but not nearly
with enough width to accommo-
date a rig.
I was quite taken with the
canyon the east fork has carved
over the millennia.
Although the nearest official
wilderness is about a dozen miles
away — the North Fork John Day
— this canyon felt as “wild” to
me as places whose untrammeled
nature has congressional approval.
The trees contribute much to
this sensation.
It is a classic Blue Mountains
mixed conifer forest. The canyon
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
The road along the east fork of the
Grande Ronde River has become a nar-
row trail over many years, but users con-
tinue to cut fallen logs to keep the route
accessible.
less by acts of Congress than
by my own imagination, which
ponders the challenge of getting
around without a well-trodden
path to follow, where no cut butts
of logs show where people, and
their saws, once passed.
Yet for all its primeval char-
acter, the highlight of the canyon,
in my eyes (and ears) is the river.
Here the Grande Ronde
seemed not even a distant cousin
of the stream in whose mild, slack
water I had waded only hours
before.
The east fork is a mountain
stream, as crystalline as fine
glass, as chilly as a soda out of the
refrigerator.
We stopped for a rest and a
snack where the trail runs close to
the river. I dipped my palm into
the water and splashed it on my
sweaty forehead, which instantly
went numb. I would not enjoy
wading there.
That evening at home I found
online a document from the Bon-
neville Power Administration
that references the east fork of
the Grande Ronde. The federal
agency, which sells power pro-
duced at dams on the Columbia
and Snake rivers, wants to pay the
Wallowa-Whitman to add “wood
structures” to the reach of the
east fork where I had so recently
Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald
Logs and other woody debris have been placed in the upper Grande Ronde River
to create habitat for salmon and steelhead. This site is just downstream from Spool
Cart campground, about four miles south of Starkey.
runs generally east-west, so one
side is a south-facing slope, the
other north-facing. These two
aspects, as foresters call them,
tend to produce the most dramatic
differences, and so it is along the
Grande Ronde’s east fork.
The south slope (which, con-
fusingly enough, rises north of
the river) is a less crowded stand
dominated in places by old-
growth ponderosa pines and tam-
aracks — the pine in particular
a species that thrives on south
slopes which are sunnier, hotter
and drier than most firs prefer.
In the strip of relatively flat
ground that straddles the stream,
the water-loving Engelmann
spruce is common, with its stiff,
prickly, blue-tinged needles. Per-
weather
| Go to AccuWeather.com
haps no other conifer in the Blues
is easier to identify, whether by
sight or by touch.
On the north-facing slopes,
which are in shade for much
longer each day and thus more
damp, the trees grow closer
together and with greater variety
— tamaracks and grand firs,
Douglas-firs and lodgepole pines.
In a few places the trail (or
road that once was) rounded a
ridge end or reached some other
piece of higher ground that briefly
opened a glimpse higher into the
canyon. Here, where the view was
measured in miles rather than
feet, the true expanse of the forest,
far out of sight of asphalt or shin-
gled roof, was more apparent,
more potent. I define wilderness
AROUND OREGON AND THE REGION
Astoria
Longview
57/67
Kennewick
61/80
St. Helens
64/86
TIllamook
74/88
75/96
66/87
62/89
Condon
SUN
A couple of
showers late
A thunderstorm
around
Baker City
62 79 60
Comfort Index™ 10
La Grande
6
3
WED
9
8
6
61/91
83 58
86 59
87 58
8
6
8
85 58
10
7
6
10
THURSDAY EXTREMES
TEMPERATURES Baker City La Grande Elgin
NATION (for the 48 contiguous states)
High Thursday
Low Thursday
High: 117°
Low: 38°
Wettest: 2.94”
101°
61°
102°
59°
PRECIPITATION (inches)
Thursday
0.00
Month to date
Trace
Normal month to date 0.52
Year to date
2.44
Normal year to date
5.96
0.00
Trace
0.57
5.93
10.63
0.00
0.39
0.68
15.37
15.20
HAY INFORMATION SUNDAY
50%
W at 4 to 8 mph
1.0
0.15
RESERVOIR STORAGE (through midnight Friday)
Phillips Reservoir
Unity Reservoir
Owyhee Reservoir
McKay Reservoir
Wallowa Lake
Thief Valley Reservoir
4% of capacity
45% of capacity
27% of capacity
59% of capacity
13% of capacity
17% of capacity
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
OREGON
The Dalles
Newport
Sexton Summit
WEATHER HISTORY
AGRICULTURAL INFO.
Lowest relative humidity
Afternoon wind
Hours of sunshine
Evapotranspiration
Death Valley, Calif.
Bodie State Park, Calif.
Jefferson, Ohio
High: 105°
Low: 46°
Wettest: 0.01”
Duluth, Minn., recorded an all-time high
temperature of 106 degrees on July 31,
1936. This is hotter than has ever been re-
corded at Miami Beach, Fla., where being
near the ocean prevents extreme heat.
SUN & MOON
SAT.
Sunrise
Sunset
Moonrise
Moonset
SUN.
5:36 a.m. 5:37 a.m.
8:21 p.m. 8:20 p.m.
none 12:10 a.m.
1:51 p.m. 2:55 p.m.
MOON PHASES
469 cfs
102 cfs
137 cfs
43 cfs
104 cfs
19 cfs
Last
Jul 31
New
Aug 8
First
Aug 15
Florence
Elkton
Full
Aug 22
57/81
57/84
Beaver Marsh
55/84
Roseburg
Powers
Brothers
63/87
Coos Bay
65/92
Burns
Jordan Valley
62/82
Paisley
58/81
Frenchglen
63/83
Diamond
Grand View
Arock
61/83
68/88
63/86
Fields
Medford
65/84
Klamath Falls
58/82
Lakeview
54/81
McDermitt
62/81
RECREATION FORECAST SUNDAY
REGIONAL CITIES
MON.
City
Hi/Lo/W Hi/Lo/W
Astoria
67/57/c 68/54/pc
Bend
87/64/t 85/61/t
Boise
83/69/t 83/67/pc
Brookings
61/53/pc 59/51/pc
Burns
84/56/t 85/55/pc
Coos Bay
68/54/c 67/52/pc
Corvallis
88/59/s 88/56/s
Council
81/62/t 80/60/t
Elgin
81/64/t 82/55/pc
Eugene
91/61/pc 92/59/s
Hermiston
87/71/c 96/64/pc
Hood River
88/70/c 94/64/pc
Imnaha
85/67/t 86/60/c
John Day
87/65/t 89/61/t
Joseph
75/59/t 79/58/t
Kennewick
85/73/c 96/64/pc
Klamath Falls 82/52/t 85/51/pc
Lakeview
81/52/t 83/53/pc
Boise
71/83
Shown is Sunday’s weather. Temperatures are Saturday night’s lows and Sunday’s highs.
SUN.
66/90
Silver Lake
56/80
71/97
51/61
Juntura
59/84
65/97
Brookings
Ontario
68/85
57/87
Chiloquin
Grants Pass
Huntington
59/83
67/87
Oakridge
64/81
71/83
Seneca
Bend
54/68
ALMANAC
63/87
65/90
Council
62/79
John Day
65/90
Sisters
61/85
84 59
64/82
Baker City
Redmond
55/64
Halfway
Granite
60/73
63/87
64/92
52/63
Eugene
79 57
67/93
60/88
Newport
85 50
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.
97°
54°
Corvallis
86 53
9
61 76 59
Comfort Index™
TUE
Enterprise
61/76
66/80
Monument
76/92
Idanha
Salem
81 51
9
66 80 65
Comfort Index™
Enterprise
MON
Clouds and sun; Partly sunny and Partly sunny and
pleasant
pleasant
pleasant
Elgin
64/81
La Grande
70/89
Maupin
TONIGHT
74/87
Pendleton
The Dalles
Portland
Newberg
76/87
Hood River
72/83
57/71
Lewiston
Walla Walla
79/85
Vancouver
62/83
Forecasts and graphics provided
by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2021
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
87/73/t
80/58/pc
81/64/t
97/67/t
63/51/c
83/55/pc
85/70/t
91/71/c
83/67/c
87/62/pc
81/55/pc
90/64/c
92/65/pc
92/62/pc
82/68/t
96/72/c
79/59/c
87/69/c
Hi/Lo/W
86/67/c
81/55/s
84/56/pc
94/67/s
63/49/pc
82/51/s
85/66/pc
96/62/pc
92/64/pc
88/61/s
77/53/pc
88/57/t
95/63/s
90/60/s
82/64/c
97/68/pc
86/53/pc
89/68/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
A t-storm around
A t-storm around
57
48
75
57
MT. EMILY REC.
BROWNLEE RES.
A t-storm around
A stray t-storm
70
59
83
65
EAGLE CAP WILD.
EMIGRANT ST. PARK
A stray t-storm
More humid, cooler
62
50
74
54
WALLOWA LAKE
MCKAY RESERVOIR
A stray t-storm
Cooler
75
59
85
66
THIEF VALLEY RES.
RED BRIDGE ST. PARK
A t-storm around
A t-storm around
79
60
80
65