COFFEE BREAK
B6 — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD
SATuRDAY, JuLY 9, 2022
Friend runs background check on old classmate’s boyfriend
involved in several barroom
brawls and had been arrested
more than once. He recognized
that his abuse of alcohol was
at the root of his problem and
decided to quit drinking. Over the
years he has worked hard to turn
his life around, and he hasn’t been
in any sort of trouble since.
I believe everyone deserves a
second chance. However, I told
him that if he decided to resume
drinking and/or got arrested for
any reason, I would have nothing
further to do with him. He hasn’t.
I didn’t share that information
with Tina because it really isn’t
any of her business.
Unbeknownst to me, Tina
decided to conduct a background
DEAR ABBY: Even though
I have lived in a different state
for many years, I’ve remained in
touch with a female friend I’ll call
“Tina” from high school, mostly
via text messaging. For the last
12 years, I have been in a rela-
tionship with a man who has been
very good to me. We are not mar-
ried and we don’t live together.
When I first met him, he told
me that many years ago, when
he was very young, he had been
jealous. Whatever the reason, she
owes you an apology — if you are
still speaking to her, that is.
DEAR ABBY: My best friend
often asks me to do errands for
her, such as stop someplace and
pick something up for her. It is
usually close to where I live or
work or on my way home. I don’t
always like doing it. In fact, I
resent it.
An occasional favor is fine,
but this happens way too often.
How do I tell her “no” when it is
somewhere I have to drive right
by? Once I told her I didn’t think
I’d have time (the truth at that
moment), and she said I could do
it later, when I had the time! She
walks with a cane, but this started
search on my boyfriend. One day,
out of the blue, she sent me his
“mugshot” and other details from
40 years ago, asking me if that
was him. I can’t believe she did
that, and I feel like it was crossing
the line. I can’t comprehend what
she hoped to accomplish. How
would you advise me to handle
this situation? — SIMPLY
STUNNED IN FLORIDA
DEAR STUNNED: I would
advise you to lose your “friend”
and keep the man with whom you
have the relationship. Tina was a
furlong out of bounds to send you
the information without first dis-
cussing it with you. She may have
done it in an attempt to “warn”
you, or perhaps because she’s
Continued from Page B1
The situation was similar along
the West Fork trail, which accesses
Minam Lake and the Copper
Creek trail, he said.
Trails that start near the south
end of Wallowa Lake are also
snowbound higher in the wilder-
ness, Wall said.
The East Fork Wallowa River
trail, which leads to Aneroid
Lake and connects to other trails,
including Polaris Pass and trails in
the upper Imnaha River area, was
covered with snow in places below
Aneroid Lake.
Trail crews have cleared the
West Fork Wallowa River trail to
the Six Mile Meadow area, Wall
said, and the side trail to Ice Lake
is snow-free to about two miles
below the lake.
In the southern Wallowas,
Wall said hikers made it to Eagle
Meadows along the Main Eagle
trail, although they encoun-
tered some snowdrifts. Deeper
snow blocked the trail above the
meadow, including the route to
Eagle and Cached lakes, as well
as side trails to Bear, Culver and
Lookingglass lakes.
A four-member Forest Ser-
vice trail crew has been working
recently on the Imnaha River trail
above Indian Crossing camp-
ground, Wall said.
That project, paid for with a
grant from the Oregon Parks and
Recreation Department, will con-
tinue into the summer, he said.
The goal is not only to clear fallen
trees from the trail, including up
to Hawkins Pass and on side trails
that access the upper Imnaha,
but also to improve the tread and
waterbars to drain water from the
trail and reduce erosion — what’s
known as “heavy maintenance,”
Wall said.
Kcia Fletcher/Contributed Photo
Both the Wallowa Mountain
Hells Canyon Trails Associa-
tion, and the Blue Mountain Back
Country Riders, the latter a group
of horse riders, maintain dozens
of miles of trails each spring and
summer.
Wall said volunteers and
Forest Service crews combined in
2021 to clear about 300 miles of
trails, primarily in the Eagle Cap
Wilderness.
He expects a similar amount of
work this year.
Russ West, board chairman
for the Wallowa Mountain Hells
Canyon Trails Association, said
snow is still deep in places, partic-
ularly above 7,000 feet of elevation
and on shaded north-facing slopes.
West said the lingering snow
could delay some of the volunteer
organization’s work trips planned
for this summer.
A list of those trips, along with
photo galleries from previous
projects and other information, is
available at wmhcta.org/home.
Wall said the current stretch of
warm, dry weather will accelerate
the snowmelt.
But he cautions wilderness vis-
itors to plan for drifts to persist
well into the summer.
Some of the higher passes in
the Eagle Cap — Horton, Haw-
kins, Frazier, Wilson, Wonker and
Polaris, to name half a dozen —
Astoria
Longview
57/71
Kennewick
55/78
St. Helens
57/79
59/82
Portland
Condon
62/88
SUN
MON
TUE
WED
Sunny and nice
Sunny and
pleasant
Mostly sunny
and hot
Sunshine
84 49
95 56
90 54
Eugene
8
4
8
53/82
89 55
96 63
90 58
7
4
6
Enterprise
51 77 50
Comfort Index™
7
85 57
7
3
8
ALMANAC
NATION (for the 48 contiguous states)
High Thursday
Low Thursday
High: 113°
Low: 23°
Wettest: 5.08”
81°
54°
82°
61°
84°
59°
0.00
0.01
0.15
4.47
5.59
0.00
0.16
0.19
8.92
10.25
0.00
0.32
0.20
17.76
14.72
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
30%
NW at 7 to 14 mph
10.3
0.27
RESERVOIR STORAGE (through midnight Friday)
Phillips Reservoir
Unity Reservoir
Owyhee Reservoir
McKay Reservoir
Wallowa Lake
Thief Valley Reservoir
24% of capacity
86% of capacity
36% of capacity
99% of capacity
24% of capacity
91% of capacity
STREAM FLOWS (through midnight Thursday)
Grande Ronde at Troy
3860 cfs
Thief Valley Reservoir near North Powder 121 cfs
Burnt River near Unity
85 cfs
Umatilla River near Gibbon
88 cfs
Minam River at Minam
1160 cfs
Powder River near Richland
30 cfs
Death Valley, Calif.
Bodie State Park, Calif.
Augusta, Ga.
OREGON
High: 96°
Low: 36°
Wettest: 0.22”
Ontario
Lakeview
Astoria
WEATHER HISTORY
Thunderstorm downburst winds were
implicated in the demise of a Boeing 727
attempting takeoff from New Orleans, La.,
on July 9, 1982. All 145 people aboard
were killed.
SUN & MOON
SAT.
Sunrise
Sunset
Moonrise
Moonset
5:14 a.m.
8:41 p.m.
4:32 p.m.
1:28 a.m.
SUN.
5:14 a.m.
8:41 p.m.
5:54 p.m.
1:58 a.m.
MOON PHASES
Full
Jul 13
Last
Jul 20
New
Jul 28
First
Aug 5
51/83
52/85
Brothers
54/83
Coos Bay
50/81
Beaver Marsh
45/84
Roseburg
55/85
Jordan Valley
55/86
Paisley
46/86
Frenchglen
53/88
Diamond
Grand View
Arock
52/87
64/91
58/90
Fields
58/92
57/90
Klamath Falls
47/88
Lakeview
46/86
McDermitt
55/90
RECREATION FORECAST SUNDAY
REGIONAL CITIES
MON.
City
Hi/Lo/W Hi/Lo/W
Astoria
71/56/pc 75/58/s
Bend
86/55/s 92/61/s
Boise
90/58/s 93/63/s
Brookings
76/61/s 79/58/s
Burns
87/48/s 90/52/s
Coos Bay
69/56/s 74/56/s
Corvallis
82/57/s 90/60/s
Council
87/56/s 94/57/s
Elgin
80/52/s 88/56/s
Eugene
82/57/s 92/62/s
Hermiston
89/58/s 97/62/s
Hood River
82/61/s 94/66/s
Imnaha
85/57/s 89/59/s
John Day
83/52/s 89/58/s
Joseph
77/49/s 86/56/s
Kennewick
89/59/s 95/63/s
Klamath Falls 88/50/s 94/54/s
Lakeview
86/51/s 92/54/s
Boise
62/90
Shown is Sunday’s weather. Temperatures are Saturday night’s lows and Sunday’s highs.
SUN.
56/91
Silver Lake
47/86
Medford
Brookings
Juntura
49/87
56/88
55/76
Ontario
67/92
Burns
42/85
Chiloquin
Grants Pass
Huntington
49/82
53/86
Oakridge
Council
58/87
64/90
Seneca
Bend
55/76
55/85
48/80
John Day
51/87
Sisters
Elkton
Powers
Halfway
Granite
48/76
Baker City
Florence
54/67
THURSDAY EXTREMES
TEMPERATURES Baker City La Grande Elgin
Monument
56/87
Redmond
55/69
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.
56/81
55/80
55/83
54/81
94 58
9
Corvallis
Enterprise
51/77
52/82
Newport
54/66
84 54
54/80
La Grande
56/79
57/85
Idanha
Salem
Mainly clear
9
Elgin
Pendleton
The Dalles
58/80
54/81
TONIGHT
8
61/83
61/85
Newberg
Lewiston
61/86
Hood River
Maupin
Comfort Index™
Forecasts and graphics provided
by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2022
Walla Walla
63/89
Vancouver
55/78
TIllamook
56 81 53
Gary Lewis is the author of Fishing
Central Oregon and Oregon Lake
Maps and Fishing Guide and other
titles. To contact Gary, visit www.
garylewisoutdoors.com
█
AROUND OREGON AND THE REGION
54/73
La Grande
Another way to take
advantage of our time
in the woods is to pick
huckleberries.
On one bear season in
Baker County, with half
a day left in our hunt, we
stopped to pick huckleber-
ries on a forest slope, filling
whatever containers we
could find with the fresh
fruit. It gave me an idea.
Pemmican was the orig-
inal superfood, a blend
of dried meat, dried ber-
ries and bear fat (substi-
tute bison fat, beef tallow,
or coconut oil). I always
wondered what pemmican
tasted like. This was my
chance. Following a recipe
I found online, I blended
mule deer jerky (you could
use bear jerky or elk jerky
or even beef jerky) to
powder and dried huckle-
berries to powder.
Rendering oil on the
stove, I poured it over the
powdered jerky and berries.
The final step was to press
the mixture into a serving
dish. In the morning I tried
pemmican for the first time.
Break off a chunk, let it dis-
integrate on the tongue. It’s
the ultimate carnivore pro-
tein bar.
At this time of year in the
Wallowas, in the Blues and
the Elkhorns, a hunter should
prospect for bears in the high
meadows and old burns.
When the weather is
unseasonably hot, expect to
see bear earlier in the day
and again later in the eve-
ning. But a hunter should
commit to the whole of the
day; bears feed any time
they feel like it.
The snowmelt is further along
in the Elkhorns, northwest of
Baker City, but drifts remain in
sheltered sections of high-elevation
trails such as the Elkhorn Crest
National Recreation Trail, said
Jay Moore, recreation manager for
the Whitman Ranger District on
the Wallowa-Whitman National
Forest.
That 24-mile route, as its name
implies, follows the crest of the
Elkhorns between trailheads near
Anthony Lakes, on the north side,
and at Marble Creek Pass on the
south side.
The north trailhead near
Anthony Lakes is accessed by a
paved road — the Elkhorn Drive
Scenic Byway.
The road to Marble Creek Pass,
by contrast, is a steep, rocky route
better suited to high-clearance,
four-wheel drive vehicles. The
road is somewhat less torturous
than in the past, however, as the
Forest Service, in preparation for
a major reconstruction of the road,
possibly in 2023, did some prelim-
inary work in the fall of 2021, said
Kendall Cikanek, Whitman Dis-
trict ranger.
The road remains quite rough,
but some of the jutting boulders
have been pushed away, and sev-
eral deep gouges partially filled in.
The pass is accessible from the
Sumpter side, but a snowdrift was
still blocking the road, just below
the pass on the Baker side, as of
July 3.
Ice has melted from Killamacue Lake in the Elkhorn Mountains northwest of Baker
City, but snow remains in places on July 6, 2022.
weather
9
Continued from Page B1
Elkhorn Mountains
| Go to AccuWeather.com
9
BEAR
likely will remain snowbound into
August, Wall said.
With just four trail workers
assigned to the Eagle Cap, which
has more than 700 miles of trails,
the efforts of two volunteer groups
is vital, Wall said.
Comfort Index™
Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren,
also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was
founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips.
Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com
or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.
— Sweyn Wall, U.S. Forest Service
recreation program manager for
the Eagle Cap and the Hells Canyon
National Recreation Area
Volunteer groups crucial to
keeping up trails
48 80 48
█
“The snow is hanging
on. At this point we’re
two to three weeks
behind on access
based on the past 10
years or so.”
EAGLE CAPS
Baker City
before she had mobility issues.
How can I say no? — IMPOSED
UPON IN TEXAS
DEAR IMPOSED UPON:
Because you now resent your
“best friend’s” requests to run
her errands, you will have to be
honest with her. Explain that you
didn’t mind doing it once in a
while in the beginning, but this
is happening so often it is getting
to you. Then “suggest” that many
markets and cleaners deliver or
that she use a delivery service.
SUN.
City
Lewiston
Longview
Meacham
Medford
Newport
Olympia
Ontario
Pasco
Pendleton
Portland
Powers
Redmond
Roseburg
Salem
Spokane
The Dalles
Ukiah
Walla Walla
MON.
Hi/Lo/W Hi/Lo/W
86/59/s 91/63/s
78/58/pc 84/58/s
77/50/s 85/54/s
92/60/s 104/68/s
66/54/s 72/55/s
75/51/pc 83/53/s
92/62/s 96/64/s
91/57/s 96/62/s
85/58/s 92/64/s
80/59/s 90/64/s
76/55/s 83/57/s
87/53/s 94/57/s
85/59/s 93/64/s
83/59/s 92/62/s
79/57/pc 87/60/s
88/60/s 98/67/s
77/47/s 83/51/s
83/59/s 89/65/s
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
Plenty of sunshine
Sunny and pleasant
60
44
78
48
MT. EMILY REC.
BROWNLEE RES.
Sunny and nice
Sunny and nice
69
50
87
56
EAGLE CAP WILD.
EMIGRANT ST. PARK
Plenty of sunshine
Sunny and nice
65
43
74
45
WALLOWA LAKE
MCKAY RESERVOIR
Sunshine; pleasant
Sunny and pleasant
77
49
86
59
THIEF VALLEY RES.
RED BRIDGE ST. PARK
Sunny and pleasant
Sunny and nice
80
48
81
53