The Steppes of Eastern Washington & Oregon
The morning grew in color as the sun rose, pinking the top of Mt. Hood and making the golden hills glow as a healthy coat of fur. We exited the lock of The Dalles, leaving behind a line of barge traffic waiting their turn. Fall on the Columbia and Snake Rivers is a busy time for farmers exporting their grains. Other containers were busy with ferrying wood chips to pulp mills, and long lines of train cars trundled by on both sides with who knew what going where.
Several changes have been noticeable since my last season here, namely the significant increase in windmills. The hillsides are becoming forested with wind farms, which alongside vineyards are the most outstanding features now on both sides of the Columbia River (besides the floods of basalt lava, of course).
By the time we finished breakfast, our timing had us entering an area known as “Hell’s Gate,” a narrow passage between the Washington shoreline and Miller’s Island. Up close and personal, we spied geese, herons, ducks, grebes, egrets, pelicans, cormorants and mule deer – a species first described by Lewis and Clark on their trip west.
Today is a day of travel, in distance as well as time, and Bob Gatten took us back in history, introducing us to the Corps of Discovery, their journey, their members and their leaders. Much of the wildlife we saw while cruising was probably very similar to that seen by the Corps of Discovery in their day, though the shape, meaning and essence of the river has been irrevocably changed over the centuries by the hand of man.
To celebrate our first day on board and our journey east past all the wineries on the shores of this mighty river, we enjoyed wine tasting in the early evening savored along with other delicacies of the region (jams, chocolates, salmon…are you salivating yet?), and by dinner we had transited the last of the four locks on the Columbia River, and set our course for the Snake River ahead.
