So… I assembled something from all of the video I took at Falls Creek Falls and Panther Falls. A small taste of a waterfall hike in the forests of Southern Washington.
Two goals… Get out and enjoy a proper PNW forest hike. Yes, we have waterfalls in Hawaii, just not quite the same. Second… Take a pile of photos and video. I do enjoy a day set aside for photography.
The drone made a huge difference. Falls Creek Falls is particular is quite large and impossible to properly capture from the ground. The drone made all the difference, able to sweep along the waterfall from the air or fly right up to unreachable locations and shoot at lovely angles.
For the most part I was just spending time with the folks, a week hanging out and even doing some chores around the house.
I did have one day planned in an otherwise unplanned week… A hike somewhere, a chance to enjoy a bit of summer in a classic Pacific Northwest sort of way. This year it would be waterfalls.
I had two waterfalls picked out… Falls Creek Falls and Panther Falls, both located in the hills above Carson, on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge.
Along with the waterfalls I had one other stop planned, a quick excursion to the new Mitchell Point Tunnel. Add a lunch somewhere along the way and I had a full day.
An important part of the plan was an early start. I left the house at 4am for a dark drive up the gorge for a planned dawn arrival at the trailhead.
The morning dawned clear and beautiful… It should be a great day.
I stand looking at a store my grandfather, or even my great-grandfather, may once have visited while traveling this same way. Given Doty’s location on the main road from Chehalis to Raymond many of my ancestors would have passed through here often enough, perhaps stepping through these same doors.
The building is a typical example of an early 20th century general store, probably originally called a dry-goods store. When the store was constructed, Doty was a lumber mill and railroad town, a bustling place far different than the quiet, rural farming community that exists today. For over a century the store has served this community, offering basic groceries, fuel, and, under the current owners, fresh baked goods.
The railroad is gone, now the Willipa Hills Trail. The main highway now bypasses the tiny town of Doty, you have to drive half a mile across the farm fields to visit this little store, an ambassador from the past that is still a working part of the community.
The groceries on the shelves may be modern products in bright plastic packaging, the cash register now a computer, but the store still feels old… The clapboard construction, the creaky floor, and the smell. The building just smells old, the scent of old wood and old paint. It becomes easy to envision a logger in hob-nailed boots passing through, or a Model-T Ford parked out front.
Doty Mercantile
To my delight, along the back wall there is a little chest freezer where an old childhood memory can be found… Drumstick ice-cream cones. A favorite treat that was once reserved for family road trips and special events. I have always enjoyed these but rarely indulge. This day, traveling with my father to attend a tribal meeting, it seems quite appropriate. Not to mention quite welcome on a warm summer day.
A perfect summer day in the Willapa Hills, and a bit of a drive remaining before our destination. I finish my ice cream before we head out again, down the road to see around the next bend and over the next hill.
Among the petroglyphs at Horsethief Lake is one that has always caused me to wonder. Of course the site is home to the famous Tsagaglalal or She-Who-Watches image. This is not the one I refer to, rather a somewhat smaller and usually overlooked image.
Eclipse Petroglyph at Horsethief LakeTo me this petroglyph is obviously a total solar eclipse.
To my eye the image is clearly that of the solar corona surrounding the black shadow of the Moon against the Sun. The image is all the more striking to me personally… In 1979 I witnessed a total solar eclipse, my first, just a short distance from here, from the bluffs above Maryhill.
