HIKING ALONG WET EMERALD WALLS

The sun's AWOL today but it kept the big dog and I company yesterday during our hike along Eagle Creek, forty miles east of Portland in the Columbia Gorge. Very few flowers and that's the way I like it right now, my need to BE THERE and SEE IT HAPPEN so incredibly overwhelming I'd just as soon find nothing in bloom if only to know I haven't missed anything.

Weird.

The path is narrow and the drop-off steep during the first mile of the hike so looking up is done at one's own peril. Nevertheless, there are places along the path where the view up is the view to beat, as drops of water like chips of diamonds sprinkle down from overhead cliffs, seeping into the emerald wall of an awakening spring.