High scarps of Chugwater sandstone along Bar-C Road near Barnum in central Wyoming
Postcards from the bucket list
The soaring walls of Hoback canyon near the headwaters of the Snake River
For at least fifty years I’ve had a fascination with the Snake River. It meets the Columbia within walking distance of my mother’s childhood home in east Pasco, at Sacajawea Park, where I first tasted root beer and learned from my grandfather how to toss horseshoes.
My father, a photography buff, was keen on Ansel Adams. It was in one of Adams’s compilations that I first saw Adams’s majestic 1942 image, The Tetons and the Snake River, photographed near the source of a river which, if its undulations were unfolded, would be more than a thousand miles from Pasco. The Tetons rise to stunning peaks with year-round snow. The terrain at Pasco rolls like pizza dough. I was fascinated by the distance and the contrast. Some day, I figured, I’d have to go take a closer look, to visit the terrain near the source of the Snake.
I got my chance last summer, on my way to my uncle’s 90th birthday party. After visiting the upper canyon of the Snake between Alpine and Hoback Junction, I followed the Hoback River through its canyon, north of the junction. It’s a magnificent route. I pulled off to take a short hike, noticed cougar tracks in the silt along the river bank, took the photo (above) and got back in my car.
A few minutes later, driving south toward Rock Springs, the driver’s side window exploded, showering me with shattered glass. I couldn’t figure out what caused the window to disintegrate. There were no other cars on the road; no signs of anybody with a brick or a gun. A genuine mystery. Weeks passed. Back in town, someone broke into my car, by shattering the passenger side window. I’d just finished paying for the new window I just happened to notice something black wedged between the passenger seat and the console. It was a thin, sharp blade of basalt, six inches long and about an inch wide. Mystery solved. It had broken loose from the high cliff above the highway and, as it gathered speed in its descent, its winged-shape allowed it to fly laterally just enough to smash through the window. It must have missed my carotid by a fraction of an inch. Long story short, it’s good to still be here a year later and share the tale, and some of my favorite photos from other memorable journeys well off the beaten paths. —tjc
Mists at Olympic Beach #4, north of Klaloch, WA
Sonoran desert north of Tucson, Arizona
Blooming Canola in the eastern Palouse, near Viola, Idaho
Rabbitbrush and pillars from long ago volcanic mud flows (lahars) at the Clarno unit of the John Day Fossil beds near Antelope, Oregon
Wind-carved 2.8 billion year-old granite at the top of the Bighorn Mountains in northern Wyoming
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Equestrian area beneath “Gibraltar” rock—a huge muffin of granite uncovered by the Ice Age floods and a popular climbing destination in upper Grand Coulee. The basalt plateau in the distance is Steamboat Rock, home to one of Washington’s premier campgrounds
Rock Creek on its course to join the Palouse River, at the Escure Ranch recreational property in eastern Whitman County
Audrey atop Round Mountain (looking east into the Yakima River drainage) in the Goat Rocks Wilderness at the peak of a father/daughter hike in 2022
Very Cool! Thank You…