Wahclella Falls

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A few photos of Wahclella Falls, one of my favorite waterfalls in the Columbia Gorge. At some point last year I realized I hadn't been there in quite a few years, and had precisely zero photos of the falls, so I made the trip, did the easy hike in to the falls, and took way too many photos. And as is usual when I take too many photos, when I start trying to sort through and pick a few to post, I get a headache and quit iPhoto and don't look at them again for six months or a year. Which is more or less what happened here.

The one upside to this is that I always have a backlog of reasonably bloggable photos sitting around for times like this when I feel like doing a new post, but the trees are bare and grey and the weather's uncooperative. So there's that. I mean, some people might take this opportunity to go without photos and write about life, art, or politics instead. But I've already tried the political blogging thing once and I found it stressful and unrewarding. Meanwhile life is pleasantly boring, generally speaking, and would make for blog posts even more uninteresting than the stuff I do post about. And I always seem to need photos when I talk about art here (and those photos tend to sit around in iPhoto for months first, just like everything else).

So anyway, Wahclella Falls at the same exit off I-84 as Bonneville Dam, but on the opposite side of the freeway. A short drive gets you to a Forest Service parking lot, which has a fee of a few dollars. It's annoying, and I should point out that they do actually check now and then whether you're parked legally. Besides, if the Forest Service has a revenue shortfall, the difference just gets tacked on to the federal debt; you'll end up paying eventually one way or the other, so you might as well just pay now.

The initial segment of the hike is on a flat service road, until you get to a weir or flood control widget of some sort. After that it's a regular old trail. You'll pass little Munra Falls early on. Then you continue hiking in until you get to the main event, where the trail ends. There are a couple of forks in the trail, but they all end up in the same place and form a loop. It's really that simple. There aren't intersections with other trails to worry about, or any steep technical sections, and it's only 2 miles in and back, and the scenery stays interesting. I did it as a kid a few times & never thought it was a big deal. What's more, the place gets overlooked a lot, and I don't recall it ever being remotely crowded when I was there. And I can say with a fair bit of confidence that nothing has ever become fashionable or popular after I wrote about it here in the 6+ years this humble blog has graced the interwebs. So it's likely to still be uncrowded if you take my advice and go.

alarm, o'bryant square

park & couch

park & oak

moss, o'bryant square

shadows on high water

january roses

Cherry Blossom No. 1 (2K12 Edition)

As seen at the usual location, the two cherry trees at NW 19th & Lovejoy. That sounds like an absurdly specific place to go look for the year's first cherry blossoms, but it's been true for at least the last 4 years or so.

Marion Street Bridge

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The next bridge in the ongoing project is Salem's Marion Street Bridge. Built in 1952, it's somewhat more attractive than the Center St. Bridge, but it's still not what I'd call a visual treat. The bridge supports have a sort of pointed arch motif to them, similar to Portland's St. Johns Bridge, but in this case I'm not really sure why. Maybe the designer was just a big fan of pointed arches.

One downside of being built in 1952 is that the pedestrian walkway (there's only one, on the north side of the bridge) is pretty narrow. I tend to assume that midcentury bridges are like this because designers figured nobody would walk anywhere in the future. I can't prove that, but it sounds kind of reasonable to me. Anyway, it's narrower than the Center St. bridge walkway, and walking across is just as noisy due to the heavy traffic. I did a loop starting on the Salem side, across the Center St. and back across the Marion St., and I'd have to say the only reason to do this (other than as your daily commute, I suppose) would be purely for the sake of completeness. I'd be very surprised if this pops up on anyone's list of Top 10 Things To Do In Salem.

Just to verify that, I started searching the net for Top 10 lists about Salem. Here's one, which doesn't mention anything about bridges. It does mention going to Portland as #7 on the list, which seems like cheating to me. It also mentions the A.C. Gilbert museum, which sits next to the west end of the Marion St. Bridge. So you'll at least see the bridge, and maybe even park next to a pointed arch. So there's that. Another Top 10 list is less helpful; it's either auto-generated, or was compiled by someone who'd never been to Salem. As far as it's concerned your options are either guided walking tours (lots of them), or river rafting. And not all of the options are even in Oregon. So you can probably ignore that list. A top 5 list actually mentions a lot more than five things to do. It even shows a covered bridge, and mentions the A.C. Gilbert museum. But again, nothing about Willamette River bridges. So apparently this is our little secret for the time being, o Gentle Reader(s). (We really need to come up with cooler secrets, quite honestly.)

Center Street Bridge

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Today's installment in the ongoing bridge project takes us south to Salem's Center Street Bridge. The present-day bridge is pretty boring; the one semi-interesting detail is that it's the fourth bridge at this location (the part about bridges is somewhat down the page):

1. Built in 1880, the first Center Street Bridge was the very first bridge over the Willamette River. It was short-lived, however, collapsing during a flood in 1890.
2. The 1891 replacement was built in a hurry and was considered structurally unsound almost from the day it opened. It still took the city almost 20 years to replace it, however.
3. The 1918 bridge lasted much longer than its predecessors; it was renovated in 1953 after the Marion St. Bridge opened downstream of it, and was finally demolished in 1969.
4. The current bridge dates to around 1969 or so. It's actually kind of hard to find reliable information about it. The Wikipedia article makes it sound like the current bridge dates to 1918, even though a quick glance makes it obvious that this isn't the case.

The bridge is four lanes of eastbound traffic, with a pedestrian walkway on the north side, protected from vehicles by a concrete barrier. There's a long spiral ramp up to the bridge from the Salem waterfront, while on the West Salem side the walkway descends into a tangle of highway exits and underpasses. I haven't tried locating the walkway from that side, but I expect it's kind of challenging if you don't already know where it is.

There's suprisingly little to see while walking across the bridge. You see the city's two other bridges downstream, and trees along the riverbanks, and the tops of some low-rise buildings, but Salem is really not oriented toward the river. It hasn't been a commercial port for many decades now, and the idea of chic riverfront cafes doesn't appear to have caught on. Certain Salem-based relatives would argue that the idea of chic anything would have a hard time catching on in Salem -- but I don't live there and I honestly don't know the place that well, so I'm not going to editorialize. I do have a link to pass along though; after the debut of IFC's Portlandia, Salem residents on Twitter began speculating about what a "Salemia" show would be like. The results were pretty amusing, though a bit depressing.

For some reason, one of the conventions around this ongoing bridge project involves warning you about various implausible hazards that might befall you while innocently strolling across the bridge. Based on past history, the most likely candidate would be the city deciding it's time to build the fifth Center Street Bridge, and start demolishing the current one while you're still on it. It's not a city that does anything quickly, though. There's a current proposal out there to build an additional bridge in the greater Salem area, and it'll be years before they'll even break ground on it, if they ever do. So chances are you'll have had plenty of warning -- months or years, probably -- plus I just told you there was a miniscule but nonzero chance it might happen. So can't say you weren't warned.

cargo ship at dusk, waikiki

fremont st., 8mm

glacia

A few photos of the funky "Glacia" ice feature at the Crystals mall in Vegas, which I took while wandering through and not buying anything. A CityCenter press release describes it:

At the entrance, Glacia “cools” guests with large pillars of carved ice that rise as tall as 15 feet. And “rise” is the operative word, as these columns emerge silently from a pristine pool, ascending slowly upward as immense monoliths of frozen water. As each ice monument rises, it is carved at water level into intricate, three-dimensional patterns. Colored lighting combines with the varied ice clarities --sometimes crystal clear, sometimes frosty white-- to produce a visual experience that never repeats itself. Grammy winner Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead is creating a “tonal poem” to accompany this visual surprise.

WET Design describes it in similar terms:

WET's cutting-edge creations help to reveal a world of fascination and wonder at every turn at CityCenter in Las Vegas. The water designs play an integral role in producing an immediate feeling of elegance and surprise throughout the grounds. Crystals, the stunning retail and entertainment district, designed by architects Studio Daniel Libeskind and Rockwell Group, houses Glacia and Halo, two cutting-edge features that exist in pure harmony with one another. Glacia "cools" guests with large pillars of carved ice that rise as tall as 15 feet. As each ice monument rises, it is magically whittled into intricate, three dimensional patterns. Mesmerizing hues bathe this poised feature in spectral light to produce a one-of-a-kind sensory experience. Grammy winner Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead is creating a "tonal poem" to accompany this visual surprise.

halo

A short video clip of the "Halo" water feature inside the Crystals mall in Las Vegas. A CityCenter press release describes it thusly:

Halo materializes as a series of water vortices held captive within clear cylinders that thrust up through the floor. Sloped, as though about to fall, the swirling water appears caught in constant struggle to right itself with its inherent sense of verticality. These swirls of color serve as a main focal point of the atrium. In between stops at Louis Vuitton and Gucci, guests and visitors are free to walk through and touch or embrace this maze of spinning water while staying completely dry. WET’s elemental features at CityCenter set the spirit for the sophisticated experience that visitors to this unprecedented destination will enjoy.

WET Design, the firm behind all of the CityCenter water widgets, has this to say about it:

WET's cutting-edge creations help to reveal a world of fascination and wonder at every turn at CityCenter in Las Vegas. The water designs play an integral role in producing an immediate feeling of elegance and surprise throughout the grounds. Crystals, the stunning retail and entertainment district, designed by architects Studio Daniel Libeskind and Rockwell Group, houses Glacia and Halo, two cutting-edge features that exist in pure harmony with one another. The unexpected nature of Halo's twisting water vortices, tipped as though about to fall, enlivens Crystals' shopping experience and presents a sense of mystique for guests wandering among the lavish shops. Visitors are free to stroll through, touching or embracing this maze of spinning water, all the while staying completely dry.

countdown clock (post-launch)

countdown clock (pre-launch)

bellagio fountain (night)

bellagio fountain (day)

river fog