Greenish

The first thing you notice is the color. Then the smell. And finally the sounds. I was feeling the need to get out of the house and made an escape to the Historic Columbia River Highway, a short drive away. The gorge towered above me on my right. The river powered along on my left with an eagle riding the updrafts overhead. I have driven along this road many times in my life and it has always felt like another world nearby. A U.S. National Scenic Area, the highway is dotted with waterfalls and trails, the high vista viewpoint of Crown Point and mossy walled canyon streams. It’s crown jewel is Multnomah Falls. The second highest falls in the U.S., it drops 620 feet before spilling over to a second shorter fall. It’s quite spectacular and a great place to get a soft ice cream cone.

The highway was built between 1913 and 1922. It served as a way for the city folk of Portland to experience the scenic pleasures of the Columbia River Gorge as well as being the first major roadway along the river itself. It was considered a technical and civic achievement because of its challenging engineering and sensitivity to the surrounding environment. The highway hugs the cliffs of the gorge and passes through rock carved tunnels before weaving its way down to the river’s edge immersed in old-growth fir, maple, ash, and cottonwood forest.

I parked the car and stepped onto the Horsetail Falls trail on a sunny and mild, but cool, late winter morning. Although there were other cars in the lot, I seemed to be completely alone. My youthful recollections of these trails are vague and fleeting, but what I remember most is completely sensory—the color, smell, and sounds.

Green is an intense color to be completely surrounded by. Gorge trails glow and vibrate with the colors emerald and jade. Olive and pea. Hunter and kelly. The air smells virescent. Trees are covered with age old moss like bearded chartreuse elves or wooly teddy bears the color of absinthe. Ferns cling to damp cliff walls like mustaches sprouting from crevices of sage and black fungus. Below your feet the dark brown earth grits and crunches as you step over exposed roots of trees, fallen limbs overgrown with lichen, and speckled gray stones. The moist scent of soil mixes with tree bark and the sharpness of cold, clean mountain runoff. The silence is full of sound. The roar of falling water, the rush of a determined stream, the trickle of droplets on a rock wall, the hush of wind high in the trees, and the chirps and whistles of birds.

At one point during my stroll, my mobile rang. It was my friend Jason in New York. When I answered the forest faded and I was instantaneously standing at 57th and 5th. I felt the solid, sparkling concrete beneath my feet. I saw the yellow river of taxis heading cross-town. I heard the sounds of hurried footfalls, honking horns, and rumbling subway. I smelled the food, fragrance, and fuel swirl around me. I knew it all intimately and saw it before me like I never left. I felt dissociated; out-of-body. Simultaneously in a forested gorge and the canyons of NYC. Then I suddenly missed New York. I missed it’s energy that moves you through the day as I paused in the breezy quiet. It's familiarity of places and friends as I stood alone in the wild woods. It’s expanse of diversity and experience as I perched overlooking the vast landscape. It’s tumult of culture and sophistication. The sensation of never being solitary. For a moment I wasn’t sure where I was suppose to be. But I knew I was far from home.

As I hung up, the wind on my face brought me back to where I was, standing on the sunny path that crunched beneath my feet. Back to the moment before I was transported by the ringing of a phone. The green and the earth and the water came back into focus. The luxury of being alone washed over me. I started walking again; back down the trail to where I parked the car leaving behind the portal to my other life. I passed through the trees wondering who thought of me so far away. Who remembers what I look like or the sound of my voice — except for the call, I hadn’t spoken to a soul in days.

I got in the car and sat behind the wheel for a moment staring into space. I watched the scene before me— a raging waterfall; an ancient stone fence; a grove of moss covered pine. I realized I wanted both city and forest, and felt the pull of two lives. I still felt a bit dissociated and tried to focus. I was conscious of the distance from a life I am still connected to and the present strangeness of a familiar place where I don’t belong. When I turned the ignition and pulled on to the old highway, I knew what I had to do. I needed a soft ice cream cone. And then, I would figure out how to find my way home.

(To view a few photo selections from this hike, click here.)