Wow! Winter is roaring back to high dessert country after the last post. However, Suzie and I had a great preview of spring by crossing over to the west side of the Cascades since then. I continue to be amazed at the variety of climates in the varied topography of Oregon.

We headed into the central Willamette Valley so I could do a tag team presentation on the Williamson River with John Hyde of Yamsi Ranch. The location was the 2012 Northwest Fly Tyer & Fly Fishing Expo, March 9 & 10, in Albany, OR. It is one of the largest Fly Fishing events west of the Mississippi. Not only did I help present, I attended some 6 classes to brush up on aspects of fly fishing and, especially, learn some new things from knots to "Euronymphing." Always interesting is biology and behavior of fish (and humans) and the interplay behind the reasons many things are done the way they are. Learning is always valuable, and most of the time fun too. I had a good time and I hope John and the rest of the members of the Klamath Country Fly Casters club that were able to be there did too.

We are headed home now as I have been typing (and Suzie drives us up Oregon 58 toward a snowy Willamette Pass). So we are leaving behind the green grass and blooming daffodils, various plums, Western Redbud, and occasional early blooming apple tree. There are even palm trees and bamboo thickets around the valley from Albany to Portland, artificially propagated of course. I did not see any banana trees, although I would not be surprised to see them planted somewhere in the Willamette Valley in the summer.

We stayed overnight in the Portland area while I commuted to the Expo. That means we dropped to less than 100' above sea level at times. On the return it is like this: we passed 3,000' on the west slope of the Cascades and back into winter. I was thinking of breaking up this blog by submitting some it in parts, but now we are out of service in the rugged valleys of the upper Willamette watershed. I'll have to wait.

We started seeing patchy snow on the ground at just under 2,000'. At 3,000' there was general snow on the ground with snow in the air. At nearly 4,000' there is fresh snow all over the boughs of the trees, a couple of feet of snow, and we have left most of the deciduous trees below. 

Since I have some extra time before I can publish this I'll tell you more. At 6:51pm we passed Salt Creek Falls State Park. Salt Creek Falls is the second highest falls in Oregon, permanent, and very impressive. Access to the public is easy in summer (which comes very late) with a nice parking lot and short paved trails to the overlook. Other trails around the falls can be very rugged. The falls, in summer, is the home of a Black Swift colony (see the eBird article Black Swift Wintering Grounds Discovered). They are large for swifts, looking a lot like oversize Chimney Swifts, and are difficult to find.This is one of the relatively easiest places to add one to your life list, if you wish. They like to hide their nests in the rocks behind the waterfalls and often leave early in the morning. They often do not come back until late in the day, even when young are in the nests (provoking some scientific studies on the amazing metabolism of both the young and adults). How would you like to be able to fly all day (or maybe, go 12 hours or more without eating)??!!!

At just over 5,000' we crossed Willamette Pass. There looked to be over 5' of snow along the road. The Willamette Pass ski resort was open. Actually, this is not much snow for this time of year! We are having a very dry year and definitely need lots more precipitation, especially a pile of snow in the mountains to keep us watered in the valleys below this summer. The broken weather systems that have been hitting the northwest coast since Saturday evening are supposed to continue with off and on precipitation beyond the 10-day forecast. The Cascades will most likely receive all of it as snow. It could be a summer with lots of wildfires if we don't have better snowpack.

It's all a very fascinating creation we find ourselves in.