Cherry blossoms and snow in Portland, and a White River snow hike, March 2020

March 19, 2020 / margaretquilts / Leave a comment

Cherry blossoms, Portland waterfront, March 11, 2020

We took our annual walk along the waterfront just as the cherry trees were beginning to bloom.

View from the Burnside Bridge.

Refections of clouds and trees in downtown buildings on this beautiful day:

White River microspike hike, March 12, 2020

On a blue sky day we walked up White River toward Mt Hood. The snow was packed and not deep, so we could wear our micro spikes instead of snow shoes. We walked past our usual stopping point, up the snow covered moraine, to a closer viewpoint of Mt Hood.

Walking along White River toward Mt Hood.

View from our lunch stop – near where the Timberline Trail crosses the river under the snow.

We walked to a high point on the moraine between the ridges.

Closer view of Mt Hood.

Zooming in on the peak – the black speck is a mountain climber.

Dormant lupine and penstemon on the moraine.

Wind patterns.

Hike #32, 5.2 miles, 1000 feet.

Snow in Pdx, March 14, 2020

We had a few inches of snow that did not last long – but added a layer of white to the star magnolia blooms.

I am posting from caronavirus social isolation. We are still allowed to go out walking and hiking as long as we keep our distance. Wishing all who read this patience and good health! There will be a lot of knitting going forward!

First Trilliums of spring

March 15, 2020March 15, 2020 / margaretquilts / Leave a comment

March 2020

On two hikes last week we saw the first trilliums of spring. I also went on the Rose City Yarn Crawl with knitting friends, and to the Portland Art Museum to see the exhibition in honor of the 40th anniversary of the eruption of Mt St Helens.

Tryon Creek State Park, March 4, 2020

Hike #30 of 2020, 3 miles, 400 feet.

Early trillium blooms scattered on the forest floor.

Trillium

Trillium buds unfurling

Other early flowers in the forest:

Indian plum

Skunk cabbage

Oregon grape

Salmon berry

Poetry in the park.

Angel’s Rest, March 9, 2020

Hike #31, 5 miles, 1500 feet.

Trillium and oak’s toothwort on the Angel’s Rest trail.

Trillium blooms on the forest floor.

We were treated to the usual stunning views from the top of Angel’s Rest on this sunny, calm day:

West toward Portland.

North to Silver Star Mountain.

East up the Columbia River.

Knitting

Buttons from Twisted and Close Knit in Portland, and Blizzard in Vancouver.

Portland Art Museum: Volcano! Mount St. Helens in Art

This exhibit marking the 40th anniversary of the Mt St Helen’s eruption is multifaceted – videos, photography, and paintings, depicting the mountain before and after the eruption. We did not live in the area at the time, but have hiked around the mountain often in the past ten years. My favorite paintings were these two vibrant depictions of the eruption:

NZ 2020: Christchurch

March 12, 2020March 12, 2020 / margaretquilts / 2 Comments

Days 1 and 2, January 25 – 26, 2020

We arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand, on a summery Saturday morning, having left winter and Friday behind at the International Dateline somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. We spent the next two days wandering around central Christchurch while adjusting to the 21 hour time leap, the left sided traffic, and the northern sun.

Arts Center

Small bookstore

Bridge of Remembrance

Christchurch is rebuilding after two major earthquakes in 2010 and 2011. New buildings are interleaved with earthquake damaged buildings and construction sites.

Back side of the Arts Center.

Artistic fencing around a construction zone.

The Cathedral has a long way to go:

There were plenty of people about enjoying the parks, shopping, dining and museums. We also came across street performances connected to the International Buskers Festival,

and Chinese New Year.

We visited the Canterbury Museum to get an introduction to Maori and natural history:

Maori and Moa

Greenstone

A bit of geology!

One of the curiosities in the museum was an small intact house decorated abundantly with abalone shells (Paua) by an enthusiastic couple:

We walked through Hagley Park a few times to get to our hotel.

New Zealand Gardens in the Hagley Park Arboretum:

Cabbage tree

Beech

Tree fern

Tilia

Other sites in Hagley park:

Peacock Fountain

Rose garden

Herbaceous border

echinacea

Punting on the Otakaro/Avon River

Sundial in the rose garden

magpie

We didn’t have enough time to see everything, but we knew we would be back in Christchurch in two weeks, so maybe we would see more then!

Meanwhile, in Portland…

March 7, 2020 / margaretquilts / Leave a comment

Back in Portland after our trip to New Zealand, we were greeted by blooming daffodils, hyacinths and wind flowers.

wind flowers

last crocuses

hyacinths

daffodils

Catherine Creek hike, February 27, 2020

We went to Catherine Creek in the eastern Columbia River Gorge to see what early blooming spring flowers were still on view. We lucked upon a windless, blue sky day, with Mt Hood reflected in the Columbia River. Grass widows were waning, desert parsleys, gold stars, yellow bells and buttercups were emerging.

grass widows and gold stars

yellow bells

spring whitlow grass

Saxifrege, grass widows, and prairie stars

Salt and pepper and grass widow

buttercup

Columbia desert parsley

desert parsley

We hiked the lower paved loop, then the upper Bitterroot Trail above the fairy ponds all the way up Sunflower Hill to Atwood Road. We walked down the connector trail to Rowland Wall, for the first time.

Trail connection to Rowland Wall

Going down Rowland Wall.

We still want to try the inside out switchback on the upper Shoestring Trail that we missed last time. I love that there are so many trails to follow in this area, and that each visit during the next couple of months will present a different wildflower suite.

Hike #29, 5.5 miles, 1300 feet.

Knitting

I knit a small amount while in New Zealand.

Geology shawl, and my current traveling socks.

A month in New Zealand…

March 2, 2020March 27, 2020 / margaretquilts / 4 Comments

Kia ora! I am back from a month in New Zealand! I prescheduled a few posts to publish while traveling, including three long overdue quilt history posts, which were the whole reason I started this blog in the first place. We never know how life will surprise us – the blog turned into something completely different, and the trip to New Zealand brought me more surprises than I could have imagined!

A year ago, when my husband and life partner of 40 years was planning his exit from a more than full time career of work in the medical field, he wanted to go far away for a long time. New Zealand had been unattainable to us because he always had to check in to work, even when on vacation. New Zealand is 21 hours ahead of Oregon. Today there hasn’t happened yet here – almost like time traveling! We booked a tour with an adventure hiking company for the first two weeks, and planned independent travel for the second two weeks, then let it all rest in our internet files until the January 2020 retirement date arrived.

We were on the South Island of New Zealand from January 23rd to February 23rd, and enjoyed every minute! Every day brought new surprises – mountain landscapes, active glaciers, active earthquake faults, metamorphic rocks, fiords, foliage, birds, whales, volcanoes, rainbows, different groceries, different stars, different social norms; all keeping me alert and invigorated with daily doses of novelty to wake up the slumbering brain cells of the gray Oregon winter.

It will take me a long time to fully process and write about it all, as we rejoin life on our side of the world. It was a completely refreshing experience, in a place I could never have imagined, and now will never forget!

Earthquake damage

tree fern

Castle Hill

Paparoa

Rata

Nikau palm

Pancake Rocks

Franz Josef glacier

Lake Wakatipu

Doubtful Sound

Kepler Track

Waihoaka, Southland

Remarkables from Ben Lomand

Kea, Ben Lomand

Poetry in Queenstown

Moonrise over Lake Ohau, alpenglow on Aoraki Mt Cook

Aoraki Mt Cook

Aoraki Mt Cook, Lake Punakaki

Onawe Pa, Akaroa

Mt John

Lake Tekapo

White Bluffs, Lake Tekapo

Dunedin Train Station

Royal Albatross Center

Blue penguins

Aramoana beach

St Kilda’s

Moeraki

Kaikoura

Sperm whale

Oh the geology! Kaikoura

Fur seals, Ohau Overlook

Rainbow, Cloudy Bay

Queen Charlotte Sound

Next NZ2020 Post: Christchurch, days 1 and 2

Rowland Wall, WA, and a Darning Pile

November 27, 2019November 25, 2019 / margaretquilts / Leave a comment

November 16, 2019

We left Portland’s dense fog behind as we drove through the Columbia River Gorge to Catherine Creek Recreation Area east of White Salmon, WA. The fog was lifting to the east. I saw the wintering swans in Mirror Lake below Crown Point as we drove past.

Driving east on I-84 toward Crown Point.

Those tiny white dots are swans at freeway speed.

The upper reaches of the Catherine Creek area were still under fog as we hiked upward on the Rowland Wall trail.

Fog above us.

Orange oak trees, black volcanic rocks, golden grasses, Ponderosa pines, Rowland Lake.

Rowland Pinnacle

The clouds rose higher as we zigzagged up the trail.

Mt Hood in view as the clouds lift.

A relic apple tree from some past life.

Apples

Blue sky!

We lost the trail when hiking here last year and returned the way we came. Today we lost the trail again, but we were close enough to the top to bushwhack our way up to Atwood Road.

Lunch view – toward our starting point just beyond the Rowland Wall cliff.

After eating lunch with a stunning view of the land rolling away beneath us – river, cliffs, orchards of Mosier, we hiked down Sunflower Hill. At the edge of Rowland Wall, we saw the other end of the connecting trail we missed – we will find it next time! A story in every trail. Not many other people here today. We returned to Portland which was reported to be under cloud all day.

Walking down Sunflower Hill,

to the edge of Rowland Wall – reflections in Rowland Lake.

Orchards of Mosier across the Columbia River.

Mt Hood

Another train

Pre wildflower bonus shot:

Bitteroot foliage.

Hike #53, 5.1 miles, 1100 feet.

Knitting

I continue to make progress on my Meris Cardigan – but at three or four 300 stitch rows a day, it is slow going. That includes a little extra knitting when I have to find a dropped yarn over in the lace repeats. Meanwhile, I have isolated my Darning Pile – I hope I can show it finished by next week.

Three pairs of sock toes, and a sweater with a few holes.

Hiking to St Helens Lake / A Peek at Beatlemania and Halloween in Portland

November 5, 2019November 5, 2019 / margaretquilts / Leave a comment

St Helen’s Lake, Sunday, October 27, 2019

We hiked from Johnson Ridge Observatory in Mt St Helens National Volcanic Monument to the St Helens Lake overlook for stunning 360 degree views. It was cold, but not too windy.

From the trailhead, Coldwater Peak is the highest point in view. St Helens Lake is tucked behind the ridgeline on the right, behind the arch.

Frost along the trail,

and Mt St Helens, herself.

Nearing our destination, nice view of Mt Adams and Spirit Lake.

One last ridge to traverse.

Lunch view and turnaround point – St Helens Lake. Mt Rainier, about 40 miles away, peeking over the ridgeline of the Mt Margaret backcountry.

Zooming in on Mt Rainier,

the Goat Rocks,

Spirit Lake, the silhouette of Mt Hood, and Mt St Helens, with Harry’s Ridge in the foreground.

One last look at St Helens Lake before heading down.

This entire area is off limits to off trail exploring, so there is no trail to the lakeshore. Before the 1980 eruption, the bare slopes were covered with soil and forest. New plants are growing, but the relic tree stumps and log rafts remain as they were after the blast.

Closer view of the 39.5 year old log rafts.

Zooming in on the dome and glacier in Mt St Helen’s crater.

We hiked partway up Harry’s Ridge on the return.

Another view of Spirit Lake and Mt Adams from Harry’s Ridge.

And a last look at Mt St Helens in afternoon light.

Some details:

We met a birder on the return trip who was very excited to have spotted this Northern Pygmy Owl on a fir tree. Nice display of tree stumps and blast-oriented logs in the background.

Northern pygmy owl.

A few very late wild strawberry blooms along the trail, nestled into the pumice..

(Hike #50, 10 miles, 2300 feet)

Downtown Portland

I met a friend at the Portland Historical Society Museum to see a photo exhibit about the making of flax into linen in the 1930s. It was fascinating, but not photogenic. I popped in to see an exhibit celebrating The Beatles’ 1965 concert in Portland. I was a preteen when the Beatles invaded, but my older sister swept us into fandom with her enthusiasm, and their music is timeless. My own children have had their Beatle years. We visited Abbey Road in London, and then went on the Magical Mystery Tour and to the Beatles Museum in Liverpool during our UK trip in 2011. It was fun to see a little slice of Beatlemania in PDX.

We had plenty of Beatle magazines and trading cards at my house, but not this game. It’s funny now to think how shockingly long their hair was considered- it looks pretty clean cut by today’s standards.

It was a gorgeous fall day in downtown Portland.

Oregon Historical Society Museum

First Congregational Church

Central Library

Neighborhood Witches and more:

There are many elaborate halloween decorations in my neighborhood to enjoy while out walking and admiring the beautiful fall colors on the day before Halloween.

The light was just right to bring out the face on this tree.

Eagle and salmon carved from a cedar that had to be removed.

A September Wedding, and a visit to The Getty Museum in Los Angeles

October 3, 2019 / margaretquilts

September 20-22, 2019. We flew from Portland to Los Angeles for another very happy wedding. Once again we spent most of the weekend biding time with family. This was also a ‘return to the past’ weekend – I grew up in the northern San Fernando Valley. No family members live near there anymore, so I haven’t been to the area in a very long time. I was looking forward to seeing some of my past geography.

On Friday we flew out of the clouds in Portland. I was lucky to get a window seat, my favorite part of flying.

Mt Rainier, Mt St Helens and Mt Adams poking out of the clouds.

Mt Hood

Clouds dispersed at the California border. The landscape of central California, the Sierra Nevada Mountains and then the transverse ranges north of Los Angeles were on view.

Lake Tahoe

Central Valley farmland

San Fernando Valley

We flew over The Getty Museum in Sepulveda Pass. The Italian travertine building stone really stands out in the landscape.

We circled near the Hollywood Hills before landing at LAX.

Wilshire Boulavard

The Hollywood Sign

Los Angeles River

After renting a car, we drove back to the Getty Museum. It was built after I moved away for college, so this was my first visit. The architecture is stunning, geometric, pleasing.

We wandered through a few of the many galleries, admiring paintings and photography. The most iconic is this iris painting by Vincent van Gogh.

The gardens were overflowing with seasonal flowers. Somewhere on these paths our wedding couple got engaged.

I was especially excited to see a blooming and fruit-laden pomegranate tree – another throwback to my youth.

After a lovely couple of hours at the museum, we returned via the tram to the parking garage, with panoramic views along the way.

Getty Tram view: The hills ahead were burned in a wildfire last year.

View south to the Los Angeles basin from the tram.

View north toward the San Fernando Valley.

I-405 Freeway wall mimicking the stratigraphy.

As we drove on the Ventura Freeway across the south side of the San Fernando Valley, enduring the infamous traffic, I revisited the street names that bound the geography of my childhood.

We were staying in Thousand Oaks, near the wedding venue. On Saturday morning we had time to drive over the Santa Monica Mountains to Zuma Beach in Malibu, to spend just a bit of time on the very beach I played on as a child.

Zuma Beach

Zuma Lagoon

View to the north

Sand castle and wave action

Then in the afternoon and evening, we celebrated with a very happy bride and groom and families.

Garden at Los Robles, before the wedding.

We flew home on Sunday, but alas, no window seat – not even an open window shade near me! Which makes me feel claustrophobic. I did get some knitting and reading done, but I can do that anywhere. Some of the most beautiful landscape in the world is out that airplane window!

In all it was a lovely weekend, a chance to visit with distant family members and see some of my historic geography. There is never enough time to do it all!

A trail carved out of the edge of the sky….

July 21, 2019September 5, 2019 / margaretquilts / 1 Comment

7/12/2019 – East Glacier Trail and Timberline Trail, beyond Cloud Cap on Mt Hood, OR

Walking above Cloud Cap on a blue sky day, the same hike we did last year in August.

Beyond the ridgeline of the Eliot East moraine, Mt Hood rises another 5000 feet.

Mt St Helens, Mt Rainier and Mt Adams on view to the north.

We walked up the crest of the moraine another 1000 feet.

Close-ups of the glaciers from our lunch stop:

Continuing south beyond Cooper Spur shelter, to the trail high point::

Cooper Spur Shelter

meltwater

Cascade peaks to the south: Broken Top, the Three Sisters, Mts Washington and Jefferson.

As we headed back, clouds began collecting and spinning around the peak, 4000 feet above us.

Another glacier closeup.

It almost seemed like I could step up into the sky….

northbound

A few flowers for the day…

orange and blue butterflies

arnica, Jacob’s ladder

sandwort, lupine

aster, sandwort

buckwheat

dwarf lupine, buckwheat, and ?

buckwheat

mushroom?

Dwarf alpine flowers and trees, butterflies, rocks, glaciers, meltwater creeks, sublimity. Hike #31, 6 miles, 1650 feet.

Driving down the many switchbacks through the burn zone – white on white.

beargrass, burned forest, clouds

Mt Adams beyond

Someone turned on the waterfall! June Lake and Chocolate Falls, Mt St Helens, July 4th, 2019

July 8, 2019 / margaretquilts / Leave a comment

We went with good friends to the June Lake Trail northeast of Cougar, Washington, on the south side of Mt St Helens. The walk to the lake is easy, with flowers blooming along the way, and magical mirror reflections at the lake.

June Lake

Mirror reflections

View to the waterfall across the lake.

In February 2016 we snowshoed to this spot – a couple of comparison look back views:

June Lake and waterfall, July 4, 2019

June Lake and waterfall, February 20, 2016

July 2019

February 2016

Today we continued beyond June Lake, up a steep ridge, to the Loowit (around the mountain) Trail, and walked east for a ways.

Beargrass blooming at the edge of a lava flow along the trail.

Large trees

We turned back west to visit the elusive Chocolate Falls. Our well traveled companion had never ‘seen’ the waterfall, although he had been there a few times. We arrived at the horseshoe shaped cliff, but there was no waterfall.

Dry lip of Chocolate Falls, 2:44 pm.

The waterfall is now “on”, 2:46 pm.

Then some nearby hikers noticed water beginning to flow in the channel above the cliff, and lo and behold, a couple of minutes later, water was plunging over the cliff through a well-worn, polished slot in the cliff edge.

Looking upstream at the channel.

Narrow but steady stream of Chocolate Falls

Looking down at the polished slot at the lip of Chocolate Falls.

The snow fields on the mountain above had warmed enough to send fresh meltwater down the channel. Apparently this is a documented phenomenon here. To us it was a surprise, like a rainbow or a special wildlife sighting – a serendipitous moment of grace and beauty.

Mt St Helens remained slightly cloud covered, with partial views. The temperature was perfect. Our plan to take the loop trail back to June Lake for the return hike also offered a ‘surprise’. This connector trail is really only a good option in the winter, on snowshoes or skis, when the lava flow boulderfields are snow covered. It took us almost an hour to navigate the half mile connecting trail, and we were very happy not to have twisted an ankle or knee in the process.

Picking our way across the lava flow.

The unexpected elements, the waterfall and the boulder field, added to our adventures on a day suited to celebrating our nation’s commitment to protecting our wilderness areas! (Hike #30, 7.5 miles, 1500 feet)