Along The Road

What a difference a mountain makes

Up the east facing slope of the central Cascades, the land is still dry, sparsely furred with trees, despite the obvious availability of water indicated by the rivers. Uncultivated bare slopes are covered with sparse grass and various kinds of brush, lots of artemisia, with its fine, flat-grey hued leaves.

Then you climb the steep, last slope, up into the alpine-scapes with snow still clinging in the shaded cols, and top the great spine of stones, and suddenly you are in the rain forest - so much water, it spills down the nearly verticle mountain faces in wispy falls and madly chattering rills, tearing at the stones as it goes.

Then suddenly you are down in the flat lands, choked with grasses, vines, shrubs, trees, no dirt visible anywhere.

And then suddenly you are in the city, and what had been growing for millenia is replaced by a different kind of growth...and for how long?