A Walk in the Clouds

Wednesday was a beautiful day. The sky was clear from morning until night. So, we decided to go somewhere we could see all five of the local volcanoes . . . on Thursday.

Thursday morning dawned, barely. It was very overcast, and chilly. But we decided to go anyway. The forecast said it was going to be clear. And maybe Larch Mountain would be above the clouds.

It is a beautiful drive to Larch Mountain. You take the Historic Old Columbia River Highway and pass pastoral scenes of sheep and horses grazing, blueberry bushes turning red, corn and pumpkins telling you it is time to be picked. Beautiful drive, really. The colors are spectacular.

Thursday the colors were just as spectacular: reds, oranges, golds, and greens below, and the lovely pearly gray sky above - perfect picture taking weather (yes, really, that is not sarcastic).

We got to Larch Mountain and walked the quarter mile to the top, up lots of stairs. And this is what we saw:

Seriously. James asked why I was taking a picture of the fog. So I can let all of our friends enjoy the view with us, of course!

There was an older couple also up at the top, taking in the view of the distant mountains. We had a good time laughing about how it would all clear up around 3:00 (which it did, by the way, just as we were reaching home).

I did get some good pictures, just not the kind of pictures we thought we'd be taking.

OK, so this wasn't a great pic to begin with (blurry), so I had fun playing around with it. I don't think you can tell from the smallness of the photo, but it looks like a painting.

This is actually what it looked like - I loved all the trees in the fog. Pretty!

Gibson says, "Hmm, this says I can see Mt. Jefferson from here."

"Well, that certainly is a great view of the mountain," Gibson thinks. Never having seen the mountain before, he is fooled into thinking it is always this clear.

A sampling of the beautiful colors.