We packed up camp and hit the road, north-northwestbound. I had thought the haze was dropping off, but maybe we went west enough to get back into the thicker air.
This is an eerie image of Quake Lake, which formed in the month after an earthquake in August, 1959. Over two dozen people, campers mostly, were killed in a huge landslide that blocked the river and weakened a dam downstream. Now the slide-scar is still obvious, with the piled up rock and soil at the base.
However far out you may be in the boonies, you can still find locals got aesthetic phone towers. One tall pine!
We saw these snow-retaining-fences near the road, like this, positioned on the pasture side of the fence, even on private land. We guessed that the wind-blown snow was so bad in these spots that this was the solution. Tall fence—at least 8 feet.
I became fascinated with the decaying wooden buildings today; I only give you one. See the haze?
We checked out a mine pit, abandoned in the late 50s. With the groundwater pumps turned off, it quickly flooded. After many years as a “lake,” politicians changed the environmental rules, and the mining company has installed a water treatment plant, processing something like 5K gallons per minute? hour?…removing cadmium and other heavy metals I’m not sure how.
We said goodbye to our Western Rendezvousers in the pit parking lot (just past the pit toilets haha), and headed east. We’ve made one “corner” of this trip….
Love the three tiers of land use here…green valley bottoms, dry erosion-sculpted slopes, and higher ridges and jagged peaks…each a different color….