[pct-l] Sky Lakes Wilderness (Deems)

[Alan Artman]

Great pictures, Deems, as always.

In a 1997 hike of the Oregon PCT, I camped at Stuart Falls (about halfway, 
as I recall, between Devil's Peak and Crater Lake, but a short detour off 
the PCT).   Stuart Falls was beautiful, a little sister to Mt. Hood's Ramona 
Falls, the same sort of sparkling cascade.  I took a picture,  which I later 
showed in a presentation I made about the PCT.  After my talk, a woman in 
her late 70s I'd guess, came up and told me that the Falls were named after 
her father-in-law, who had had heart attack and died while camping there in 
the 1920s.  She thanked me because she had never actually seen the Falls.  I 
asked Eric Valentine to make a copy of his excellent photo of the Falls, and 
I sent it to her.

This little story is of course all I need to segue into my annual plea to 
the next year's PCT class (2010, are you there yet?) to be sure to make the 
tiny detour off the "official" PCT to see Ramona Falls, with its amazing 
show of the dappled light coming through the trees on a sunny day.  Then 
continue down beautiful Ramona Creek (which has a couple of wonderful 
campsites just barely visible on the right about a mile down), and pick up 
the official PCT again at the junction of the "temporary" reroute, about two 
miles down from the falls.  Check out Erik the Black's PCT Atlas for the 
route.

Wait, there's more! Blame it on the changing weather, I suppose, as well as 
Deems' pictures, but now I've gone all reflective.

I went to a reading the other night from a new book, "Timberline Lodge: The 
History, Art, and Craft of an American Icon", by Sarah Baker Munro.  (2009, 
Timber Press)  Sarah is a good friend; her office was across the hall from 
mine in the law firm we worked for during the past 15 years.  Many were the 
nights and weekends she burned the midnight oil in the creation of this 
book, which came about from her involvement in Friends of Timberline since 
the 1970s.  Although I've been to Timberline A LOT over the past 40 
years--including partaking in the famous buffet breakfast during my 
attempted thru-hike in 2008--I've learned a lot from Sarah's book that I did 
not know, or knew only superficially.   Timberline Lodge is an amazing 
story--actually two amazing stories:  first, the building of the Lodge 
itself in the 1930s as a WPA project, and second, the restoration of the 
Lodge in the 1950s by Richard Kohnstamm, who obtained the permit to operate 
the Lodge and rescued it from the deterioration and abuse it had suffered 
during the 40s and early 50s.  Now, especially now in these difficult times, 
I find inspiration in the story of Timberline as the ongoing fulfillment of 
the dreams of a number of people, over many years, against great odds.

So here's my second suggestion to the Class of 2010 (of which I hope to be a 
member!):  after you've had your fill at the amazing Timberline buffet 
breakfast, resolve to spend an hour or so looking around the Lodge.  Watch 
the 10-minute documentary downstairs on the building of the lodge, maybe 
catch the Ranger's tour, check out the small museum.  It's worth your while.

Hope to see you on the Trail next year!

Alan Artman (Patchwork)

PS:  And if I ever learn who Ramona was, I'll be sure to pass that along to 
you!