What The Heck Is That
Both Mike and I used the same comment at the same time as we were driving from the farm to a woodland meeting over the hill in Clatskanie over the weekend.
We were traveling over Highway 47 from Vernonia to Highway 30 at the Columbia River. We were nearing the summit of highest peak in the area of 1330 feet which is only about 300 feet higher than we are here on the farm. The summit is called many names, some call it Clatskanie hill, others Mist Mountain, while some just say the summit that is on the very twisty highway that follows the contour of steep cliffs, valleys, canyons and sharp peaks.
It was nearing dusk as we were driving through on a blustery day with heavy downpours between systems and apparently a system had just worked its way through the area and left residue at the side of the road in a buildup of either snow or hail. The road banks had buildup of more than an inch of the white stuff with the road only wet since it fell.
We have surely moved from the easy fall weather to more wintery conditions in a blink of an eye.
Better to drive through after the fact instead of being pelted with the white stuff while driving. Are you sure the summit is only 300 ft. higher than your farm? I thought you were more around 300 feet, or 1,000 feet lower than the summit.
At the river level we are over 800 feet, the house is slightly higher and the hillside is several hundred more than that. I usually just round it out to 1000 since we look at the trees out the front window at about 1000.