Continuing my photographs from the Autumn Leaf Slide Show weekend…
Friday, 12:30PM, Klickitat Delta – Where the Klickitat river flows into the Columbia River a sediment delta has formed. The delta’s size varies from season to season depending on the flow of the Klickitat river and how high the US Army Corp of Engineers keeps the pool behind Bonneville dam. Most of the time the delta is empty and only seagulls visit looking for a tasty morsel to consume.
For a brief few minutes last Friday the population of the delta grew 5 fold. While setting up to photograph a westbound BNSF train crossing the concrete arch bridge over the Klickitat river I saw one of the many fishing boats in the river approaching. The fisherman carefully landed the boat on the beach while I went about adjusting my set up. After a few hellos we began to discuss our hobbies. He was curious about what I was photographing so I dove into my explanation of railfanning. I explained to him that railfanning is much like fishing in that you have to know you territory, you have to have good equipment, and you have to be willing to wait. He agreed that the hobbies were similar. He then added that his day on the river had not been as productive as mine as he’d seen more trains than fish.
Tuesday, October 29, 1805 (From the journal of William Clark with spelling corrected) – Four miles below this village [Crates] is a small river on the right side [Klickitat River]; immediately below is a village of Chilluckittequaws, consisting of eleven houses. [today Lyle, Washington is located on the upstream bank of the Klickitat where it merges with the Columbia] Here we landed and smoked a pipe with the inhabitants, who were very cheerful and friendly. They as well as the people of the last village inform us, that this river [Klickitat River] comes a considerable distance from the N.N.E. that it has a great number of falls, which prevent the salmon from passing up, and that there are ten nations residing on it who subsist on berries, or such game as they can procure with their bows and arrows. At its mouth the river is sixty yards wide, and has a deep and very rapid channel. From the number of falls of which the Indians spoke, we gave it the name of Cataract river [Klickitat River]. We purchased four dogs, and then proceeded.
