The Wallowas Quotes

“Some twenty minutes later, I was back at the river, and my son and father were waiting on the far side.  Crossing the swift river with my dad was something I was really dreading.  I helped him check his bandages, and he was under the impression that his injury was a compound fracture—bone sticking through flesh.  While I didn’t get a good look at the foot itself, I noticed there were blood blisters everywhere on his lower leg.  It was a shockingly bad injury, and I worried he might lose his foot.  It was time to cross the stream.  My son took my father’s left side, where he could keep close watch on the placement of the improvised wooden cane.  I took my father’s right arm in mine and silently prayed as our feet hit the water together.  Our footing held firm on the stream’s rocky bottom, and the rushing water didn’t rise above our knees.  I was so tremendously grateful at that final step onto the rocky shore, but there was lots of work still requiring our attention before my son and I could make the final journey to the trailhead beyond Lake Pamelia.”
― Karl Erickson, Mt. Jefferson Wilderness

“One of the many striking features of Lake Wallowa, the moraine lake situated just to the south of the town of Joseph, is the striking contrast between its north and south shores.  If you arrive by Wallowa Lake Highway / Power House Road which hug’s the lake’s east bank from Joseph all the way to Wallowa Lake State Park, you’ll notice a gradual increase in the density of the forest as you make your journey south.  Immediately surrounding Joseph, the landscape is not heavily forested, but this changes dramatically when you arrive on the lake’s wooded south shores.”
― Karl Erickson, The Wallowas