New Years Day dawned bright and cold!Lets get out of the house! We took a fun hike along the Columbia river on train tracks with the whole team.
Lots of fun junk to find and collect... at least for a while, then the weight of it sunk in and it was discarded (fortunately) back where it came from.Plenty of ice to throw rocks at, too.
After a mile or so of swamp land, we hit the rocky cliffs for some variety.Pretty good current running again in the stream.
Alot of water and ice coming down the rock face.We had to take care not to linger by the rocks... quite a few were falling.
The icicles were a big hit.Just the right size for swords... even if they didn't last long in battle.
We found this little buck dead along the tracks.It looks like he either fell from the cliff, or this rock fell onto him and killed him. No signs of trama, dragging, or other indications of how he died.
One set of tracks very deep in the mud. His head was mashed under the rock.
Both his little antlers were busted off by the rock.We only found the one - the other was probably under the rock.
Several neat waterfalls, with frozen decorations.This was the biggest and favorite.
On the eastern side of the mountain, the sun went down quickly and cast a beautiful, if cold, hue across the river.Many geese were reluctant to leave the shallows of the river to flee into the current...
Someone's old fishcamp along the river was holding up pretty well... we left it alone, because nothing every good was left behind at fishcamp.It was a great way to get out of the house and start the new year off exploring more of this beautiful Pacific NorthWest.
