It was 5 a.m. This far north, in June, daylight came early. Columbia Lake, a deep blue-green, lay calm and waiting below the campground. The sun had not yet peeked over the jagged row of mountains east of the lake. Already, LaFont was in one of his filmy-eyed moods.
People live on it, use it, and they know that part.
But there are lots of parts. We've stopped floods and let the river make the desert bloom. Its energy runs homes and cities. What's easy to forget, is that it's still a river. A whole thing.