The daily morning Astorian. [volume] (Astoria, Oregon) 1883-1899, 1889-04-10
A DAY IN THE TIMBER.
And Some Experiences Relative Thereto.

J. F. Haloran and NJ. C. Burnham
borrowed a small boat in the absence
of the proprietor, and depositine
therein some gumboots, blankets ant
provisions, pushed off for the head
waters.
By dint of steady rowing the
party reached a point twelve miles
from Astoria by sundown and after a
tramp along the tramway of the
Sackett mill for about three miles
more, put up for the night.
By sunrise the next morning, three
solitary figures might have been seer
and probably were seen stringing
along in Indian file through the tall
| timber.
To one of the party the trip had the
charm of novelty, and so much was
seen to attract attention and arouse
curiosity that progress was somewhat
slow.
1t had to be slow anyhow, for q
trail through the timber is a species
of boulevard that is q little trying to
the toes. 1t is narrow, winding, up
and down hill, filed with roots and
snags and stubs and mud, trodden
and retrodden, wet, tiresome and un.
pleasant, but it is the best can be done,
SO, rejecting that "there is nothing
good or bad in this life but thinking
makes it so" the party logged on.
The scenery is superb. On one
side the Lewis and Clarkes, here q
narrow stream rushing over a pebbly
bed and curving through the hills,
and on the other side high walls of
green forest. Spruce and hemlock,
spruce and hemlock, spruce and hem
lock, for miles and miles, as the mar
row spongy trail led on and on deep
er into the heart of the forest pri-
meval Sometimes skirting the
stream, again 300 feet above its bed,
while the water sang below. and the
elk fed frightened into the deeper
recesses of the lofty forest aisles, the
party held their way. A soft and
somber shade of subdued sunshine, is
the only light in these deep woods,
except occasionally break of a few
yards let in brilliant shaft of sun
light that lit up the emerald moss
that lay in soft tufts on each side of
the trail and at the roots of the trees.
Flowers lined the way great; bell
shaped blue and white blossoms, and
small red flowers, and wild roses
blushing at the suns neglect and
stately yellow stalks alternated with
the disgusting skunk cabbage that
blooms and stinks and stinks and
blooms, blot on the landscape to
any one who wears a nose that is in
good working order.
= But the trail; here a hill and there
a swamp: here along a log uptilted
with mass of soil at the end, through
the roots of which one must burrow
like mole, and there along slippery
stones turning under ones weight,
across the stream, here through a
quagmire of ooze and muck, and there
along a shelving bank on flinty stones,
demanding constant attention and en-
forcing the law of the road, "never
walk one way and look another" If
one did he would come home minus a
big toe and large ear.
THE PRETTIEsT THING SEEN
By the writer on the trip was where a
little stream came laughing down the
hillside, and slipping with a merry
little gurgle through the soft moss
and around theroots of a giant spruce,
slid on to a great gray slab of stone,
and shot swiftly down over an i'm
mense basalt cliff 200 feet, into the
Lewis and 4Giarke's that brawled
along in noise and foam on the rocks
far below.
It looked as if the little cataract
was saying, "See how gracefully I
glide; note the poetry of motion, and
how beautiful the shining arch of
liquid mirror I make as 1 flash over
this old rock"
This waterfall is a beautiful sight.
One moment the water is pouring in
crystal sheet, rejecting all the hues
of the forest, the next it is a shower
of sparkling diamonds glistening in
the sunlight, and dropping into shad
ow, sends up hues and tints and col
ors and a spray of silvery mist as it
rushes down into the great bowl that
receives it, followed out in the rock
over whose moist edge we lean to see
the last sparkle of the water as it
leaves the sunlight of the upper air to
plunge into the deep shadow that sur
rounds the bottom of the cliff.
The party looked at this fall, called
the "Bridal VEIL" for twenty minutes,
and to oblige the writer, Mr.. Lewis
hunted up the section lines and found
that the aforesaid fall is just on the
cross line of the NE4 of the SCI of
the SW4 of sec. IS, I. 6, N, R. 9, W.,
w. M.
But we hadn't come out to look at
waterscapes or landscapes, so pushed
on past cabins lone, but not
lonely, and claims and pre-
emptions and filings, and keeping
our eyes peeled to keep our noses
from being peeled, kept on our wind.
ing way, and walked and hoped and
jumped and lodged along until one
P. NJ, when throwing ourselves down
by the river bank in the shade of a
spruce that was a big tree when the
Declaration of Independence was
signed, and q good sized one when
the Pilgrim Fathers landed, and q
fair to middling one when America
discovered Columbus, and a right
smart of spruce sapling when Rich
ard Coeur dillon was fighting the
Saracens in Syria, we ate bread and
bacon, washed down with spring wa
ter, and after resting, again took up
the line of march.
Byron says there is a pleasure in
the painless woods" but Byron never
hunted q timber claim in Clatsop
county; never cruised through the
thicket and parted with part of his
skin and some of his breeches, and
slipping and sliding and floundering
through some of the finest, but most
ungetatable timber on Gods foot
stool, looked back and wondered how
in the world he ever got through and
how in the world would he ever get
back.
But all things end, even the limit
of surveyed lands in Clatsop county,