It was another rainy winter morning when I woke up. Not the kind of morning most people load the car for and head outdoors, but the kind I look for.
I drove out to the Gorge with the rain still coming down and the cold sitting deep in everything. The Women's Forum was one of my first stops of the day, the overlook that looks across to the Vista House on its point above the river. By the time I set up, the rain still hadn't let up, and it had worked its way through every layer. The camera was getting soaked, and I had to keep wiping the lens clean.
This is the weather I prefer. In rain, the light goes soft and muted, all the harsh edges gone, and the whole scene settles into something quieter. And you never really know what you're going to get. The atmosphere shifts from minute to minute. Fog lifts, a cloud rolls through, a seam of light opens where there wasn't one a moment before. You can stand in the same spot for an hour and watch the Gorge become three or four completely different places. It is like watching the world unfold in front of you.
That morning it was heavy. Thick cloud, low fog, Beacon Rock nearly swallowed in the middle distance. Then the light tried to break through somewhere behind it all and laid a cool blue tone over everything. That was the moment.
The cold that day was not for the lighthearted. But getting bundled up for it paid off, and I mean that even for the mornings I walk away with nothing worth keeping. Standing there and watching it change is most of the reason I go.
This time I came home with a keeper.