Willamette

Oregon is wide. From Idaho's edge, there are seven hours of dry, empty roads that lead to the forests I expected of my new state: trees taller than most Texas buildings, and old. Most of the east is desert or farmland, climates for horses and coyotes. Over the mountains is alpine, a land for wolves. I had a map, but after crossing a wasteland into Bend used a GPS to find Eugene. It took me on an indirect route--an hour's drive longer, through the national forest called Willamette.

Leaving the town of Sister, a narrow road twists between trees and occasional hills, but the way is empty of life except for the infrequent car, or bird darting in the shadows. Even with the sun strong and high, the pine trunks and branches block out most light. I expect only at high noon it isn't dusk along that road (McKenzie Pass, I later read it is named).

Many photographs have come from this forest: lush, the postcards of Oregon. I expected miles of trees, but like a Midwestern tornado had suddenly manifested to destroy and then vanish, a clearing just as endless appeared. The trees disappear at the heaping edge of dark rubble.

The mountains nearby are sleeping volcanoes, and in the middle of the forest are their past triumphs. Lava, thick and black, amasses until and past the horizon. Though centuries old, the desolation looks immediate, as if airplanes had just filled the land with hard rock, or the trees themselves disintegrated into stone. I saw an end to the forest like an extinction. There wasn't a word except juxtaposition. There isn't a climatic equivalent. Oregon is old. It is lush and hard.