Old School: High Prairie to Lookout Mountain - August 1983

This is a forum for trip reports that pre-date the Portland Hikers forum, trail photos from pre-digital era, or any other discussions that focus on trail history.
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Splintercat
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Old School: High Prairie to Lookout Mountain - August 1983

Post by Splintercat » March 13th, 2011, 12:53 pm

One of my New Year resolutions is to start scanning my stacks of slides from the 1980s and 1990s... ugly job that I've only done piecemeal in the past, but now hope to do more methodically. So, I ran across some photos from August 1983, when I worked over at Camp Baldwin, and we took backpack trips into the then not-yet-Badger Creek Wilderness. These photos are from a short hike from High Prairie to Lookout Mountain.

At that time, the road to the top of Lookout Mountain was still open, albeit terrible, and as recently as 1981, we had driven a truck to the summit! The "modern" access road to High Prairie didn't exist, either -- instead, you chose between two horrible dirt roads, one approaching from the east (still there, though blocked) and one from the north, replaced by the modern road (in fact, the parking area that exists today is sitting on top of the old north approach -- the new road was located to the west).

Here's the remains of the old High Prairie Guard Station as they existed in 1983 -- with my camp staff friends Dave and Robin:

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Lookout Mountain from High Prairie (that's the moon up there, too) -- note the snow still lying around, and up on the summit. 1983 was an El Nino year, and we had big drifts on top of Lookout Mountain well into August:

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The view from just above the road, as you approach the summit -- with un-burned Bluegrass Ridge and east slope, no ski lifts in Heather Canyon or the Mitchell Creek headwaters, either:

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Here's a fairly ugly enlargement of the center of the previous photo showing how much things have changed on the Newton Clark Glacier in the past three decades -- in those days, the surface of the glacier was much more turbulent with crevasses and icefalls, and the terminus feeding Newton Creek was an icefall that reached the cliff top at the head of the canyon -- complete with periodic calving into the canyon, if you were lucky enough to be up on Lamberson Butte or Gnarl Ridge at the right time:

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A bit further along, this time from below the road, showing the south slope rock formations and the west summit - no whitebark pine beetle damage in 1983, either, as the trees in the right side of this photo have since mostly been killed off.

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From the summit, the view north was more open, with Bald Mountain, the upper Hood River Valley and of course Mount Adams clearly visible:

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Looking west from the summit, Mount Hood was also much more visible, as the trees west of the summit hadn't filled in much since the lookout days (which ended in the 1960s, only about 15-20 years before these photos were taken). This photo also shows my venerable Kelty daypack from the era, complete with Sierra Cup, which is almost unheard of these days -- I've had to explain what the heck they WERE to a few young PH whippersnappers! :)

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My camp staff friend Nick watching a "cloud waterfall" coming over the mountain, as viewed from the west summit of Lookout Mountain:

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Mount Adams in fading light from the upper meadows at High Prairie, just off the old road:

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Scanning old slides is frustrating, at best. It's impossible (with home equipment, anyway) to effectively remove dust, so using the photos requires a fair amount of Photoshop cleanup, just to make them presentable. They can never be as clean as a digital image, even with the most diligent work. It also reveals the limitations of older cameras -- these shots were taken on Kodochrome 64, and in those days, you bracketed the "balanced" exposure that the light meter needed indicated if you were rich enough to burn through the film. Otherwise, you just took a photo and hoped for the best. Because of the expense, you might take half a roll on a hike, maybe a full roll if you were feeling really rich.

At the time, a 24 exposure roll of Kodochrome ran about $6-7 and a 36 exposure roll was about $9-10. Processing cost about $3 for a 24 exposure roll and about $4-5 for a 36 exposure roll, so it definitely added up! Remember, at the time, a gallon of gas was about $1.10..! These days, I typically take a 3-exposure (or more) bracket of every scene, and come home with a couple hundred images to cull down to may 50 or 60 images of 20 or so scenes. The price for that is zero -- just the camera gear and a computer to download to. Digital is GREAT! No question about that!

The worst part of film is that if you didn't take a full roll on a particular outing, it sat in your camera for a couple weeks, until you could head out and finish the roll... then you had to mail it in and wait a week (or more) to get the darned slides back! It was a bit like Christmas getting them back, after waiting so long... but often disappointing, when you'd discover that you had been way off in your exposure settings.

I was into a "filter-less" phase at that point, too -- only used a UV filter, and now regret that. I'm now a firm believer in using polarizers nowadays for this sort of photography, but in those days, I don't think they were as well-designed, and it was hard to know how they'd affect an image.

Okay, that's enough old school for now...!

-SplinterGramps :lol:

pablo
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Re: Old School: High Prairie to Lookout Mountain - August 1983

Post by pablo » March 13th, 2011, 1:11 pm

Tom,

Thanks for this, I just love these old photos and trip reports, looking forward to more.

--Paul
The future's uncertain and the end is always near.

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Bosterson
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Re: Old School: High Prairie to Lookout Mountain - August 1983

Post by Bosterson » March 13th, 2011, 1:19 pm

Tom,

Cool old-school pics. I really enjoy seeing pictures of people hiking from that period because it seems so much more "pure" compared to today's world of uber-gear and so many more people going outdoors, versus the expectation then that you would strap on some boots, you'd probably be pretty alone, and you'd have an experience. I was a toddler when your shots were taken, though, so maybe I'm just post-hoc romanticizing.

The Sierra Cup is great, though. If you really want to romanticize the "old days," pick up a copy of Daniel Arnold's book Early Days in the Range of Light, which is about climbing Sierra peaks in the style of their early explorers around the turn of the century. In one of his emulations of John Muir, he tucks "crusts of bread" into his pocket and dips his Sierra Cup into a stream, then leaves it at camp and runs up a peak. Bonus: Arnold is originally from Portland.

With respect to scanning, though, my dad is actually doing the same thing and going through all his old Kodachrome of family photos in the 60s, and his scans actually look really good, quite the testament to the longevity of film, and the beauty of Kodachrome especially. (At least for people pictures, especially portraits where the background is out of focus and the person's skin is suffused with this nice Kodachrome warmth.) Your pictures look fine except for that really bad clipping that's happening in the shadows in the last few images, which I would assume is a function of your scanner, not the film (though I know some films will get screwy tints if old or incorrectly exposed). Are you using a flatbed scanner? I've always found Digital ICE to be a highly effective way to eradicate dust (which is of course a problem unless you do a drum scan!), and maybe for the really bad ones, you can do two scans - one for highlights and one for shadows, and then blend them (though that's a lot of work for hiking pictures...).

Digital is certainly easier, but I personally find that most digital photos lack the depth and character of film images - it's like they're so clean and clear that they look "flat." It's cool to see what this area looked like thirty years ago, so I hope you keep these ones coming.


Nat
#pnw #bestlife #bitingflies #favoriteyellowcap #neverdispleased

Thum

Re: Old School: High Prairie to Lookout Mountain - August 1983

Post by Thum » March 13th, 2011, 1:30 pm

wow, i love the old pictures but your explanations and historical knowledge are what really help paint the picture of what it was like 30 years ago. bummer about the white bark beetles but hooray for digital:)

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Eric Peterson
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Re: Old School: High Prairie to Lookout Mountain - August 1983

Post by Eric Peterson » March 13th, 2011, 1:49 pm

I love the hat your camp friend Dave is wearing, classic.

Awesome stuff, and I bet it can get emotional just going through this stuff...

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Waffle Stomper
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Re: Old School: High Prairie to Lookout Mountain - August 1983

Post by Waffle Stomper » March 13th, 2011, 1:57 pm

Love the "Old School" pics. It doesn't seem that long ago and yet it seems a long time ago. Wish I had discovered hiking then, better late than never.
"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." - John Muir

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Splintercat
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Re: Old School: High Prairie to Lookout Mountain - August 1983

Post by Splintercat » March 13th, 2011, 2:47 pm

Thanks for this, I just love these old photos and trip reports, looking forward to more.
More to come, Paul! :)
I've always found Digital ICE to be a highly effective way to eradicate dust...
Thanks, Nat. When I bought my scanner (Pacific Image), the Kodak system wasn't carried for Kodachrome outside Kodak's own scanners (which are now discontinued), but I notice in checking around just now that newer Pacific Image scanners have the Digital Ice3 system -- so I might need to upgrade! It's certainly less painful than post-processing each image, plus my scanner is old enough (2006) that it's a bit of a dinosaur, in general.
If you really want to romanticize the "old days," pick up a copy of Daniel Arnold's book Early Days in the Range of Light...
Will do - thanks for the tip! I'll set it next to my copy of Eric Ryback's book on the PCT. :)
Awesome stuff, and I bet it can get emotional just going through this stuff...
Very true, but mostly because I've lost touch with so many of the folks I was very close to back then - I was in college at the time, and wish now that I'd been living a bit more in the moment. Life moves along pretty quickly, that's for sure!
It doesn't seem that long ago and yet it seems a long time ago...
Absolutely! When I took this set, personal computers had barely been invented (I had an Apple IIe), and we were still six months away from the now-famous 1984 Super Bowl introduction of the Mac -- and the birth of digital imagery. Long, long time ago..!

Of course, some of us are like a fine wine... or in my case, have turned to vinegar...

-Tom :D

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Crusak
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Re: Old School: High Prairie to Lookout Mountain - August 1983

Post by Crusak » March 13th, 2011, 4:26 pm

Nice! My first real (non-borrowed) pack was a Camp Trails McKinley external frame pack. LOL I just found a picture of it on the 'net:

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Funny thing is that one of my buddies still uses that pack for backpacking trips. :) Actually it's a great pack.

Thanks for sharing those pictures, it brings back memories of my younger days when I'd just toss some random stuff in my pack and head out. Oh and yes, I still have my original Sierra cup from back then, too. :ugeek:
Jim's Hikes

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AlexanderSupertramp
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Re: Old School: High Prairie to Lookout Mountain - August 1983

Post by AlexanderSupertramp » March 13th, 2011, 6:23 pm

These are great Tom! I look forward to more as you make your way through the slides :-)

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Re: Old School: High Prairie to Lookout Mountain - August 1983

Post by awildman » March 13th, 2011, 7:48 pm

Love it! My husband rode horses from their Butte Creek home to Camp Baldwin around that time as a Boy Scout. This post triggered a lot of (good, albeit wet) memories for him.

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