When did the Punchbowl Falls beach disappear?

[chameleon]

I have a question for all my fellow waterfall buffs. Some of you may know that there was once a beach inside the punchbowl falls basin (on Eagle Creek). Prominent photographers, such as Ray Atkeson took pictures of the falls directly from it. You could wade to it in low water, allowing landscape photographers to haul in large format gear.

Needless to say, it's gone. Nor is the stream shallow enough to wade into where it once was; not even in extremely low water.

Recently I purchased a ridiculously expensive ($10) postcard of it that shows the beach. In low water it appears to have risen @ 2ft above water. The Eagle Creek Trail was built to correspond to the highway's construction. It opened at the same time. The golden age of postcards in the Gorge only lasted a few years after that. I'm guessing this particular card was @ 1915-17.

But I'm wondering...when did the river finally eliminate the beach? And what caused it to begin with? I'm going to try to figure this out geologicaly. My initial guess would be a small landslide shortly upstream caused a significant amount of rock and sand to pour into Eagle. Once in the round basin, the current deposited it into the beach formation. But of course, it was only transient. The river eliminated it completely in the decades to come.

Anyway, just wondering if anyone else has any pertinent knowledge on this!

[raven]

Alternatively, the beach could have been the temporary result of siltation from a slide or from poorly handled trail building residue; a feature doomed from birth to be eliminated in a few years at most by a high flow event.

[chameleon]

That's a good point - especially about the trail-building influence. That very well could have played a role!

I've spent a lot of time swimming around that bowl, and the rocky shores there now, are solid, volcanic rock. Any type of beach with smaller rocks is obviously a temporary structure in there, given the forces of high-water.

Remarkably, this one formed, and lasted decades. The post card is probably 1917, and Atkeson's photos are 1950's or 60's. So, it would have been a LOT of debris from some event. You may be onto something with the trail-building. That could have put a lot of debris in the water!

[BigBear]

The Cross-Dimmitt postcards are generally form the mid-1930s to mid-1940s. A lot has changed to the creeks and rivers in the interim. There are a few big rain events which have altered the silt levels in NW streams including 1947, 1964 and 1996. The beach was not there in the late 1980s, so it was likely washed away prior to this. The river is always in transition, and this is just one of those things that transitioned.

There used to be a log at Upper North Falls in Silver Falls SP. That log was finally washed away circa 2000 from a high water event. I was suprised to find that it was there as far back as circa 1908 in an old postcard.

It is interesting to compare/contrast how things have changed over the past century.

[chameleon]

Interesting. So, it's been gone since at least the 80's. Also interesting that you think the postcard might be later. I did a little bit of research on Cross and Dimmitt. I couldn't find much out. I was hoping to stumble on something of a catalog of their images. It appears that they both passed away decades ago, and their work hasn't made it online.

I was just figuring it was probably one of their early images, when they were selling them from their model T in the Eagle Creek campground (before settling into Vista House).

[Sore Feet]

I'm not sure that one could pinpoint the exact causality of that beach, it's just the nature of larger streams and hydrodynamics. We've all seen how Oneonta Gorge has evolved in the last 20 years - first time I went there, probably 1990 or so, it was rocky and sans logs all the way to the falls. I was with my dad and he didn't want to go up the gorge, but we saw two women, probably 70+ years old walking back down the gorge in sunday loafers, so clearly the water levels were not a problem (this would have been July levels). Now you're lucky if the water isn't waist deep. Whenever that logjam decides to blow out, I'm sure all the back filled rock will once again level out and it'll be a cakewalk to get up to the falls again, but we may not see that for several more decades the way those logs keep piling up.

I don't know that we'll ever see a beach reform at Punch Bowl, but considering the volume of water involved along Eagle Creek, I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

[Guy]

I'm happy to see that even back then people were building those rock cairns all over the place

[BigBear]

I collected postcards for about 15 years, and I do favor the ones of places I have hiked. Picture postcards in America have transitioned quite a bit over the years.

The 1894 Chicago Wolds Fair produced a limited continental size postcard (current-sized cards), but the standard mailing card of the 19th Century was manila in color with the message on one side and the address on the back side.

In May 1989, Congress allowed picture postcards (initially called Private Mailing Cards) which featured a small picture on the front and lots of white space to write your message. By 1906, the picture had dominated the front of the card and Congress allowed a small portion of the back to be used for the message.

Sometime the 1920s, the message area on the back was typically designed as half of the space with the address taking up the other half. Still, most of the postcards were colorized cardboard.

The B&W glossies came to be in the mid 1930s with a very clear picture. This had not been the case previously. Cross-Dimmitt, Sawyers Scenic Photos, Zan, zf, Eastman's, Noble, Gifford, and Lars are some of the studios that come to mind. Many of the photos featured automobiles in the picture, especial main street photos, which are quite collectable.

Then came the linen cards. These cards existed until the mid-50s and are identifiable by the strans of fabric which you can see if you hold the card at the angle. The cards you have seen reproduced from this era are the GREETINGS FROM... cards.

In 1955, the color ektachrome postcards hit the market. The photos were of poor quality in relation to the B&W glossies, but color movies, TV, etc. were "in." A lot of these were made, and some clooectors have refered to them as "ick-ta-chrome" due to the poor photo quality, especially in the 50s. They are easy to find in antique stores.

About 1968, the continental card returned. Until 1981, these cards were predominately wavey-eged postcards. You still can find Smith-Western cards in "antique" stores today. Then in the 80s, the edges went to the perfect rectangle you see today. Impact, Inc. was the first to return to the photo quality of the B&W glossies, and they thankfully specialized in national park scenry.

[chameleon]

Bryan - that's interesting that the Oneonta waste-deep pool was shallow relatively recently. Oneonta is so interesting for many reasons!

Guy - Yeah...apparently the need to construct a monument to ourselves large or small, defines humanity.

Big Bear - Very interesting. I've just discovered the wonders of postcards. They record a valuable moment in time. There are things in the Gorge I wish I could have seen - the Cascades, Celilo, etc... and they offer glimpses.

Recently I've purchased a few and framed them. Kind of poor-man's art collecting I suppose.

I enjoy the backs of the postcards too! It's fun to know someone bought that particular card for a reason, and to see their excitement on the back, sharing it with someone else. Plus, the old 1 cent stamps are cool.

[Splintercat]

Zach, here's a trick that a few online "art" sites have discovered and made a lot of money from: when you see "RPPC" on an e-bay card, it means "real photo postcard", and it also means that you often have exceptional resolution that isn't limited by the printing process. Therefore, you can scan most of these old cards and reprint them in much larger formats, with good results. You can do the same at home -- scan them, and convert them to framable 8x12 images that can have remarkably good resolution. I've done this with a few linens, as well, with decent results, but the real photos are the best bet.

Tom