A Forest Is a Forest Is a Forest

Awe-inspiring...

No phrase, no two words joined at the heart, can better express the journey by car up the Clackamas River valley from Estacada to the Rainbow Campground in Mt. Hood National Forest.

I say awe for the sight of whole mountainsides of charred, high-mortality forest and intermittent landslides, the result of a single historic wildfire that in early September 2020 raced 17 miles in a mere 30 hours, eventually ranging through 138,000 acres of beloved landscape and biodiversity.

I say inspiring because five-years later, the valley’s steep slopes are now densely covered with an emerald-green flora understory that stretches in all directions, mile after mile, from riverside to lofty ridge in ways that render being there revelatory, even magical, in a way that speaks to the ages.

All along Highway 224, reassuring road signs recall past visits to campsites and trails with a sense of poignant if shaken intimacy: Fish Creek, Roaring River, Three Lynx, Indian Henry, Alder Flat. Haunting memories of places in time, changed forever yet destined to live on by growing the story anew.

It was with much gratitude that I returned to the wild and scenic Clackamas River, joined by a dozen-plus Bark volunteers on a blue-skied Sunday afternoon after 48 hours of much appreciated rain.

All the more special for the participation of forest friends Tim Ingalsbee and Helena Virga of FUSEE, Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics and Ecology.

Find below the link to a photo recount of our buoyant, always informing outing, complete with a brief rhizomatic narrative in the way of accompanying captions.

To learn more about rethinking wildfire during a time of climate disruption, please visit FUSEE at https://fusee.org/ and consider a donation.

To learn more about defending the ecological integrity of the Mt. Hood National Forest in a time of historic forest policy uncertainty, visit Bark at https://bark-out.org/ and see how you and your community can become involved.

Best and be well.

Lloyd Vivola aka Old Growth

June 25, 2025

Riverside Wildfire Photo Album, click: photos.app.goo.gl/cqeDKQhhcLFbm6Bk8