Spring Break in the Willamette Valley
If ancient cave writings by prehistoric indigenous peoples can be believed, the weather has always sucked in Oregon’s Willamette Valley during Spring Break. In my many years here, sunny and warm late-March days are rare. It’s the kind of overcast, uncomfortable season that for all but intrepid campers is a time to stay indoors.
The Kalapuya Tribe spoke of the vast, fertile reaches between the Coast Range and the Cascade Mountains as the “valley of sickness.” Granted, they were talking about diseases brought by the European whites, against which they had no immunity. But if you’ve ever had a bad head cold between Valentine’s Day and Easter, you understand what they were talking about.
Planning a trip to the beach? Bundle up, and prepare for an experience similar to that of 19th century frontiersman Hugh Glass, as depicted by Leonardo DiCaprio in the film The Revenant. Don’t even think about getting in the water.
These circumstances don’t stop winter-worn parents of school-age children from crafting ambitious plans to fill the seven-day period after that final bell rings on Friday afternoon. Kids cut loose into the spring solstice are ready to whoop it up. Moms and Dads better have something on tap to keep the little darlings from climbing the walls. Available are kid-friendly museums like OMSI, nature camps with coats, and high-tech arcades in which no grandparent dare tread at risk of an epileptic-type attack.
Once, long ago, when the kids were still children, we undertook a drive into the Cascade foothills out of Bend, OR and camp. It wasn’t warm, but we didn’t freeze in our tents. For the first two days of short hikes and campfires all was well; it was great to be out of the city. On the third morning, as the bacon and eggs sizzled, the skies darkened and heavy snow began to fall. We scrambled to break camp, and barely made it back to Bend.
The gray skies hang on. In fact, when Spring Break ends and the schools reopen, there are usually several more weeks—sometimes months—of the same kind of weather in store. May and June promise stretches of warm days, but often, as is generally recognized in these parts, it isn’t until the annual Waterfront Blues Festival around July 4th that dependable summer weather arrives.
A kind of somber beauty does fall upon the landscape this time of year. Shades of gray from “Steel Girder” to “March Hare” sweep mordantly across lonely plateaus offering primal evocations. Chilly gusts coming down the Columbia Gorge sway the staunchest pine forests. Teeming snowmelt rivers flow down to sea level environs that summer will eventually dry out, at least temporarily. Sentinel raptors perch on posts, looking for the near-surface flash of salmon scales.
It's harder to find beauty in the crowded city. Events around the world, and at airports, have curtailed travel. Restaurant lights glimmer warmly; theaters are brimming with people looking for films that don’t make them feel worse. The sky lowers again as rain pelts the homeless encampments.