Pacific Northwest
- About 60 miles north of Klamath Falls lies one of the most glamorous and mystical ornaments in the Cascade diadem. Crater Lake ... still defies the limited power of words to convey the full range of its magic.--Paul M. Lewis (Our Oregon)
- As I emerge from the forested Cape Alava Trail into the open expanse of the magnificent Ozette wilderness coast [87 miles east of Port Angeles, WA], I am always struck with a sense of awe at the beauty of the soaring eagles overhead, the deer grazing in the grass by the edge of the beach, and the islands and seastacks silhouetted by clouds rolling across gray skies in the distance.--Kevin MacCartney (in Olympic National Park newsletter, July 1-Sept. 7, 1992)
- Before the Cascade Mountains give way to the high desert along the south-central edge of the state, they leave parts of their green, wet selves scattered across the borderlands. Forests and dunes, lakes and playas, grasslands and sagebrush stand almost near enough to nuzzle each other. The result is a mingling of open spaces and timbered slopes, of freshwater lakes and alkali flats in a world straddling such vastly different geological and historical eras that only a strong imagination can reconcile the contrasts.-Mark Highberger ("South Central Oregon" in An Explorer's Guide to Oregon)
- But each [northwest] city remains, to most of its citizens, a great place to live in. Residents of Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver envy their friends who go on trips, but we feel sorry for those who must move away.--Murray Morgan (The Northwest Corner)
- Crater Lake must be seen to be appreciated properly. Photographs simply cannot depict the majesty of the lake in its setting, the depth of the blue.--Thomas J. Williams
- Driving into the charming downtown of Klamath Falls (pop. 21,000) with its historic buildings set in secretly sunny Southern Oregon, you might wonder why you haven’t been here before. Once you pay a visit, you’ll be sure to plan another.--Eileen Garvin ("Road Trip: Klamath Falls," May 1, 2014)
- For a brief time each year, Crater Lake National Park emerges from winter hibernation to bask in summertime glory..... During this brief summertime window, one maginficent day typically follows another.--"Crater Lake" (www.nps.gov/crla/planyourvisit/)
- From my first hike I learned that the Cascades [mountains] deserve their name. The sound of falling water rings everywhere. It murmurs in the forest and roars down cliffs. Tiny rivulets trace eccentric paths on the surface of glaciers, plunging into crevasses and joining one another to become torrents carrying powdered rock to the Pacific. The range harbors tremendous quantities of water in its glaciers, icecaps, and snowfields. When the warmth of summer arrives, the frozen reservoir releases its stores and the mountains sing.--James Martin (North Cascades Crest: Notes and Images from America's Alps)
- Hood, immense yet withdrawn, breeding clouds about her head; going northward, the distant Adams, like a molar tooth; and then the pure cone of St. Helens, from whose long gray sweep of slope still farther northward a little bald dome stuck out like a baby looking round its mother's skirt: Mount Rainier. [description of the Cascades from Portland]--Ursala K. LeGuin (The Lathe of Heaven)
- I don't think I would live outside of the Northwest. I think the quality of life in Portland is really good. People move from intense, high-powered jobs, and move to Portland, work half as much and live twice as good.--Carrie Brownstein
- I grew up outside of Seattle and personally find it to be the most beautiful place in the world.--Josie Bissett
- "I told him [Jeff Bezos] that Seattle was--and I continue to believe is--the center of the universe. I told him he would have a wonder life here, that it was a place attracting fabulous, talented people…"--Nicholas J. Hanauer (in amazon.com: Getting Big Fast by Spector)
- If you've never been to Klamath [Falls] before, prepare to be stunned. The serene landscape here is dominated by the brilliant blue expanse of the Upper Klamath Lake (the Northwest's largest natural lake), which forms a tranquil backdrop to the mosaic lush marshes, aromatic sagebrush, old growth forests, juniper woodlands and stunning mountain views.--Mo Sherifdeen ("Birding in Klamath Falls," Travel Oregon Blog, 7/6/2007)
- I'm so alive. As I stand facing the beauty of the never-ending Pacific Ocean, a late afternoon breeze blows down from the hills behind. As always, it is a beautiful day. The sun is making its final descent. The magic is about to begin. The skies are ready to burn with brilliance, as it turns from a soft blue to a bright orange. Looking towards the West, I stare in awe at the hypnotic power of the waves. A giant curl begins to take form, then breaks with a thundering clap as it crashes on the shore.--Dave Pelzer
- In the vast region touched on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the California and Nevada boundaries, on the east by the Rocky Mountains, and on the north by the Canadian border lies a land of almost unbelievable beauty and diversity.--Dorothy Krell (The Beautiful Northwest)
- It's hard not to fall in love with Seattle on a beautiful summer's day.--Robert Spector (Amazon.com: Get Big Fast)
- The jewel of Klamath Falls. That’s how Janet Larson describes Moore Park, with its lakefront picnic areas, grassy fields, tennis courts and a web of hiking, biking and cross-country ski trails that weave through tall ponderosa pine stands on Moore Mountain and boulder-laden fields above Link River Canyon.--Joel Aschbrenner ("Neighborhood Guide: Moore Park" Herald and News, 3/3/12)
- Klamath Falls sits on a precarious wall that divides breathtaking panoramas and bleak landscapes of economic misery. When I'm in Klamath Falls, it looks to me like time stopped in 1960 and the entire town was covered by a numbing frost of hard times, hard luck and hard living. Ghosts from an all-American town still lurk in the shadows of long-empty downtown storefronts; faded yellow siding on a house hints at sunnier times. All of this sits paradoxically in the middle of some of the most hauntingly beautiful open sky country in the West. It is this country that redeems the town, and when I leave the basin, I know I've left God's country behind.--Matt Strieby
- The month of June saw long, warm days, cloudless blue skies, and mountain peaks that stayed out of hiding--as if intentionally, just to instill more deeply the settlers' conviction that Elliot Bay [Seattle] was indeed the most beautiful and productive country anyone could live in.--Brenda Wilbee
- My new city [Seattle] and its hinterland felt deceptively homely. Their similar latitude gave them the angular light and lingering evenings I was used to. Their damp marine weather, blowing in from the southwest, came in the right direction. When the mountains are hidden under a low sky, one might almost imagine oneself to be in Britain.--Jonathan Raban (Driving Home)
- The Northwest coast is a land of contrasts. At time it is wild and wave-battered, at other times quiet and restful. All along its length there is variety: long, sandy beaches, steep headlands, lush pasture, rocky covers, patches of deep forest. … This is a place for photographers, hikers, picnickers, campers, and for those who want nothing more than a few relaxing moments in beautiful, unpeopled surroundings.--unknown (The Beautiful Northwest ed. by Krell)
- Of all the fire mountains which like beacons, once blazed along the Pacific Coast, Mount Rainier is the noblest.--John Muir
- Often thought of as Oregon's underdeveloped coastline, the South Coast is a destination unto itself. Towering cliffs and tree-studded hillsides provide sweeping vistas of the Pacific Ocean. Spacious beaches and small, hundred-year-old towns dot U.S. Highway 101, the South Coast's main artery.--Jan Lee ("Traveling Oregon State's Beautiful South Coast")
- Oregon is an inspiration. Whether you come to it, or are born to it, you become entranced by our state’s beauty, the opportunity she affords, and the independent spirit of her citizens.--Tom McCall (Address to the 1973 Legislature)
- Oregon welcomed me like a beloved child, enfolded me in her cool arms, shushed my turbulent thoughts, and promised peace through her whispering pines.--Colleen Houck
- Oregon is blessed with a coastline of scenic beauty and variety unmatched on this continent. It's a delightful place, where the Pacific surge washes and sometimes pounds the western edge of our continent. It's a land of storms and sunburns, of wharves and lighthouses, of salt air and fading paint. It's a perfect place for the human psyche to unwind, for workaday tensions to be washed away by the rhythmic cadence of the surf.--William L. Mainwaring (Exploring the Oregon Coast)
- Other great rivers add power to you
Yakima, Snake, and the Klickitat, too
Sandy, Willamette and Hood River too
So roll on, Columbia, roll on.--Woody Guthrie ("Roll on Columbia")
- People have a great need to know there are still places on this earth that can be called wilderness. ... Among the privileged regions of our world where we can still find these hideaways is ... the place called "Oregon." ... Here the theatre of the wilderness is ... a living presence.--Paul M. Lewis (Our Oregon)
- The prairies are all right. The mountains are all right. The forests and the deserts and the clear clean air of the heights, they're all right. But what a bewitching thing is a city of the sea. It was good to be in Seattle--to hear the foghorns on the Sound, and the deep bellow of departing steamers' to feel the creeping fog all around you, the fog that softens things and makes a velvet trance out of nighttime.--Ernie Pyle
- The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It's not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.--John Steinbeck (Travels with Charley: In Search of America)
- Seattle is a soft city, made up of soft light and hills and water and growing things an a sense that nature is truly accommodating. … There is no day in the year when it is too hot or too cold to work or get around, and few days when one cannot be outside, in a boat, walking, playing golf or tennis or going fishing. ... Seattle's colors are gray and green.--Roger Sale (Seattle Past to Present)
- Seattle is not an overly friendly city. It is a civil city, but not altogether friendly. People from outside mistake the civility for friendliness. Seattle is full of people who have their own lives to live. They won't waste their time being friendly. But they are civil.--Jonathan Rabin (in Once Upon a Time in Seattle by Watson)
- Southern Oregon is a land of dramatic contrasts. Marked by spectacular mountains, deep lakes, rich valleys and arid deserts, the southern Oregon region extends from the California border, north to the shores of the Umpqua River. Mountain ranges hem in some of the region's most captivating valleys, providing lush countryside for hiking, camping, fly-fishing and river rafting.-unknown (Oregon Travel Regions: Southern Oregon [website])
- The thing that I still come back away with is how close so many people feel to the mountain [Mt. Rainier] emotionally and psychically, and yet how far away the world is when you're on the mountain.--Bruce Barcott (Seattle Times 6/14/98)
- Though broken by crags, bluffs, and some deep canyons, the long swell of the Cascades is generally seen as a green pedestal for majestic white volcanoes... Viewed from certain vantage points, these giants stand out in solitary splendor, but they stand only slightly apart from a breathless company of mountain giants, all looking romantically steep and unattainable and top-heavy with ice.--Dorothy Krell (The Beautiful Northwest)
- Though it was mid-July, the morning was brisk, the sky a gray cotton of clouds, and Puget Sound a steely, cold blue. Most of Seattle grumbled, worn with winterish weather, impatient for the elusive summer sun. With umbrellas tucked away in the trunks of cars, sunglasses lost and separated from their original purchasers, the Pacific Northwest was a bastion of misty air and pale, complaining residents.--Courtney Kirchoff (Jaden Baker)
- Washington County, Oregon, is one of the best-kept secrets of the Pacific Northwest. Scenically situated between Portland and the Oregon Coast, this burgeoning region mixes urban amenities with serene natural and agricultural settings. It is a destination worthy of applause… (Travel Portland - www.travelportland.com/visitors/around_the_region/)
- We in the Seattle area are polite. Famously, indefatigably - some have even gone so far as to say offensively - polite. Our politeness is nationally ranked--No. 8 on a survey last year--and locally treasured. D.C. might have better museums, we tell ourselves, Los Angeles better weather, but do their citizens wait for that flashing "WALK" sign?--Janet Burkitt (The Seattle Times, Jan. 30, 2000)
- We need a new ethic of place, one that has room for salmon and skyscrapers, suburbs and wilderness, Mount Rainier and the Space Needle, one grounded in history.--Matthew Klingle (Emerald City: An Environmental History of Seattle)
- The Willamette Valley is the heart of Oregon's agriculture country. During spring and summer growing seasons, roadside stands dot the country lanes, and farmers' markets appear in the valley's historic towns. Covered bridges beckon drivers to explore the many back roads, and the valley's flat terrain and temperate climate make it a favorite for hikers and cyclists... ("Travel Oregon - The Willamette Valley" in http://www.traveloregon.com)
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