Oregon is burning as this is written. Last week, before the wind shifted from offshore to onshore, Portlanders were breathing air that ranked second worst on the planet. Across the Pacific Northwest, conflagration, air quality alerts, property loss and human fatalities are part of every summer.
We hadn’t heard of the Catherine Creek fire when we headed out to this favorite Columbia Gorge location in August of 2025. On the Washington side of the river, this day trip/overnighter is a beautiful place, known for wildflower meadowlands, world-class Gorge scenery, and the rock formation known as the Catherine Creek Natural Arch. There, alongside the creek, a place the Chinook tribe consider sacred, a millennial wear-down of talus rock created a gash in the mountainside that looks as if the rocks had fallen all at once.
Last summer, upon arrival we saw that everything had changed. The wildflower meadows were charred black. The stench of burn hung over the landscape. What we could see of the creek was a rill of dusty sand and river rocks. No birds flitted between the scorched tree trunks, no raptors slip-streamed the Gorge winds. There was a sign at the trailhead: No Entry, by order of the USDA Forest Service. Some teenagers were flying drones over the restricted area, and they told us about the fire.
Old Highway 8 divides the Catherine Creek Recreation Area, and had served as a firebreak in the battle waged by firefighters. On the trails side was the aforementioned disaster; the river side, much smaller by comparison, remained verdant and alive all the way down to the water’s edge. We walked that side, and drove home.
How much recovery from a wildfire can occur in one year? This August, we decided to find out.
The trail was open. To our surprise, the wildflowers and grasses had returned. Evidence of the fire lay in the trees. The lofty deciduous and evergreen species survived, the flames having licked up and fallen short of full engulfment. Less mature trees stood where they’d burned, lifeless, with roasted pine cones and needles softened to ash.
Catherine Creek was a trickle. Amazingly, through the trees, some burned, others seemingly untouched, a mother wild turkey pecked through the duff, with a fresh brood of poults following in her steps. At a canyon overlook, a raptor on the hunt, dusk was approaching. We wondered how the burrowing animals had weathered the fire.
The arch, impervious, gaping, withstanding. A lone, long-dead oak clung to a rocky crevasse, yet all around, nature, life, creation, was reclaiming the land.
Interstate 84 was a clear, uncluttered run back to Portland that Saturday night. But haze bloodied the rising moon.