Views atop Mt. Howard

Northwest Return Travelog #11
Atop Mt. Howard, OR - Sat, 31 Jul 2021. 2pm.

I'm sure for some people who ride the Wallowa Lake Tram to the top of Mt. Howard it's a matter of ride the tram up, eat some food at the cafe at the top, maybe waddle around a bit, then ride the tram back down. Not us. We're there to hike!

Fortunately with the tram doing a lot of the hard work for us (3,800' of elevation gain!) what's left is an easy...ish loop hike of 2-3 miles around the top of the mountain. It's "-ish" because a) there's still a few hundred feet of vertical up-down to deal with, and b) we're not acclimated to the 8,100' elevation. The town of Clarkston, where we're staying, on the Snake River, is below 1,000' elevation.



We looped around the top of the mountain counter-clockwise. The first spot we visited is marked "Royal Purple" on our map. Royal Purple... what? It's not specified. I'm going to call it Royal Purple Lookout. It's atop that knob in the middle distance. Nothing there was exactly purple today, though. You can see the smoke hanging in the air in these pictures.

Actually, these pictures look better than the sights did in person. A little bit of adjustment in Photoshop with intensity windows and saturation levels counteracts many of the effects of the smoke and clouds. I could have pushed the adjustments harder to cancel out the smoke even more. Instead I've struck a balance here between bringing out the natural beauty of the place and representing what it actually looks like now.



As we hiked the loop around the mountain we were acutely aware of the smoke. ...Not so much because it made us choke (it didn't) but because it was literally everywhere, visible all the time, impairing our views in every direction, constantly. I can only imagine how far we would have been able to see, and how vivid the colors would be, on a clear summer day.



As we wound most of the way around the mountaintop I was lucky to catch a paraglider taking off. I say "lucky" because I didn't even know paragliding was a specific thing up here; I didn't see anyone with equipment down at the lower tram station, nor was there a marker on the map reading "Paragliders: take off here -->." This guy had his parachute all set up when I arrived at this knob on the north side of the mountain and was waiting for the right wind to help him take off. That wind gusted just moments after I arrived, and he was off.



🎵 Into the wild blue gray yonder.



We wrapped up our loop back at the tram station. There's a line here so it's going to be about 15 minutes until we can get a tram, then 15 minutes for the ride back down to the bottom.

"Service Engine" Light, Again

The SERVICE ENGINE SOON light has been on in our Nissan Xterra again. No, not while we're 1,000 miles from home in the Inland Northwest— thankfully. (We've had car trouble 1,000 miles from home before, and— except for the novelty of touring a national park in a flat bed tow truck it is not fun!) I'm pausing my writing backlog from that trip so this doesn't get too badly backlogged.

The warning light started coming on intermittently back in May. I ignored it for a while because there were no driveability problems. "SERVICE ENGINE SOON" is a general purpose idiot light that gets triggered by things as minor as the gas cap not being screwed on tightly enough. Our experience last year was that it could be ignored for months before a real problem appeared. Of course, the conclusion of that experience earlier this year was that there was a real problem. Fixing it cost $1,400.

The issue this time came to a head when the car failed a smog check yesterday. The smog check involved checking the engine computer for fault codes, and there was one related to the emissions system. Immediate fail. Likely the warning light is related to the emissions fault; though either way, the fault definitely has to be investigated and solved for the car to pass the test and get re-registered this month.

It's Mud, Again

I dropped off the car at the nearest Nissan dealership yesterday afternoon— nearest being 15 miles away. Again I debated whether to take it to a trustworthy local mechanic who's a) around the corner and b) likely much cheaper. I decided if it's a computer-y problem the Nissan specialists at the dealership would be better prepared to handle it. So off I went.

This afternoon the Nissan service writer called me back with a diagnosis. It's mud. Yes, the same root cause as the $1,400 repair we needed just 4½ months ago.

"Didn't you guys clean out the stuff that was corroded because of mud last time?" I asked.

"This is in a different part of the vehicle," the manager explained. The earlier problem involved sensors in the engine compartment being compromised by mud and dirt. This time it's exhaust-related sensors and parts in the car's rear end.

The estimate for parts and labor so far is about $1,250. I say "so far" because the manager warned me that once they replace the parts they can see are bad right now, there may only then be additional problems that emerge. The manager seemed ready for me to argue with him about that process.... Instead I told him I understood. Iterative processes are part of my work, too, and I've taught many colleagues about why they're good.

The Next Money Pit?

Still, $1,250 is nothing to sneeze at. And the bill may go higher before it's done.

Between the $1,400 repair bill a few months ago and this looming bill now I'm starting to wonder if this car will become another money pit like our 2008 BMW convertible became. This car's a 2011 and it's got about 105k miles on it. Maybe it'll be time to put it out to pasture soon....