My niece grips my hand in her small one, making sure that I don’t stray ahead of her on the log-jam at Oneonta Gorge (Oregon USA ). I shake her free, gesturing with my head towards her mom, who is waiting with open arms for me to pass her daughter over a particularly hard to manoeuvre section.

Picking her up by the waist, I pass her to my waiting sister. Kim and I exchange knowing smiles; Oneonta is known for this difficult section of piled up logs, fallen in some long-forgotten storm, but the short hike through the (very cold and sometimes very deep) creek back to a raging waterfall is worth it.

“Oneonta Gorge, one of my favorite places to be”

So worth it, that during the summer months it’s hard to get through for all of the hikers waiting their turn. It’s kind of like a right-of-passage, this hike, popularity or no.

I can’t even remember the first time I hiked it, or all of the different times I’ve made my way over those precarious logs. I have memories of my older brother taking me when I was young, carrying me on his shoulders for when the pools went above my head. I remember taking my twin nieces there for their first time, and trying (unsuccessfully) to convince them to dunk their heads under the frigid water.

There are photos of my childhood best friends and I there, dorkily smiling in swimming suits, shorts, and water sandals. I picnicked there with my sister and her then boyfriend, now husband. It feels like it’s always been one of my favorite places to be. Oneonta Gorge is a part of the Columbia River Gorge, known to locals as just The Gorge.

It’s full of cascading waterfalls, flora and fauna found nowhere else in the world, and peaks giving way to sweeping views of the glorious Columbia river and the surrounding mountains, all of it laced with beloved hiking trails. Like Oneonta, I can’t remember my first time on any of these trails. That’s how integral they were to my child and young adulthood.

“Precious memories in flames”

I’ve spent explorative afternoons there with just about every person that I love. It’s such an important and sacred place to me that I struggle to put into words exactly how much it means. I feel at one with the universe among the evergreens and bubbling creeks, like there is some sort of order to the universe. When I’m there, I feel a deep respect for nature and grateful to be part of the same world as such a perfect place.

Right now, all of those precious memories, the latest ones less than a month old, are engulfed in flames. Summer 2017 was one of the driest on record, and fire warnings were on high-alert. A teenage boy misused fireworks in the area despite these warnings. That’s all it took. Just one bad decision. It seems silly to think how heeding Smokey the bear’s advice could have prevented all of this. Only YOU can prevent forest fires.

I wish that boy and his friends had thought of that. As I write this, the fire is still 0 percent contained. So far it has consumed an estimated 30,000 acres. The preventability and pointlessness of it make it harder to swallow.

Is it strange, that I wish I were there?

“I want to feel the pain together”

It feels like my heart is being ripped out everytime I see another photo of the destruction. The thought “it will never be the same again” echoes through my thoughts, and it brings tears to my eyes. The grief is visceral and painful. And no one here can understand.

Everyone who can understand is back in Portland, watching ash rain on their homes, playgrounds, and cars. I want to feel the pain together. I want someone to grieve with.