Recreating the Historic Columbia River Highway: Anthem

Recreating the HCRH: We're Almost There...

Recreating the HCRH: We're Almost There... from A. F. Litt on Vimeo.

Project Update: June 2015

Over the next few months, as what looks to be a very hot summer descends upon the region, I plan on shifting focus away from the website and more towards video content as we move into the last year before the June 2016 centennial.

Of course, work will still continue on the back log of photos still waiting to get posted to the site, and there’s plenty of research notes that will be posted, too, but as I move into more of a full time role on this project over the coming weeks, I see the bulk of my time being spent on video production.

The original goal of this project was to produce a feature length documentary, though over the last couple years, that goal has waffled back and forth a bit between aiming towards a movie, a web series, or a book. All along, I’ve been filming quite a bit, and there’s two years’ worth of video content, with more being produced every month, waiting to get out into the world.

However, after becoming more involved with video production and filmmaking in other areas of my life over the past year, I am now more dedicated than ever to producing a film. Right now the target release date is June 2016. A lot of work will need to happen between now and then to make this a reality, but a lot of work has already been completed, and I am confident that this goal can be reached.

And a part of my filmmaking process will be to produce the web series as well. The first episodes should start appearing sometime in July on the YouTube channel.

Other, shorter, less detailed videos will also be appearing on the YouTube channel from time to time between the episode of the web series, and the first of these should be up this week.

As for the book, I would like to wrap this project up with one, but that will be later. Right now it may be as late as 2018, but this part of the project should be considered a tentative plan, at best. A lot of my life has gone into this project over the last two years, and the time investment I am making will increase exponentially over the next year with the production of the film, so I want to wait and see what I’ve got left in the tank, so to speak, before promising to continue on into a book after the movie.

But that is the plan for right now, and I hope it does happen.

Finally, to make all of this come together, I am in the (very) preliminary planning stages of launching at least one crowdfunding campaign to help propel the documentary film towards completion. More detail on that will be revealed later this summer.

As always, I thank everyone who has helped or encouraged this project from the beginning.

Researching history can be a very lonely, sometimes grueling task, and one of the wonderful things about this project has been its public nature and the collaborative support of so many great people along the way. Everyone’s encouragement has already been a huge factor in keeping this project alive for this long, and will be what sustains me through the long year ahead, enabling me to reach the June 2016 centennial target for the film.

Wahclella Blowin' In the Wind

Originally posted on Rubble...



Wahclella Blowin' In the Wind (2013)
John B. Yeon State Scenic Corridor. Oregon. May 19, 2013. 
Copyright © 2015 A. F. Litt, All Rights Reserved

Photo of the Day by A. F. Litt: April 6, 2015

Sorting through some older photos from the Columbia River Gorge for my documentary on the Historic Columbia River Highway (www.RecreatingTheHCRH.org), I ran across this shot and thought it was an interesting one... It's a little amazing that even back in a ravine like this, the wind can be strong enough to blow a falls of this size as much as it does.

Cabin Creek Falls & Still River

Originally posted on Rubble...



Cabin Creek Falls and Still River (2015)
Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. Washington. March 26, 2015
Copyright © 2015 A. F. Litt, All Rights Reserved

Photo of the Day by A. F. Litt: March 26, 2015

It's been awhile since I've posted a photo of the day, but I took this one while out working on www.RecreatingTheHCRH.org and really liked it, for what it is...

Logging Artifacts in the Gorge

While this is mostly filmed in Washington, it is a good look at logging in the Gorge on both sides of the river in the early 20th century. It sometimes hard for me to imagine what driving the highway would have been like back then when there were, due to logging and fires, very few trees blocking the views.

 Sure, we can see what it looked like from the major landmarks since there are many pictures, but driving down to Latourell from Crown Point? Even further along, today what feels like a nice drive through the forest back then would have been almost constant vistas up and down with a much clearer view of the drop that is often right next to our car.

 Samuel Lancaster once wrote that the fences and walls of the highway made the drivers feel secure even when driving, at speed, along cliffs of great heights, and while in certain locations, like Crown Point and Rowena Crest, this still remains true today, it is easy for me, at least, to remember than much of the road is built along steep banks and that, before the regrowth of timber along the route, many of these banks would have looked like cliff faces from the road.

As for logging operations along the highway, Bridal Veil was clearly ground center for the Gorge during the lifetime of the highway. On the lower highway, though, logging was much more extensive and continues to this day. However, since logging operations have not ceased out there, there may be less mysterious old equipment awaiting discovery on the other side of Portland.


 

Oregon Field Guide: Season 24, Episode 4 - The Warren Falls Episode

This episode also contains some of the best info I've seen on the Parkdale Lava Flow.  Not HCRH related, but another interest of mine!