Jacoby

The spring norther was blowing fiercely on Easter Sunday and, as I dislike being buffeted, my hiking options were limited.

Severely limited.

Pretty much any part of Baker Valley or points east was sure to be sandblasted as gusts topped 30 mph for most of the holiday.

As a symbol of spring in our region, the north wind is as reliable as the buttercup and the line at the car wash.

Except it’s neither photogenic nor beneficial to the clearcoat on your fenders.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

You could apply a whole can of hairspray to no effect — a couple minutes exposed to the tempest would transform the most carefully coiffed style into Medusa.

Wind is the cruelest weather phenomenon, it seems to me — even at velocities well below a hurricane or tornado.

I can parry other problematic conditions.

When it’s frigid outside I don a goosedown jacket that thwarts the arctic temperature.

On a torrid day I can seek shade or a cool mountain stream.

But wind can’t be combatted in anything like the same way.

I own a fleece jacket bearing the rather boastful name of “Windstopper.”

The fabric certainly blocks the wind more effectively than, say, thin cotton.

Except wind has a psychological effect. Even on a relatively mild day, which Easter was, a constant wind is tiresome. Wind, unlike air temperature, is a physical force. If you’re walking into the wind it tries to shove you backward, turning flat ground into a hill.

This is infuriating.

The spring norther is especially vexing because it usually reaches a crescendo on days that would otherwise be quite pleasant.

The meteorological circumstances are easily explained.

It’s simpler to think of wind not as moving air but as a liquid that happens to not be wet.

Gravity, of courses, causes water to flow downhill.

In the case of wind, air moves away from areas of high barometric pressure and toward areas of relatively low pressure. The greater the difference, the stronger the gusts.

(Topography complicates things, notably the tendency for canyons or valleys to act as funnels that accelerate wind. Anyone who lives near the mouth of Ladd Canyon near La Grande understands this phenomenon all too well.)

A typical weather pattern in Northeast Oregon in spring — and the reason the season is renowned for careening between snow squalls and warm sunshine — consists of a strong cold front that spawns rain or snow (and occasionally thunderstorms) immediately followed by clearing skies.

The cold front, which is connected to an area of low pressure, usually barrels off to the south and southeast, into Idaho, Nevada and Utah. Meanwhile the air pressure rapidly rises in Northeast Oregon.

This creates what meteorologists call a “pressure gradient.” It’s an apt term. We think of the land in similar ways — for instance, the signs along Interstate 84 at the top of Cabbage Hill that show the percentage of the downgrade.

Indeed, meteorologists refer to the “steepness” of the pressure gradient, by which they mean the difference in air pressure between two points.

That gradient usually peaks for a day or two after the cold front has passed.

So even as clouds diminish and temperature rise, the wind blows a gale. Because the low pressure is to our south, the wind direction is north.

By midmorning on Easter, the wind was whistling in hollow, atonal melody in the eaves. The willows in our yard were whipping about.

I have over the decades created a mental list of places that are somewhat sheltered on blustery days. Many of these are along the Powder River between Baker City and Sumpter.

The reason is topography. Because the river canyon runs roughly east-west, it is usually protected both from the spring norther and from the other most common wind direction, south/southeast.

The ponderosa pine forest just north of Highway 7 is my favorite hiking destination in such conditions. The high ground here, which rises a couple thousand feet above the river, deflects the wind much more thoroughly than my Windstopper jacket.

I also enjoy spring hikes here for another reason.

One of the gulches harbors, for just a month or so, a snowmelt stream. This freshet, so diminutive and ephemeral, pleases me in a way I struggle to express.

Something about its brevity appeals to me.

It is, I suppose, comparable to how I feel when I watch a sunrise or sunset — any natural phenomenon whose beauty is fleeting.

This stream, which has no name on any map I’ve consulted, is just west of California Gulch. In no place is it wider than 2 feet, nor deeper than 1 foot. Yet during its limited seasonal life it is a proper creek, the flow sufficient to make soft music as it tumbles off stones the size of footballs.

My wife, Lisa, and I followed the rill up the slope for half a mile or so. We reveled in the placid air, so different from the gusts that pummeled us in our driveway and tried to push our rig out of its lane along the wind-prone length of Bowen Valley just south of Baker City.

As we walked I thought of the stream’s pending fate. I knew that long before the summer solstice it would be gone, the rusty red drifts of ponderosa needles, after their brief seasonal soaking, rapidly returning to their usual desiccated state.

But I was glad to be there, glad to hear the unique melody of moving water in a place where, on most days, the only sound is the wind weaving between the pines.

And glad for the shelter of the mountains.

From Baker City, drive Highway 7 south and then west toward Sumpter. Just west of Milepost 36, about 14 miles from Baker City, turn right (north) onto an unmarked road. The entrance is on the opposite side of the highway from the entrance to the Powder River Recreation Area. The road continues for a few hundred yards, ending near a rock fire pit. The seasonal stream, which likely will be dry by May, flows beside the road.