Thinking at the Fire

One weekend in October, I took a camping trip through the eerie landscape left behind when the five cubic miles of water from prehistoric Lake Missoula gouged its way through the Palouse wheatfields at the end of the last ice age.  Carving out the Columbia Gorge from Western Montana to Portland, Oregon, this seven hundred foot-high wall of water must have been heard and felt for hours before it carved its way through the rolling hills, scooping out Grand Coulee and Palouse Falls.  I camped in my little tent  next to the cascading waters of Palouse Falls in below-freezing temperatures, warm in my sleeping bag under a space blanket.  Each night, my fire kept me warm and cooked my supper, then made my morning coffee after I broke the ice out of my water bucket.  One night, I set up my No. 1 Kodak on my little pocket tripod, then sat pensively gazing into the flames for several minutes while I took this exposure.  My image is partially transparent, as if I am not totally present in that time.  It matches the unearthly quality of this eroded landscape in the moonlight.