Sunny mornings along river explain beauty of Vantage

Reflections from the lights of Vantage, Wash., stretched long across the Columbia River as we approached via Highway 243 from the south.

The dark desert surrounded the little town. At night it’s hard to tell why anyone would choose to come here. There’s no sizzlin’ nightlife to speak of, unless you count cocktails at the Golden Harvest Restaurant.

But walk the riverbank on a sunny morning or watch a pink sunset over a sagebrush desert near the Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park, and you see the attraction of this place. Natural light from dusk to dawn makes this arid land come alive with color.

Slow down to spend some time near Vantage and you become enveloped in the landscape. From the viewpoints above the river to sitting low in a boat on the water, the vistas are wide, open and expansive – a good place for a quiet desert retreat.

This was our second visit to Vantage. The first was a week before when we came to deploy water quality probes in the river below Wanapum Dam as part of our small business. Now we were back to check on them and collect data.

The daytime office at the Vantage Riverstone Resort is located in the General Store, where the window advertises that they sell “a lil’ bit of everything.” They also employ a nice woman there who kept calling me “young lady” to my delight each time I went into the store. (I’m 30-something and haven’t gotten carded for alcohol in more than two years.)

It was late this time when we arrived in Vantage. The General Store closed up at 6 p.m, so we picked up our motel room key at the resort’s night office at the Texaco station.

The next morning, husband John and our dog, Kah-less, rose early for a walk while I slept a little longer. It was too cold and I was too sleepy.

However, I was a little jealous as John described their walk and seeing the sun come up on the Columbia. I dressed and we hauled our boat down Highway 243 to the ramp at Wanapum Dam for work.

The river flows through a deep gorge where the distinctive, hexagon-shaped basalt stands tall in some places along its banks. Smooth hilltops of the Columbia Plateau appear waxy light brown in the sun. Soon yellow balsamroot and pale, pink phlox will spread across the open land. Sandy spots dot the slopes of rock formations and hills that rise up from the earth.

The human history of this area begins with the Wanapum (“river”) people, who numbered about 3,000 when Lewis and Clark passed through. Exhibits at the Wanapum Dam and Heritage Center tell the story of this tribe, known to be peaceful.

Wanapum spiritual leader Smowhala was said to have foreseen the “extinction of pure Indian blood and the conquest of Mother Earth.” Beginning in the late 1880s, Smowhala led the Wanapum in a movement to continue to live by traditional ways and not take on the lifestyle of whites.

In the early 1950s when construction on the Priest Rapids and Wanapum dams was about to begin, the Wanapum were one of the last Native tribes in America still living in traditional tule mat longhouses.

The Wanapum were not involved in the Indian wars, nor had they signed any treaties with the United States. They had no title to their lands. Construction of the dams meant their village would be under water.

In 1957, four Wanapum men signed an agreement with the Grant County Public Utility District giving up aboriginal rights to their fishing grounds at Priest Rapids. The small band was provided with a new home and a place to practice their religion. The dam and center were completed in September 1963.

The University of Washington, with the help of the P.U.D. and other agencies, recovered many artifacts before the area was flooded. Some of their finds are shown in the Heritage Center. The history and development of the hydro project is also covered.

The early history of white people in the area is typical of the West: trappers, missionaries, miners and settlers. With them came steamships, railroads, highways, bridges and dams. Chaps, spurs, and a tiny model of a loaded pioneer wagon are a few examples of things used by the center to depict white history.

In the 1930s, petrified logs were unearthed near Vantage during a highway project. The U.S. Civilian Conservation Corps was instructed to create the Ginkgo Petrified Forest State Park, building trails to points of interest, a contact station, caretakers’ quarters, a museum and a water supply.

We walked some of the park’s interpretive trails located just off Old Vantage Road, an alternate route to I-90 for reaching Ellensburg. Petrified specimens including spruce, walnut and Douglas fir are caged in displays along the gravel trail.

During our late-winter visit to Vantage, the town was practically deserted (pardon the pun). But try to pitch a tent here when there’s an event at the Gorge Amphitheatre just up the road in George. Vantage is overrun with concertgoers at those times, I learned from the waitress at the Golden Harvest Restaurant while waiting for a takeout order of fish and chips. The area is also popular among the rod-and-reel crowd.

The mid-morning sun was bright as we set about our work on the water. From the driver’s seat of our boat, I could see the Beverly Bridge just below Wanapum Dam. You can also see the bridge from the observation deck at the heritage center, where a telescope is available for surveying the area.

The last time we were here, we started work right at daybreak. Waiting in the quiet of that morning, I saw an eagle soar above a leafless tree near the bank, causing a group of squawking blackbirds to shut up and disperse.

After we finished our work, I climbed the riprap-covered shoreline to reach Kah-less, who napped patiently in the shade of the truck’s interior. John tightened down straps and packed stuff away so it wouldn’t blow out riding down the highway, while Kah-less and I kicked and chased a foam-filled float across the ground.

Standing in line to buy a bear claw and an apple danish at the Vantage Texaco, I spotted a display of dried gourds that were fashioned into bowls and birdhouses. The unsigned pieces were mostly left with the natural color of the gourd from drying. A few bowls had the addition of a woven pine-needle lip.

The natural browns of the smooth gourds reminded me of the natural beauty of the surrounding desert. The guy at the counter told me that a lady who works there makes them. I picked out one that had delicate designs of butterflies and flowers burned into it and wrapped it in several paper towels to protect it under the truck seat.

We took one more trip to the river, to dunk the dog, before we drove back home through the desert.