Our Daily Sykes #114 – Chelan River Canyon

For Horace Sykes who consistently pursued the picturesque this scene may have seemed its parody.  The sublime is slipping here towards the grotesque.  The river looks nearly stagnant, the trees are hanging on.  This canyon needs a drink, and the hill on the other side is having trouble with its rocky parts.   It seems deflated: a rocky expression of depression.  This canyon has colitis or maybe tortured bowel syndrome.  It can be imagined groaning.  There are none of Horace’s flowers in the foreground.

For this view Horace stopped above the last big curve in the serpentine Chelan River Canyon where it drops 500 feet from Lake Chelan to the Columbia River in about 4 miles.   Horace took the old road on the south (or west) side of the river.   A piece of the Columbia can be seen on the far right.  The town of Chelan Falls is on the Columbia, and the town of Chelan (only) is on the lake.  The trip between them is a rough climb – initiation – into the charmed land of Lake Chelan, all 50-plus miles of it.

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