If I wanted it to evoke that special magic of the mountain, my painting needed to flow from a deeper, inner place of vision.

Hikes for viewing the spectacular vistas of Coyote Wall and "the Sleeper" in the Columbia River Gorge.

That's what the repetitive process of depicting mountains is all about, with each painting I’m getting closer to knowing what it means to me

This was a hike I’d come across sometime in the doldrums of fall or winter, idly perusing google maps for points of interest.

I went back and hiked out as far as I could into the Salmon Huckleberry Wilderness with my cumbersome sack of oil painting gear.