Exploring the Okanogan No. 1: From Mountains to Wild Flowers, Little Escapes Widels' Viewfinders

From Mountains to Wild Flowers, Little Escapes Widels' Viewfinders
Published in the May 9, 1957 issue of The Omak-Okanogan County Chronicle

     INTRODUCTION
     This is the first in a series of Okanogan county pictures from the files of Glen and Elizabeth Widel, shop foreman and Linotype operator at the Omak Chronicle.
     The Widels travel nowhere without their cameras, and during the past several years have built up a striking collection of scenesand distinctive landmarks from every corner of the Okanogan.

     It should be understood from the outset that we are strongly partisan in our views; we love Okanogan county in all its sprawling size, from the dramatic grandeur of the Sawtooth range on the west down to the shyest wildflower hiding in the grass.
      Weekends we like to provision the car, grab the cameras and take off.
      En route we notice wildlife (the oddest car counter we ever saw was a doe deer on the Loup Loup one Sunday afternoon), geologic formations, communities and their histories, and ever and always the mountains.
      Most people, we have found, do not know the names of their near mountains. They live in the presence of grandeur and can't identify. What's the name of your peak? If we were to meet you one weekend, we probably would ask, for we like to know.
     And in addition to stopping just to look and sort of drink it in, we also try to see it through a viewfinder. Thus we can have all the county in all seasons, even with six feet of snow keeping us in the valley come winter.
•     •     •       The picture above was taken on the way to Loomis. It is the chief area in the acounty where we have found this type of erosion.
     You can see it at intervals all the way from the old highway clear through to that tortuous road above the Similkameen.
      The water-scarred slopes stand above irrigated fields of the lovely Loomis Valley – E.B.W.