Historic Hood River
“The Pebble”
Notes
Dean Fletcher told me W. F. Laraway called this boulder “the pebble.” It is a glacial erratic– a granite boulder rafted to the Hood River Valley on an ice floe during one of the cataclysmic floods of the Ice Age.
I posted another view of it a while back and two possible locations were suggested: Charlott suggested Van Horn Butte, and Don suggested his property near Panorama Point. I’ve since spoken with the folks at Oregon’s Department of Geology and Minerals (DOGAMI) who shared a survey of glacial erratics in the valley. Sure enough, there is one of this size on Van Horn Butte, reported by none other than Harlan Bretz himself. I spoke with the current property owner, who says there is no boulder there today but there is some evidence the boulder might have been blasted away to make room for a homesite. I have not been able to track down Don to see his candidate, but I’m confident when I finish scanning the collection we’ll have some better evidence to resolve this mystery.
I’m adding this link from DOGAMI for the hardcore geologists among us. Warning: you will be downloading an 800MB zip file which includes a 2012 map of the geology of the Hood River Valley, as well as a full set of GIS files. If you have GIS software you will be able to load the shapefile for the Missoula Flood data which includes the location and additional details about the various glacial erratics, including the one at 842 feet on Van Horn Butte reported by Harlan Bretz in 1919. If you don’t have GIS software you can still look at the very interesting detailed map showing the makeup of the valley and the location of all the known fault lines.
Basaltgrouse
We have the pleasure of seeing the rare and elusive double post today. Apples and pebbles. Thank you Arthur.
nels
Arthur, did a search but could not find any articles on Hood River valley erratic’s
Do you have a source for that info?.
ArthurB
Yep, I made a mistake posting. I’ve changed the post link so you can see both of them.
Nels, I got the info from a friend in the state geology office. I’ll check my records when I have some time to see where it came from. I think it was a link, but perhaps they just sent me the file. Very cool map which I should definitely share!
kmb
In the earlier photo (#1657) posted April 2017, someone named Don wrote the "pebble" was next to his house on the west side of Panorama Point. Would it not be possible for one of the HR locals on here to track down Don and/or get a current picture of this? It would be interesting to compare the current view.
Laraway
This rock is on a working orchard located on Eastside Road. We can obtain a current photo
Jeffrey Bryant
The first mention of Panorama Point that I’ve seen was in the Hood River Glacier, 1925-07-09, page 2.
https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn97071110/1925-07-09/ed-1/seq-2/