ONTARIO — Since the 1970s, more and more people have joined the movement to make our planet a better place with Earth Day on April 22 each year. Many times
Riley Gill was cold, wet and a little bit worried.
High up in the Strawberry Mountains, the young man from Springfield was a couple of days into an attempt to become just the seventh known hiker to complete the Blue Mountains Trail, a challenging route that connects all the major mountain ranges in Northeast Oregon in a 530-mile spiral that starts in Joseph and ends in John Day.
Gill was hoping to become the first to complete the route in reverse, starting from the John Day end and hiking south to north. He was also tackling the Blue Mountains Trail earlier in the year than most others have done, starting in late June to take advantage of cooler temperatures rather than waiting until August or September.
His first challenge was the Strawberries, which still had significant amounts of snow in the upper elevations, especially on north-facing slopes. And after an unusually wet spring, storm systems continued to roll through the area.
A look back at the stories that made the news in the Blue Mountain eagle in 2023.
This month-by-month retrospective covers a wide range of topics, from rodeo queens to fighting bulls, political tussles to acts of charity, the Grant County Fair to the Blue Mountain Hospital.