Thursday, October 09, 2008

Cascade Peak & Pals, August 1960

It's time for ol' Major Pepperidge to warm up the scanner, because the pickin's on my hard drive are getting slim. But it's fun being lazy!

Anyway, here are a few photos of Cascade Peak for you, taken by a photographer who must have really liked it! I did love the peak, but have to admit that after seeing many photos of it, can't get too excited. At least this one has the Columbia sailing into view and the Mine Train passing beneath the waterfall.


This one's about as plain as they come...


But it's fun to isolate the big horned sheep up near the top... when seen side by side, it is clear that he was wiggling around up there somethin' fierce! Anybody know if he actually turned around at some point, or did he just slide back and forth?

9 comments:

TokyoMagic! said...

Great comparison pics, Major! I never knew Cascade Peak had any wildlife until one of your earlier posts. Do you know at what point the wildlife was removed?

Katella Gate said...

I'm not too familiar with the Sheep on the mountain (these are actually the first I've looked at closely) but is it possible that the sheep is actually on a turntable and goes into (and out of) a "tunnel"?

That's the easiest way to pull off this feature. Any complicated mechanics would be a maintenance problem because of access and probably too expensive to justify considering the small number of people that would even notice it. This is very much a "Walt" detail.

Major Pepperidge said...

Tokyomagic, I can only tell you that the big horned sheep were not there for very long, maybe only a year or so. I've heard that they startled the pack mules... who knows.

Katella Gate, I am not aware of a tunnel up there, and don't really see one in the details (blurry as they are). Perhaps the maintenance problems you mentioned are one of the reasons they were removed so soon?

BostonMouse said...

Hey Major,
Your mentioning of needing to scan reminded me of soomething I've been meaning to ask you. What scanner do you use to get these images? Are generally scanning slides or pictures? If they are slides, how do you blow them up?

If you have covered this in a previous post or talked about it somewhere else let me know.

Anonymous said...

The goats did indeed go back and forth on a semi circular track. I can remeber two goats; one facing the river and one on the bear river side. Each on its own separate track. There was also an additional leaping animal down closer to the mule train path. That was the one that supposedly scared the mules. Neither of these animatronic animals lasted very long apparently due to maintenace issues.

outsidetheberm said...

Yup, they moved. Not sure what the mechanism was exactly. But we have them on home movies.
As always, Major, thank you for all the great work you do. Your documentation of the park is wonderful - and it's appreciated.

Major Pepperidge said...

Bostonmouse, I scan mostly slides, and use a Canon 9950F flatbed scanner. It's around 1.5 years old now, and I am basically happy with it, although there is a part of me that wonders if I shouldn't have gone for a Nikon. It would take too long to get into here! I scan slides at 2400 dpi. This gives you plenty of image info to blow them up to a nice big size, you wind up with a file that's roughly 20 megabytes. I use Photoshop for resizing, cleaning up, cropping and adjusting the photos.

Nancy said...

i love how the Columbia is coming round the bend there, looks so majestic and very nice composition with the elements of heaven (the tall ship masts), man (the mountain) and earth (the mine train), something we learned in home decorating back in HS in the early 70s; these are the kinds of pictures i try to take now that im actually learning how! thanks, Major :D

Anonymous said...

Where's Speedy, Maj? hehe

Just as well you did it - Beautiful shots! :)