The Enterprise - White Salmon, Washington

College students take break in Gorge

High Prairie News for March 21

March 19, 2013

By Audrey Bentz

365-3600

amsong@gorge.net

March is a time when many college students use their spring break to self indulge, perhaps on a Florida beach or on a ski slope. But 10 University of Idaho students just used their spring break to do volunteer work in our Columbia Gorge.

Headquartering at High Prairie's Morning Song Acres facility, and under the leadership of Friends of the Gorge, they spent a full week on projects such as these: removing blackberry bushes and debris at the Cape Horn Conservancy, "replanting" a road, and removing a silt fence. On the Dalles Mountain Road they tore down an old illegally built cabin, removing the remnants out of a steep canyon. Working with the Klickitat Trail Conservancy, they removed more blackberry bushes and encroaching vegetation and litter, and cleared harmful rocks from the trail. Exhausted, but so impressed by our Gorge setting and its residents, they have now returned to classes at the U of Idaho!

This Thursday, the High Prairie Community Center (Struck Road off Centerville Hwy) will host a 6 p.m. potluck meal followed by an interesting presentation for all history buffs on the Schilling Ranch at 7 p.m. by the grandson of Robert Schilling who came from Germany in the late 1800s. All interested guests are welcome! The monthly meeting will follow.

Roadside Clean-up will be the week of April 7 to April 13, so High Prairians are encouraged to pick up bags and supplies at the Taylor's Church, 876 Centerville Hwy.

Residents are also reminded that "Dumpster Day" will be Saturday, April 13, from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.