The Enigma of a Sunny Land
There’s a little settlement tucked away on a small peninsula along the mighty Columbia River. At the bottom of the gorge upriver from Vantage, below the seven layers of basalt volcanic lava flows carved away over millions of years, lies a little enclave of retirees and communal water sport nuts, all held together by the beating sun and the lure of smooth waters.
Sunland. An appropriate name for this sunbaked slice of Americana, where the lower-middle class and the lower-upper crust quietly, but not always congenially, intermingle. This is at once near the middle of nowhere and near where it’s happening.
The Vantage Bridge for Interstate 5, the main east-west thoroughfare across Washington State, crosses the Columbia just a few miles away. All that traffic, just passing through, so near yet so far.
But the Gorge Ampitheater, or the Gorge at George, is ten minutes up the hill. The famous concert venue turns the quiet, predominantly farming rolling hills of Central Washington into a rollicking, if smaller and more refined, reenactment of Woodstock up to twenty-some times a year.
As with all things commercial, its draw is beginning to pull development not directly related to concerts. Vineyards have been here for some time. Cave B Estate Winery borders the Ampitheater, and is complete with a wonderful restaurant, condos and several high-end homes all overlooking the Columbia.
Where grapes don’t cover the rolling landscape of this mesa, apple orchards, wheat, alfalfa, hay, and produce do. Everything that grows only does so because of a well-developed dam and irrigation system. Naturally, a few golf courses also dot the landscape between here, Ephrata, Soap Lake, the Potholes and Moses Lake.
It gets hot here. Triple digits during the summer months are the norm. The brown hills and exposed basalt create a hard, desolate contrast to the blue Columbia waters. Jack rabbits, wild turkeys, rattlesnakes, and black widows love it.
Winters are cold, with snow and temps below freezing. High winds through the gorge add to the isolation and winter drama. Many of the residents are summer inhabitants or second-home vacationers. Sunland claims 180 or so full-time residents. Those who enjoy the quiet, the relative solitude and low-key lifestyle are the only ones hanging around.
Sunland represents a niche of settlements along the Columbia. A few miles upriver is the well-known and developed Crescent Bar. In my youth, it was a popular destination for water skiing. Camping came as a bonus. Now it’s all homes, condos and RV parks.
All that aside, these are communities shaped by Mother Nature. She rules the roost. Roads follow topography because they must; wind, water, heat, cold dictate what survives and where. South of the Vantage Bridge are Desert Aire, Schwana and Beverly; north is Sunland and Crescent Bar. There’s not much else along this stretch except four dams: Priest Rapids, Wanapum, Rock Island and Rocky Reach.
Inevitably, some growth will continue fueling these spots. But their geography has its limits; it will be nearly impossible to overcome that. For once, Mother Nature may actually win out over man’s desires. The harshness of Eastern Washington has a way of doing that. She will only give so much, bend so far. Everything here is earned. Irrigation has made it more than desert and brushland. How much farther it can be pushed, and at what cost, is the question.
Time will tell. But for now, these little communities scrub out an existence by remaining small, carving out homes on small bits of relative goodwill the mighty Columbia has chosen to provide. Even that may not last. Nature is always reminding them who guides life. And that’s part of why they choose to be here.
