The Oregon Surveyor July/August 2018

11 Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org History & Travel and pulling it over. I used to go up there and wonder why in the heck we didn’t have the courage to build that line about five miles South where the terrain was smooth . . . when we got orders in those days, why we followed them!” The work done by Gene White’s survey crews on the steep walls of the Colum- bia Gorge in the Wind River country and the Cascade Mountains earned them the nickname, “side hill gougers,” for, accord- ing to the Associated Press at the time, “those legendary beasts were equipped with two short legs and two long legs for mountainous travel.” With respect to the line’s impact on the environment of the Gorge, BPA engineer Ev Harrington later observed: “I defy any- body who’s a stranger to this country to drive down the Gorge and spot it. If you ask them, ‘What do you think of that trans- mission line up there?’ they’ve never seen it. We didn’t take pains to conceal it, but if you’re not looking for it, you can’t see it!” The line brought hydro power to the Northern Wasco PUD and the Wasco Ru- ral Electric Cooperative. x Editor’s note During my career at David Evans and As- sociates, one of my primary clients was The Bonneville Power Administration. I had many occasions to view this line as I traveled Interstate 84 to work on BPA projects on the East side of the Cascade Range, both in Oregon andWashington. It never ceased to amaze me how that line was ever built. Toward the end of my ca- reer, DEA survey crews had theopportunity to resurvey portions of the line for the purpose of rebuilding sections that had been influenced by landslides or erosive processes. I had the opportunity to look over some of the retracement work and was amazed at how well contemporary survey data matched the work complet- ed by Gene White’s crews so many years ago (more than 80 in some cases). This speaks volumes about standards of care and rigorous procedures! x We had places where you couldn’t get a mule carrying several of the 70-pound pieces, and 70 pounds was the limit a man could carry or that you could handle by getting a long hand- line across and pulling it over.