> Its owner, a nonprofit that supports a community of Benedictine monks, put it on the market earlier this year.
>The foundation put the property up for open auction in early February, meaning there was no minimum or maximum bid, she said. It accepted the offer the state made under the bill that passed.
>The listing worried fans of the natural wonder. But at the tail end of the legislative session this month, a bipartisan group of lawmakers stepped in and approved $2.1 million to buy the falls and its surrounding land.
Zero chance this wasn't arranged in some capacity off record.
Drat! I was going to buy this and put the entrance to my secret lair behind the waterfall. I would have gotten away with it too if not for those darn kids!
Probably they had been trying to sell it to the state for months/years/decades, and nothing had happened, so they escalated. Here in California in east bay there are thousands of acres of land around Mt. Diablo that are held by a non profit trust because the state/parks department is too lazy to aquire it/don't have funds to manage it. The privately owned/managed land around Mt. Diablo is roughly equal in size to the state park it surrounds.
Studying geology in Portland as an undergraduate, I didn't appreciate how unusual it was to have widespread basalt formations. It's super common in the area due to some ancient flood basalt. I appreciate it more visually after leaving and getting some perspective from other landscapes.
A lot of the Cascade range is basalt, and you don't need to cut down very far to expose it. A result is that most waterways in Oregon have revealed a lot of basalt around them, at least in the mountains.
... how is a comment observing the really cool basalt rock formations in the photo being downvoted? Most HN readers are (I'd assume) nerds, are we not allowed to nerd out about geography?
I just want to remind everyone: Washington, Idaho and Oregon are terrible places to live.
In 2 of these states, it just rains all the time. You never ever want to visit these waterfalls, because you're perennially living in a waterfall. The local population is always depressed/suicidal. The only Oregonian of note got in trouble for that whole Nancy Kerrigan fiasco. And Washington is under the grip of Bezos and Gates. If you think Windows is bad ...
And Idaho, is, well, Idaho. There's a reason people doubt its existence.[1] It's because there is absolutely nothing of note there.
Texas is great! Lots of land. Number 1 in green energy. Go there.
Yep, this is sooo true. Washington and Oregon are especially terrible. I tell you what, you're going to be sitting in traffic in Seattle just as much as you do in LA. And it's all very expensive. Texas is a much better decision.
That I don't get about the PNW is the property prices of places hours away from any economic center that pays well enough to justify them. Are that many people still working remote for FAANG that those prices can be justified?
>The foundation put the property up for open auction in early February, meaning there was no minimum or maximum bid, she said. It accepted the offer the state made under the bill that passed.
>The listing worried fans of the natural wonder. But at the tail end of the legislative session this month, a bipartisan group of lawmakers stepped in and approved $2.1 million to buy the falls and its surrounding land.
Zero chance this wasn't arranged in some capacity off record.
Sometimes the government is forbidden from buying land but nothing stops an individual or charity.
Seems like reasonable use of public dollars (~$2.1M) to protect and preserve a public good as public land.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/ddRk8RUzBfEd47ya7
In 2 of these states, it just rains all the time. You never ever want to visit these waterfalls, because you're perennially living in a waterfall. The local population is always depressed/suicidal. The only Oregonian of note got in trouble for that whole Nancy Kerrigan fiasco. And Washington is under the grip of Bezos and Gates. If you think Windows is bad ...
And Idaho, is, well, Idaho. There's a reason people doubt its existence.[1] It's because there is absolutely nothing of note there.
Texas is great! Lots of land. Number 1 in green energy. Go there.
[1] https://www.facebook.com/groups/221739400799965/posts/302745...
I kid you not when I say it took over 20 minutes for me to drive one block to get on to the freeway. There was no accident or other problem.
I go to LA often. Seattle is way worse.