June 29, 2014 - Bend Walk to Town (YRE-0774)

It was a beautiful day for a walk! The sky was so blue and the sunshine was glorious. 

From the Bend Athletic Club we walked to a beautiful nature trail along the Deschutes River. The vegetation was so different from what we have seen in other parts of Oregon. We are now in the high desert and there are ponderosa pines, loblolly pines, and junipers. There is chapparal and a lot of berries and wildflowers. The rocks look volcanic, and, in fact, you can see Mt. Bachelor, an extinct (?) volcano, from many points on the walk.

Along the Deschutes

Mt. Bachelor

Eventually we reached a park and the rough trail became a paved trail. We walked past a fenced (!) off-leash dog park. I noticed that almost everyone here observes the leash laws and dog owners are very courteous when you pass them on the trails. Almost all of them reel in their dogs when you pass them.

We passed a pedestrian bridge leading to the Old Mill shopping area. As we passed the Les Schwab amphitheater, one of the free Sunday afternoon concerts was taking place. In addition to the Sunday concert, there were lots of other activities taking place. There were walkers, joggers, and bicyclists. There were families riding in 4-person and 6-person bicycle carts. There were people on rafts and stand-up paddle-boards in the river. We also saw a few kayakers and a few fishermen. And in the Old Mill area, people were shopping and sitting at outdoor tables eating, drinking and enjoying the sun.

Pedestrian bridge leading to the Old Mill District

After passing through another park, we arrived in the older part of town and the outskirts of downtown. The old Deschutes County Library is one of several buildings here on the National Register of Historic Places.

There is a lot of public art in Bend: in the parks, along the trails, and at the many traffic circles. here are a few that I liked:

Along the River Trail

Kayak art

Downtown: "Salmon Dance"

The downtown area is packed with restaurants and interesting shops. Today it was also packed with people, food booths, and music, as the Bite of Bend festival is happening this weekend. Bend is known for its local craft beers, and some of these were represented at the Bite of Bend.

We walked back to the Athletic Club on the other side of the river, passing through the Old Mill District and more parks. Everything was beautifully landscaped. Sensitive natural areas were protected and marked by signs.

Office park on a bluff overlooking the river

Nature trail

Typical chapparal vegetation

Trail Route: A-

Trail Instructions: B

June 27, 2014 - Portland Landmarks

Today is our last walk of the NW Regional Conference, though many others will be walking at Mt. St. Helens tomorrow. We only walked 5k today so we could get an early start on our long drive to Bend later today.


To be continued . . .

Urban Rapelling

June 26, 2014 - Silver Falls State Park

On a drizzly morning we headed toward Silver Falls State Park, east of Salem. We passed a lot of farms on the way. Most of them seemed to be tree farms, and most of the tree farms looked like Christmas tree farms. So that's where they come from!

The Whiny Part:

(feel free to skip this part)

Upon arriving at the park we decided to have more parking problems. We knew that we would need to pay a parking fee, but we didn't have very clear directions on where or how to do that or how to get to the starting point of the walk. By sheer luck we found the place to buy the parking pass. We asked the woman in the booth where the volkswalk was and she said something like "Go out that way and go right, then right, then left to the (indistinguishable) area." Or maybe she said "Go out that way and go right, then left, then right to the (indistinguishable) area." She spoke so quickly it was difficult to understand her. We thought we would see the usual large orange "Volkssport Event" sign so we looked up and down the road each time we had to turn, and ended up going right and then left and then down a long winding, hilly road with no place to turn around. Eventually we were able to turn around, but only after I was starting to feel carsick. Then, by sheer luck again, we found the (indistinguishable) area (which turned out to be the "day use" area) and we headed across several parking lots to a place where there were several cars and lots of people (but no orange signs). Eureka! It was the right place!

We ran into friends, Bev and John, just as we were starting to walk. On the website this walk was rated as 2C. It was listed as 11k, with an option to extend it to 12k. No shorter option was listed, but we were prepared for a long walk with trekking poles, raincoats, bug dope, snacks, water, and random other stuff that a good Girl Scout would think of bringing. 

The instructions that we were given at the site said the walk was 2B and it was 12k, with an option to extend it to 13k. (This walk was definitely 2C, and I have serious doubts about the distances. Part of the way through the walk, there is a note that says: If you are finding yourself exhausted you can take Winter Trail [a shortcut] . . . and save about 5k . . .  

This would presumably make the 12k walk a 7k walk. There are three reasons why I don't think that route was 7k: 1) It took us a little over 3 hours. We have been doing 10k walks in under 3 hours, so even with all the climbing, it seemed like more than 7k. 2) Using the distances given in the instructions, you start the shortcut at 5.3k, the shortcut is 1k, and when you rejoin the main route you have at least 2.3k to go (assuming those numbers are accurate). This adds up to 8.6k. 3) The way my feet and knees felt, I'm sure it was more than 7k.  

The map provided with the instructions was a generic park map and did not show the actual route and was not particularly helpful.

The Walk:

We started at a picnic shelter in Parking Area D. From this point on, there were no bathrooms, a fact which I was unable to determine before starting the walk, despite persistent questioning. At the beginning of the walk we saw the South Falls Lodge, a beautiful log structure on the National Register of Historic Places. 

South Falls Lodge

Then we descended into a canyon, where we saw South Falls (177 ft). It was quite impressive. What made it really special was that the trail actually went behind the falls, though you had to bend over in places to avoid overhanging rock.

South Falls

Behind South Falls, where the sun don't shine

The next waterfall was Lower South Falls (93 ft). The trail also went behind this waterfall.

Lower South Falls

Our third waterfall was Lower North Falls (30 ft). 

Lower North Falls

The fourth waterfall was Double Falls (178 ft).

Double Falls

Drake Falls (27 ft) came 5th. The sixth waterfall was Middle North Falls (106 ft). At this point we took the shorter route and went toward Winter Falls (134 ft).

Winter Falls

Since we did not hike the entire route, we missed the last three falls. After Winter Falls we had a longish hike back to the starting point. Part of that was on a bike trail. We did not see any bikers. Bikers, pets and horses are not allowed on the other trails.

Most of the trail was rocky and slippery and there were lots of steep places. I would estimate our total elevation gain at somewhere between 800 and 1000 ft. We were in a beautiful forest the entire time. There were waist-high ferns, moss-covered trees, wildflowers, and even some wild berries. We did not see any wildlife other than a snail, a slug, and some interesting but ugly caterpillars.

I am so glad I had trekking poles with me. I have gotten my money's worth out of them on this trip.

There are not many trails (maybe no other trails) where you can see 10 (or 7) waterfalls within 12 or 13k. In addition to the major waterfalls, we saw some gorgeous mini-waterfalls that you wanted to take home and put in your garden. A hard walk, but your efforts are rewarded.

Walk Route: A

Walk Instructions: C+ (Pre-walk instructions and information aout trail needs some work, as noted above. Information about bathrooms or lack thereof should be included.)

Bonus: The Gordon House

Since we were near Silverton, we couldn't go back to Portland without stopping to see the Gordon House, the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in Oregon. The story of the Gordon House is interesting. It was moved 24 miles to its present location after a new owner of the property decided to tear it down. You can read about it at www.thegordonhouse.org.

June 25, 2014 - Portland 4 T's

We parked without incident (!) in the Portland State University Parking Structure 1 and walked out into comfortable temperatures in the 60's. An auspicious start for today's 10k walk!

The 4 T's in today's walk are Train, Trail, Tram and Trolley.

Train:

The TRAIN, also known as "light rail"

We walked about 1k from Ondine Hall to Pioneer Square. There was a track for Portland's light rail system running down the street and we purchased tickets from a machine next to the train stop. Someone at the start point had told me we should buy a day pass ($5 each), so that's what we did. A group of walkers was walking on a guided walk with Dick (from CRGBC) and they arrived at about the same time we did. I overheard Dick telling them not to go the NE 11th Avenue/Lloyd Center station, as specified in the walk instructions, but to get off one station earlier. He said construction at the Lloyd Center would make the walk longer. I don't know if the marking for the walk would have been impacted by the construction and I didn't want to get lost so I followed Dick's advice. 

The train arrived after a few minutes and we got on without having to show our tickets to anyone. Half the seats face backwards, so that is how we sat for our train ride. We rode from 6th down to 1st and then rode along 1st for several blocks to the Steel Bridge. After crossing the Willamette, we rode a few blocks to the Convention Center, where we got off.

Walking:

We walked past the MODA Center, a sports arena, and crossed the Broadway Bridge back to downtown Portland. The railroad station is a fabulous Romanesque Revival structure surrounded by lush landscaping. Next we came to a new, modern building that turned out to be transitional housing for homeless people. Portland is well-known for innovative methods of dealing with chronic homelessness. (I'm not sure it's working.) But it's interesting to see what they have done. What I saw was a nice building and a lot of very sketchy people standing around nearby - chronic homeless people as well as possible teen runaways. Anchorage has started to try out some of Portland's ideas. One of those ideas is to provide decent housing so that people can be safe. I don't know if these problems can ever be solved, but I guess we have to try. As Hillel said, we can't walk away from the problem.

This time we only walked through the homeless areas for a few blocks before we reached the Pearl District. According to Wikipedia:

"The Pearl District is an area of Portland, Oregon, formerly occupied by warehouses, light industry and railroad classification yards and now noted for its art galleries, upscale businesses and residences. The area has been undergoing significant urban renewal since the mid-1980s when it was reclassified as mixed use from industrial, including the arrival of artists, the removal of a viaduct and construction of the Portland Streetcar. It now mostly consists of high-rise condominiums and warehouse-to-loft conversions."

One of the most unusual places we passed was Mill Ends Park, the smallest city park in the U.S. It is a hole from a utility pole that has been turned into a park - in the middle of the street.

Mill Ends Park

During this portion of the walk we passed dozens of food trucks. Portland is famous for its 600+ food trucks, offering food of every ethnic provenance, not to mention vegan food and Alaskan reindeer sausage. We even saw a soup cart nearby on the sidewalk.

We began to feel hungry, so we stopped for a quick lunch at Bangkok Palace - a restaurant with tables and chairs, not a walk-up food truck. We got there about 11:52 and got a table right away. Promptly at 12:00, large and small groups of people began arriving and quickly filled the place up. Outside, people marched up and down the street carrying their boxes of food from the food trucks.

We walked back to Pioneer Square and enjoyed the sculptures along the way, as well as a high school orchestra giving a concert in the amphitheater.

You will read/see more about this in my post for the 27th!

Trompe l'oeuil mural

Our walk brought us back to Ondine Hall for a checkpoint and then we continued uphill, heading away from downtown toward Duniway Park. 

Trail:

Additional uphill walking brought us to Marquam Nature Park.

Mosaics in a small amphitheater in Marquam Park.

Connor Trail

Here we followed the main trail for a short distance and then turned onto Connor Trail. The instructions rated our walk 1A, but after walking at least 1k on Connor Trail, I would argue that this walk should be AT LEAST a 2B. The trail was not much more than a goat path in some places. It was all uphill. Had it been raining it would have been treacherous. The surroundings were very wild for being such a short distance from downtown.

Finally we reached the end of the trail. We crossed a parking lot and entered a hospital complex. 

Tram:

After passing several buildings, we entered a building where we passed people wearing scrubs as we made our way to the Tram. It costs $4 to ride the tram up, but it is free to ride it down. It runs every 5 minutes. We rode it down and enjoyed a nice view of Portland and the Willamette.

Trolley:

At the end of the tram ride we walked about half a block to the trolley stop. Portlandians really call it a streetcar, but to have "4 T's" you have to call it a trolley. We waited about 10 or 15 minutes for the trolley. When we got on we didn't have to show our tickets. After about 10-12 minutes we arrived at the PSU stop and a short walk brought us back to Ondine Hall.

The idea of riding on various forms of transportation made for a unique and fun walk. But it left us hot and tired, as the temperature was now around 80. But not as tired as last week. I am getting stronger from all this walking.

Walk Route: B+

Walk Instructions: C-

It is a shame to walk past so many significant buildings and not have them noted on the instructions. I didn't even know what hospital we walkd through. It would have been so helpful to know what tickets to buy for the train, etc. Trail marking was good in some places, but absent in others, especially the last  half of the walk. The instructions were really hard to follow around the hospital. The information about taking the trolley back was confusing and I was concerned that I had gotten on the wrong trolley.