Meador Manor

Tunnel Falls (click for slideshow)

On July 26, the final day of adventure for this trip, I woke up in the unpleasant Motel 6 at The Dalles.  In my subsequent blog posting Oregon Trails 2009 Tools and Ratings I give my ratings of the hotels and motels on the trip and describe what I used to plan and execute this adventure.  But this post deals with a day hiking at Eagle Creek off the Columbia River.

After escaping the Motel 6 I drove to the nearby McDonald’s for another Sausage McMuffin with Egg and then bought some extra bottled water at a convenience store so I’d be ready for a long hot hike.  It should have been a 40-minute drive down I-84 from The Dalles to the Eagle Creek trailhead, but I failed to carefully read the trailhead location portion of the extremely helpful online trail directions I had discovered the day before.  So I was looking for exit 41 and there is no such westbound exit.  So I had to drive onward and backtrack to figure out how to get onto the old Columbia River Highway and find the trailhead.   In this case, Trixie the GPS wasn’t very helpful since she didn’t have an entry for the trail.  But my iPhone’s Google Maps function showed me what to do.  Thank goodness I had service, since it does fade out in the boonies.  Cell service faded out about a mile into this hike, so I was glad I had pre-loaded another helpful trail map.

I parked in the main parking lot at 9 am and heeded the park’s posted precaution to leave the car there rather than drive another 1/2 mile to the actual trailhead.  I presume there are break-ins of vehicles, especially if they are parked overnight, down on the narrow trail road.  And I later noticed the road was only one lane for stretches, so I was glad I had avoided it.

This brought today’s hiking total to well over 13 miles when I include my side trips to some of the falls.  The weather was not cooperative: the hike began at 77° F and reached 92° by the end of the hike at 3:45 pm.  But at least I was hiking downhill in the heat – those I met in the afternoon coming up the trail looked rather stressed, except for those indulging in swimming in the cold waters of the creek.  This part of Oregon is suffering a heat wave, which means that the high is a bit below normal for Oklahoma, a trade-off I will happily make.  Bend was also warm, but being high desert it lacked the humidity of the Oklahoma summer.  This part of the Columbia River Gorge, however, has plenty of humidity.  Just ask the waterfalls and ferns.

Eagle Creek is a popular trail, so I saw people all day long, some several times what with the side trips.  Everyone was friendly, although some afternoon hikers headed uphill struggled to return my sunny greeting as I bounded past them shedding gravitational potential energy.  I took along one trekking pole, which was handy in a couple of spots.  And for this long hike I was glad to have the use of my hiking shoes, which had finally dried out after their immersion at Green Peak Falls three days back.

Eagle Creek trail was a bear to construct back in 1910.  They had to dynamite a number of rock faces to build a trail.  Some areas are narrow with precipitous drops, but a heavy steel cable along the cliff wall with firm anchors provides security.  I didn’t observe anyone using the cables much – those afraid of heights no doubt avoid the trail.

If you travel all the way to Tunnel Falls six miles up the creek, you’ll use about six bridges over the creek or side streams, ranging from some fallen logs to steel walkways spanning the creek over a hundred feet below.

Besides the ever-present and pleasant views of the creek, the trail’s main feature is waterfalls.  First up is Metloka Falls 1.5 miles in; it is a long spray out of the side of a cliff and, at over 100 feet tall, the second-highest fall on the trail, but its distance from the trail belies its size.  A kind young couple from Kentucky and their Portland tour guide friend (who is afraid of heights – a brave fellow to be on this trail!) snapped a photo of me there after I observed them trading snapshots of each other and offered to take a group shot of them.

The big feature for most trail users is Punchbowl Falls, since they haven’t the stamina to hike all the way to Tunnel Falls six miles in.  You can turn off the main trail about two miles in, and see Punchbowl Falls head-on about 75 feet downstream from them.  There are some tiny falls farther downstream as well.

This is a nice area for a very cold swim as well, and I was surprised to find that crazed young males like to climb into the basin of the punchbowl and ride over them for a 35 foot plunge.  Never underestimate the stupidity of the human male – testosterone is a brutal master.  I did not take the plunge – perhaps I’ve been exposed to estrogen-imitating plastic.   But I did capture the craziness on the Punchbowl Falls video.  A group of survivors came down to my location, discovered a large floating log, and took it upstream with them for further mischief.

Farther up the main trail you get a nice look down at the Punchbowl, and after bridging a side stream you arrive at the 90-foot Loowit Falls three miles in.  Then you cross the High Bridge, which is 120 feet above a gorge carved by Eagle Creek.  I took an unmapped bushwhack, an unsanctioned side trail, at one end of the bridge, but it got mean and I retreated quickly, offering my apologies.

The rest of the trail has a few camps, which are little more than wide spots to the side of the trail with room for a few tents and with access to the water.  I used one as a good spot to sit and eat some more Fiber Fit S’mores bars and finish off the jelly beans I’d bought back in Seaside.  I crossed Eagle Creek again on the aptly named 4 1/2 mile bridge and liked the view of the bridge from downstream.

On the far side of that bridge another section of trail had been dynamited out of the rock face, but they had a section headed downstream as well as the main trail upstream.  I followed the downstream section, which provided access to the creek bed and then a bushwhack where I managed to scratch my legs up in brambles, which had tangled in them the only bits of trash I ever saw on the trail, and saw at least one snake.  I tested the rhyme I learned at the Museum of the High Desert to distinguish nice king and venomous coral snakes:

Red and yellow, kill a fellow. Red and black, friend of Jack.

Singing the rhyme out really works: the snake was so affronted by my off-key rendition that it rapidly slithered away.  And I decided that I didn’t need to be bushwhacked by any more bushwhacks and stayed on the main trail from there on.

I then entered the official “Wilderness Area” where the forest service wants you to fill out a special form and attach one part to your backpack and leave the other behind in a receptacle.  They had run out of forms at their little unattended kiosk, so I trudged onward.  I didn’t need no stinking badge since my goal was only another mile in: the spectacular Tunnel Falls, which I reached after traversing a couple of talus piles.

Back in 1910 they not only dynamited a path around the edges of these falls, but also blasted a tunnel behind them.  Now I’ve walked behind the immense North Falls at Silver Falls State Park, but approaching and then travelling through a rough manmade tunnel so close behind some falls was a new experience.  You get up close and personal to these 175 foot falls, which dwarf hikers on the trail.  I got a nice shot of the tunnel entrances on either side of the falls – the far entrance is so close to them that you get a spray shower, which was most welcome in the heat.  This place also got its own Tunnel Falls video.

I was now 6.5 miles up Eagle Creek from the parking lot and happily set out on the return trip.  There were far more people on the return, particularly around Punchbowl Falls where more males were taking the plunge.  It got warm enough that I briefly wondered if that would be fun – but then I decided I still wanted to live.  I didn’t see many flowering plants on the hike, although I did take a snapshot of one near the end of the trail.

When I reached the car I stripped off my sopping wet shirt and drove shirtless to nearby Cascade Locks.  A grocery store there was willing to sell me an ice cream bar if I’d put my shirt back on.  I don’t know why the cashier was so strict, since I now have a truly becoming hiker’s tan.  My pale chest and Derringers (they call big biceps guns, so I call mine Derringers), with red sunburned forearms, are something to behold.  No, I will NOT post a picture of this, for I’m holding out for money.

Leaving Cascade Locks, having devoured the ice cream bar in record time, I drove on into Portland.  I’d booked a Motel 6 in North Portland closer to the airport and near the historical downtown of Kenton, a town founded for a meat packing plant and later annexed into Portland by vengeful vegetarians.

But now Google Maps tells me the peculiar layout of the city means that the actual travel time to the airport isn’t much different from that of the downtown Motel 6.  This one is stuck in-between a motor speedway and a horse racing track, but there are no big events on and the place is practically empty.  Thankfully it is quite clean and leaves me with a much better impression of the chain than the one back in The Dalles.

Dinner was at the nearby Shari’s Restaurant, which is a northwest chain somewhat like an upscale Denny’s.  My swiss-and-mushroom hamburger was delicious (although anything might taste great after today’s long hike) and I polished it off with a slice of lemon sour cream pie.

It’s another late night of photo editing, movie clip making, slideshow creation, and blogging about today and offering my general trip evaluations.  And then I’m sleeping in tomorrow with my only focus for the day, which happens to be my 43rd birthday, being to fly back home by midnight Central daylight time.  I’m packing the camera away so I won’t even be tempted.

I hope you’ve enjoyed looping through northwestern Oregon with me.  Myself, I’m ready to return to Bartlesville and face five school-related meetings next week.  And if I zone out at the meetings, you know where I’ll be…hiking the Oregon trails.

[Next post: Oregon Trails 2009 Tools and Ratings]

Columbia River Gorge (click for slideshow)

I woke up in Bend and grabbed the continental breakfast at the hotel before scooting south to the Museum of the High Desert right after it opened for the day.  The outside featured exhibits and artwork, including some impressive dueling elk and a mare and foal constructed of barbed wire.

Inside, the first exhibit I saw was about quilts from the 1800s.  I’ve never been much of one for quilts, but I did like three on display that featured the mariner’s compass, oak leaf, and Whig rose designs.

The museum had dioramas and western town storefronts reminiscent of Oklahoma City’s Cowboy Hall of Fame.  I was almost grateful the banning of flash photography kept those pictures from coming out, as I would have wondered if they were taken in Oregon or Oklahoma, save for the Asian shop.

But the visit picked up when I joined a nature walk with an enthusiastic volunteer docent who was formerly a topographer for the defense department and moved to Bend from St. Louis in the past year.  Her presentation was pretty basic but charming.  I was grateful it was basic, since I made the mistake of telling her, in a conversation before the tour began, that I was certified to teach botany but couldn’t identify most plants.  She put me on the spot several times on the tour about botanical terms and the like, but I pulled off the hat trick and managed to dredge them up.  I barely passed the botany teaching certification test twenty years ago and I’ve never taught anything but physics, but my sap was up and I didn’t embarrass myself.  Well, at least not more than usual.

She made me smell various plants and showed me how to distinguish ponderosa and lodgepole pine trees.  And thankfully she set me straight on one common confusion – the monument has some chipmunks, but it also has golden-mantled ground squirrels that look just like chipmunks except they’re missing the stripes on their heads and are a tad larger.  Sure enough, those “chipmunks” I encountered yesterday at Lava Butte were in fact golden-mantled ground squirrels.  Now don’t you feel better knowing that?  I did.

The museum had an otter (asleep), a scorpion (hiding), lizards and fish (boring), and I was beginning to feel like I was at the Oklahoma City Zoo when it gets really hot and all of the animals flee to their houses and sleep out of sight.  But then I went to their live animal show where we saw a badger dig his way out of a sand pit, a porcupine slowly climb a model tree/bush, a red-tailed hawk and a barn owl.  That’s more like it!

A group of somewhat elderly musicians began performing in the museum lobby, and it frankly didn’t hurt that several toddlers were banging away at rattles and the like down front.  I think some of the musicians had their hearing aids turned off to preserve their dignity.  But it did lend a jovial atmosphere as the museum became more crowded with families.

I drove back into Bend, locating the trendy new Old Mill district.  New because all of the stores and restaurants were recently constructed.  Old because the site was once the location of some large sawmills along the Deschutes River.  I was envious of the folks I saw floating down the river in their tubes or even paddling upriver while standing on a kayak.  It would be great if we could do that on the Caney in Bartlesville.  And get a free mud bath while we’re at it.

I had a delicious Alaskan silver salmon with salad, rice pilaf, and vegetables at Anthony’s.  Only later did I realize that the restaurant is part of the same chain that has served me wonderful Copper River salmon up in Tacoma in the past.

Then I drove north, passing Mount Jefferson and winding my way down and then up out of the rugged Deschutes River valley.  I drove around the southeastern flank of Mount Hood to a viewpoint I had not visited in 2006, the Jonsrud in the town of Sandy.  I took a snapshot of the mountain and the Sandy River and then a close-up of Mount Hood since it blended somewhat with cloud and sky.

I was happy to discover the viewpoint was on a quiet cross-country road that I suspect was once one of the narrow old-time highways.  It led right to the historic Columbia River Highway, the wonderful road built in the 1910s along the south bank of the Columbia River Gorge and which I enjoyed back in 2006.  I knew I wanted to navigate that quiet, slow, delightful old road in lieu of Interstate 84 toward The Dalles.

This time I did not stop off to photograph the many waterfalls, but did take in several viewpoints I missed last time.  I found Women’s Forum Park provided a great long-distance shot of the Vista House and panorama of the Columbia.  I took the time to stop off at Vista House again and enjoy the, er, vista.

I exited the large surviving western part of the old Highway onto I-84, but this time I took a later turnoff onto the remaining eastern part (some of the Highway was destroyed to build I-84).  There I wound my way around at the Rowena viewpoint, which offered impressive views of the town of Lyle down below, the Columbia, and a plateau where an immense flood long ago scoured the northern side down to bedrock.

The old Highway led me straight down into The Dalles, where Yelp led me to the Baldwin Saloon downtown.  The exterior was nothing special, the booths looked a bit cheap, and the menu was pricey.  Ah, but my prime rib dinner was some of the best I’ve ever eaten, and I loved how above my head up on a platform an elderly lady was playing old standards on a big old upright piano.  It was a great way to end the day.

Now I’ve spent a few hours posting all of this and today’s slideshow to the web from my Motel 6 room, and I need to hit the sack.  Tomorrow I dash back down the Columbia to Eagle Creek, which I did not visit in 2006.  There I’ll take a final hike, a 12-mile round-trip journey, before I drive back into Portland.

[Next post: Eagle Creek: Day 10 of the Oregon Trails]

Exploring the Lava Tube (click for slideshow)

I began July 24 driving north from Yachats to Newport for a Sausage McMuffin with Egg at McDonald’s.  Thus fast food fortified, I drove east up and over the high northern Cascades through the Santiam Pass.  Naturally I got stuck in a line of cars behind a double-trailer fuel truck crawling over the pass, but near the peak I was able to pass on the pass (follow me?) and barrel down into the dry lands east of the range.  Annual rainfall plummets from 77 inches in the impressive forest at the Santiam Pass to only 14 inches in Sisters – you quickly realize you’re descending into a desert.

This region had 90,000 acres (roughly 140 square miles) burned up in the B&B Complex Fire back in 2003.  The damage was apparent although it certainly made it easier to see Mount Washington.

The road leading through the Deschutes Forest (or partially burned-out wasteland, if you prefer) was only two lanes and cars piled up quickly behind me as I descended at the speed limit.  No doubt they celebrated when we entered the town of Sisters, where I turned off for some tasty pizza at Papandrea’s.  The lady at the counter was quite friendly and later began cackling like a deranged witch back in the kitchen.  I had suspected two boys working in the place were her sons, and that was confirmed when one of them, taking a break in the eating area, started yelling, “Mom, what are you doing?!?” as her cackles continued to cascade.  My fellow diners and I had to chuckle, although we never found out what potion she was cooking up back there in her pepperoni pot.

Sisters is an odd name for a town, but easily explained because just north are The Three Sisters, three volcanic peaks which are the 3rd, 4th, and 5th highest in Oregon.  Early settlers had named them Faith, Hope, and Charity, but that didn’t catch on.  Myself, I haven’t found Oregonians lacking in those three qualities.  East of town was a pullout where I snapped a panorama of The Three Sisters and Mount Washington to boot.

I then drove through Bend along Highway 97 to the Newberry National Volcanic Monument.  I had done very little research about this part of the trip, so I was surprised at how well it went.

First I turned off at the Lava Lands, paying my day use fee, and was directed to drive up to the top of a 500 foot tall cinder cone.  Lava Butte was formed in an eruption 6,160 years ago and covered nine square miles with lava.  A trail circumnavigated the crater rim with great views of the crater.  Newberry Volcano itself is the largest shield volcano in the state, atypically spewing not only basaltic but also andesitic and rhyolitic lava.  At 20 miles in diameter, the cinder cone I drove up is only one of many on Newberry’s flanks.

The summit was infested with chipmunks (later I learned these were golden-mantled ground squirrels, which are slightly larger than chipmunks and lack the strip to the top of the head), with plenty of signs urging patrons to please not feed them.  The little rodents were good little beggars, but I was just as unyielding to them as to the beggar who tried to accost me at a McDonald’s earlier in the day at a pit stop.  Speaking of pits, I’ve spent so much time hiking that I suspect a third of the toilets I’ve used on this trip have been pit toilets.  And that’s the pits.

Surprised that the nearby visitor center wasn’t smart enough to sell ice cream or even drinks (it was 59 degrees Fahrenheit on the coast this morning, but 86+ at Newberry), I disgustedly drove on to what would prove to be the strangest hike of my trip.

The Lava River Cave is the longest known lava tube in Oregon, and you can hike over one mile down it, deep underground.  And there is no lighting along the tube – you either bring your own flashlight or rent a lantern.  So I had a great time strolling through the tube today with a Coleman lantern.

The entrance looks much like any other cave, and the interior does vary in diameter but the trend is clear.  This thing has no forks and gets smaller and smaller toward the “end”.  There are no loops on this trail: you stroll down the tube, which has a somewhat uneven but quite walkable floor, until it narrows to a crawlspace.  Then you turn around and go to the light, which is over a mile back.  I didn’t make it as far as a couple of small children who had gone ahead a few dozen feet after my stopping point.  I could see their light burning away down there, and I left them to their fate.  Oh, their mother was with them – I heard her screams.

Just kidding, although noticing some of the fissures in the tube and knowing this area had earthquakes did make the long dark tube a bit spookier.  But it was a fun and unique experience, and inside the tube it was so cold you can see my breath in several of the photos.  A 44-degree temperature drop on a hot summer day out in fields of lava is most welcome, especially when the Lava Lands Visitor Center does not provide ice cream nor drinks.  I’m talking to you, Forest Service!

The lava tube tacked another 2.2 miles to my trekking total for the trip.  I added another mile to the count farther south at the Lava Cast Forest.  Here an eruption spilled lava through a pine forest, flowing against the upstream side of the trunks and forming a mold as the tree burned within.  Today the area is covered not only in rough lava and ash, but is peppered with odd vertical cylindrical hollows that are the tree molds.  I shot some video footage down a couple of them.

Oddities along the trail included horizontal tree molds and nature’s attempts to undue the damage of 6,000 years ago with butterflies, trees, dead trees, weird dead trees, and even a flowering plant or two.

I then drove on to the Newberry Caldera, which has two lakes in it and a large obsidian flow.  Tiny Lake Paulina was charming and seemed far more hospitable than the immense Crater Lake I visited in 2006.  But I was more fascinated by the huge black glassy chunks of obsidian at the immense flow formed by rhyolitic lava.  A mile-long trail winds up and around the flow, and I posed not once, but twice, and was still not satisfied until I shot a couple of kids posing.

But perhaps the best thing about the Newberry Caldera was, yes, they sold ice cream and drinks there at a little store at Lake Paulina.  All is forgiven, Forest Service.

It was a long drive today, something I finally noticed when I was driving out onto the Newberry Caldera with the nearest gas station 15 miles away and the car gas gauge steadily sinking towards E.  Not wanting to take a chance at being mocked for running out of gas on the caldera of a dormant volcano, I turned off the air conditioning to conserve fuel and as I left the area noticed the Saturn displaying “LOW FUEL” on its computerized readout.  Okay, I get it!  I told Trixie the GPS to find the nearest station pronto.  When the gas attendant asked me whether I flew the car from Hawaii or brought it over on a boat, I resisted saying, “Yes, I flew it, just like in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.”

Yelp steered me up through Bend to the La Rosa restaurant for absolutely delicious fajitas.  Dare I say they were even better than my old favorite, El Chico?  Yes, I’m afraid they were.  Bend is an interesting city.  It was only 52,000 back in 2000 but has reached 82,000 today with 216,000 in the metro area.  This immense growth has created an odd place where the cute downtown has many small pricey-looking upscale buildings and there are some more typical neighborhoods surrounding it, but the outer areas are models of new urbanism.

There are roundabouts everywhere, which studies show are good traffic calmers.  They’ve even stuck them into older neighborhoods when they could.  And I didn’t see hardly any of the big mile-grid streets like we have back home.  Instead you have to wind your way around on narrow streets everywhere, but traffic even on a Friday night in the busy areas was pretty light and easy to manage.

Highway 97 running north-south through Bend is a model of new thinking.  They didn’t let it clog up like highway 75 in Bartlesville.  It is mostly restricted access with ramps or stop lights only at mile intervals, gliding you along at 45 miles per hour.  They avoided ugly frontage roads but instead have a very broad “green strip” along the sides, although in this climate there is little green besides pine needles.  The green strip is broad enough that you can’t see the neighborhoods or businesses off the highway, and in other areas they use high walls to block it all off.  So you can drive clear through Bend and only see brief glimpses of the city around you, instead enjoying distant vistas of volcanic mountains and short green forests.

There are oodles of sidewalks and other pedestrian-friendly features around the town.  This sort of modern development is most appealing and is in stark contrast to the absolutely horrid urban planning (or sprawling urban madness) ones sees in Tulsa and Oklahoma City.  Just think if Owasso or Moore had taken this route instead of becoming horrid soulless abominations.

Well, as I post this and today’s slideshow, it is past midnight.  So I am LONG overdue for that hot tub that awaits me here at the Quality Inn.  I can’t neglect it, since after today it is just Motel 6 for the weekend.  I don’t have much of a plan yet for tomorrow other than to drive north so that I arrive at The Dalles by nightfall.

Happy trails…or should I say lava tubes?

[Next post: Deserts and Rivers: Day 9 of the Oregon Trails]