Seven Weeks in Oregon part 1

                                  (The Cascades looked the same during the Oregon Trail times)

I cannot recall how often I said to Sandee within the comfort of our Subaru Outback: “Wow imagine, this was once a part of the Oregon Trail, without this road the trail must have been brutal.”

                          (Instead of Dams there were 20ft falls here requiring overland portage)

The famous Oregon Trail was used by more than 350,000 men, women and children between 1841 and 1867 (the year when the first train arrived in Walla Walla), while leaving 10,000 shallow graves along the 2,000 mile trail.

   

  (This may not be exactly what one saw on the trail in 1848 but it must have come close to that type of views)

Because I am a history fan, I will digress for awhile before getting to our September 2021 Oregon trip on paved asphalt or plowed gravel roads, where we never got bumped out of our seats, as happened every few minutes on rough terrain to the 19th century wary travelers seated on the bench of their $100 (in today’s dollars $30,000) “prairie schooners”, which had no suspension by the way, behind a span of 6 oxen or even more mules or horses, traveling 2 miles an hour in average and in doing so making each day at most 20 miles. While the average time calculation for the trek was 100 days, many schooners took up to 5 months, since crossing desert areas with oversized boulders or trekking through the gorges of the Snake River, often needing to cross that river several times because “the road” continued on the other side, with the ever present risk of a rock in the river capsizing the schooner with all its belongings, making some days as little as 6 miles an accomplishment.

(This is not a schooner, but a shepherd camp wagon used in the last century, but you get the idea)

And when all that was behind, you would be arriving in now The Dalles or Walla Walla, and you still had to cross the 1 mile high Cascades mountains for about 250 miles or traverse the roaring Columbia River Gorge by boat for 230 miles with multiple fast flowing steep rapids. 

(the tranquil Columbia River today in all its glory)

And if a party chose not to cross the Cascades by land, they had to leave their schooners behind and bundle their belongings to a size that would fit canoes that could traverse the rapids of the Columbia River. (An extra problem to overcome in those days, were the 20ft falls near the opening of the Deschutes River as it flows into the Columbia river near the now The Dalles township. And that required overland portage, before they could again continue by canoe)

(Agriculture is a major income source for Oregon: $8 billion in berries, nuts, grass seeds, Christmas trees, wine)

All that effort to reach the “promised land”: the Willamette Valley of Oregon.

(Did I say Christmas trees?)

The very first recorded group of trailblazers started in the spring of 1841 from Independence MO, led by John Bidwell (22) from NY and his 18 year old bride and baby. 68 people in total he gathered to join him. (including 5 women and 10 children). The group was led by beaver trapper John Fitzpatrick, who needed a new profession, as the beaver trade was running on nearly empty by that time.

       (Another shot of undisturbed Oregon nature whether you see this in the 1800’s or today)

It took them 6 weeks following the Platte River in Nebraska to travel the 650 mile trek to Fort Laramie WY. (Today we drive that along interstate 29 and 80 in 10 hours) After that the 1350 mile remaining journey took about 3 months.

(The settlers schooner most of the time followed river beds. In the Cascade Mountains the rivers were at best difficult.               We today walked a trail from the parking lot to these sights)

Then there was the southern Applegate trail a trip we made along the Roque River, seeing where at various spots the goings in the mid 1840’s must have been extremely challenging as we witnessed the fast flowing waters thru narrow gorges.

  (The forests here do not only stretch on seemingly forever, but the trees are imposingly tall)

All in all for those of you that are interested in more gruesome details read the Applegate Thornton Story.

https://historicoregoncity.org/2019/04/02/the-applegate-trail  

                  (Portland view from above)

But let’s move to mid August 2021, when we arrived at Portland International Airport trying to find our Lyft ride location. Confusion all around and almost missing our ride in looking in  the wrong places.

   (Nob Hill in Portland)

We camped out for our 4 nights in Portland at the riverfront Downtown Waterfront Marriott, with the intent to explore the city so much maligned by our friends when we told them that we were traveling Oregon State. Almost everybody exclaimed sometime during our “Going to Oregon” telling: “You’re going to Portland?” or “Stay away from Portland!”. 

   (A sample of the beautiful homes here and below the homeless crisis, compliments of City Council)

Well they turned out to be wrong on the implied dangers but they were definitely right about the horrible state of affairs in that city, which best personifies how horrible homelessness is as well as how homelessness creates situations of down spiraling urban demise, showing hundreds, maybe even thousands, of tents everywhere in the city and sleeping bags all over downtown on the sidewalks and in the parks, with closed, boarded up storefronts and trash piles.

(Downtown street scene and below boarded stores because of it)

I have decided not to bore you with the sequence of daily events over the 7 weeks that we traveled this beautiful very diverse state with coastlines, wine country, lakes, mountains and deserts, (I will list on the bottom of this blog our itinerary), because I feel that this blog’s pictures will do the telling better than my endless listing of daily details.

Here are highlights I wish to describe for you in a sequence of listing my Aahs and Oohs and in doing so hopefully also describe Sandee’s Aahs and Oohs, although maybe not in the same order of ranking.

   (Don’t remember the name of this synagogue at the edge of Nob Hill)

Our first day was spent with Tanya, our guide, while walking the Nob Hill neighborhood. (Yes there are more cities with Nob hills). Even in that chic neighborhood did we find homeless tents on sidewalks. A chance encounter with a resident of Nob Hill, who described his disgust with the present mayor and council is maybe the best succinct memory for me of how politics can destroy a city.

(It was a small plane for max 3 passengers, but we had it to ourselves)

(landscape looking southward on the escarpment is the Vista House)

(Built in 1917 on the scenic overlook in the picture above on the historic Columbia River Highway, German Art Nouveau architecture) Can you find it?

(The beautiful inside of Vista House with stairways up to the balcony for majestic views of the River)

(Famous Bridal Veil Falls with very little water this time of the year)

(Port  of Portland  before the  dam with several little falls seen from the east)

We had a 90 minutes airplane ride over the Columbia River, Portland and surrounding country side as the sun was setting for the day, and a nice food truck walking tour while in Portland the next day, before leaving eastwards for the Mount Hood area, staying in a wonderful hotel Columbia Gorge Hotel and Spa, facing the Columbia River near The Dalles, in a part of Oregon where orchards with their abundance of fruit dominate the landscape. 

(This is the entrance to a food court in a former asylum compound. Book a Lost Plate food truck walking tour if you ever visit Portland. We used the same organization in China for food tours)

(Columbia Gorge Hotel and Spa)

(Beautiful view from  Hood River eastwards up the Columbia River )

The next major memory for me is our trek all the way down to the Steens Mountain area and the little, eleven residents large town of Frenchglen, where we stayed and had communal dinners at 6.30 sharp. We stayed at the Dovers Inn right behind the historic Frenchglen Hotel built in 1923 with 5 rooms, presently run by the Oregon State Parks, with John Ross as concessionaire since 1991.

(The 5 room 1923 Frenchglen hotel with porch for breakfast)

 

(The Dover Inn with en-suite bathrooms Unlike the Frenchglen Hotel)

(Rabbits lived under our porch)

 If you ever reach this way out of the way sparsely populated area in Oregon, book at the Drovers Inn and enjoy the commeraderie at the dinner table in the Frenchglen Hotel dining room, visited not only by hotel guests but also by camper vacationers, that come for a great meal, being tired of their self cooked meals. By the way, this is the only meal option for many many miles around. You ask me why the Steens Mountain area? 

(The plowed gravel road  towards the top)

(Getting close to the top, seeing the first deep canyons)

(The top of Steens Mountain is flat)

(The canyons trenched into the escarpment are deep)

Geologists will tell you that here you find the largest fault-block mountain in the northern Great Basin, which as you look at the map below spans six states.

Between 15 and 8 million years ago successive flows of basalt accumulated in layercake fashion and created the Steens Mountain. We were just below the word “Lake Abert”, which is top left on this map because it is a shallow very old Alkali lake bed.

(The Great Basin stretches from mid Oregon into Mexico)

Driving up a plowed gravel road eastwards to the top of this 40 mile long north-south mountain, reaching an almost 2 mile height, and definitely a 3000 meter height (for you Europeans), a height where you are already eye to eye with bald American eagles and then when you get as high as you can go, walking to the edge, you see a surprising 2 mile straight drop into the desert valley below. 

(At the top of the escarpment)

(Life is enduring even in this very dry and hostile environment) 

These images will never leave me and my pictures do no justice to the vast unbelievable beauty of these environments. One of those sight from up there is looking at the Alford desert a 7 by 11 miles dried up lake formed 3.5 million to 15000 years ago, that left crystallized minerals behind as it dried up, making it a glistening area in the bright sunlight that attracts drag racers and campers alike in the dry season. 

(Alford desert, we did not try our Subaru on it)

(Cattle roundup season is starting)

(He stared back)

(Rounding cattle up seems easy

And then there was:

The whale watching, that we did, not only from the zodiacs of the Whale Research Center, but also from our window at the Arch Rock Inn in Depoe Bay.

About 10 to 15 resident whales there stay close to shore feeding from June to Mid-November. Our zodiac drivers/guides knew them by name and assured us they returned year after year. While trolling around there we visited seals also in love with the food supply in the Bay.

(Our Inn with a Bay facing window to spot whales)

(Whales galore in Depoe Bay)

(As well as seals)

(Another tour boat, our was much smaller)

(Close encounter therefore a bit blurry as I clicked as fast as I could to get the shot)

While staying there we drove back up the coastal road to ride an ATV for 2 hours in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area, famous for that activity, and Sandee will always rejoice seeing me get stuck within the first 10 minutes on my ATV trying to scale my first dune. 

(Stuck and don’t know how to get it free)

Not just stuck but in such a way that a crew had to come rescue me, which they did in less than 90 seconds by mounting my machine and wriggle it somehow out of its predicament.

She will insist on having pictures here.

(Posing as we are ready to roll in the parking lot of the Park)

(Sandee never doing anything outside the rule book)

Up to the next edition of Oregon in Seven Weeks