Wanderung 6

Pursuing Pioneer Pathways from the Potomac to the Pacific

June-August 2004

July 11 - The Columbia River, Oregon

We wanted to see a little bit more of the Columbia River than we had, so after breakfast we drove to the start point at McDonalds, but this time we used our bikes to ride the bike route. The specified Volksbike route was a roughly rectangle path that had two long sides on the Oregon and Washington shores of the Columbia River, and the two short sides comprising the Interstate 5 and Interstate 205 bridges across the river. It looked interesting but it was quite a bit longer than any bicycling we had done so far with these bikes, 37 kilometers, so we decided to shorten it a bit. Instead of the full route, we cut out the two bridge crossings and rode up and back on the nice bike path on the south or Oregon side of the river.

Riding first from McDonalds toward the west, we spent much of our time riding between the Portland airport and the river. Planes were taking off right over us and that might have incensed some folks but I'm an aviation nut and rather enjoyed seeing the airplanes of each of the different airlines. I was surprised that some lines were still flying turboprops, however, as I was under the impression that the regional carriers were phasing them out.

Surprisingly, we also saw at least three ospreys hunting right around the airport and they did not seem to be bothered by the airport activities a bit. The visibility was great and the sky was almost cloud free so we finally had a good view of Mt. Hood behind us.

I saw more subdivisions of houseboats and boathouses along the estuaries of the Columbia River on this stretch--sometimes it was hard to tell the difference except for the presence of many windows and multiple stories in the floating houses. Clearly this is a trend and it is probably cheaper than building the same house on land (no basement excavation, for example), so unless Columbia is covered in houseboats.

As we passed a nice roadside stand we decided to buy some fresh fruit and while we were there we admired some hand made baskets from Ghana, but they were too bulky to take on the bikes. A woman asked my opinion about which basket to buy, and I told her I liked them flashy and pointed to one of the most colorful ones of the lot. She of course, had more sense and ignored my advice by picking a darker, more subtle, basket woven in earth tones. Why do people ask my opinion if they don't really want it? Maybe I serve as an "anti-referent" where the idea is "If that scruffy old geezer likes something, that is exactly what I should avoid buying!" Anyway, to each his or her own. We picked up 2 pounds of Bing cherries for $1.69 a pound, which Monika said was a good price, and tied the plastic back to my belt on the left side. That way it counterbalanced my jacket that I had folded up in the belt on the right side and kind of prevented me from listing either to port or to starboard while I was riding along.

After making a U-turn at the on ramp for the Interstate 5 bridge, we zipped back the way we came with a bit of a tailwind and continued upriver even past the Interstate 205 bridge so that we could get the best possible view of Mount Hood. It really was a grand sight. Its snow covered flanks rose majestically into the air back to the east of us. It looked to me like a prototypical volcanic cone, maybe not as perfect as Mount Fuji but still very nice and symmetrical.

We finally reached the point where we had walked over to the Columbia two days back, and then peeled off to return to the McDonalds for lunch (Monika had the chicken ceasar salad and I tried the chicken fajita). We always try to patronize the merchants who host the Volksmarch boxes if at all possible, and these folks were very nice. It was also a good rest after two hours of steady pedaling.

We were still feeling pretty spry after lunch (I'm a member of AARP, so I can use "spry"), so we made a flying stop at Costco to pick up 2 gallons of skimmed milk for $4.25 and a loaf of really good locally baked bread. Then we dropped that off at the trailer, retrieved a frozen water bottle, and drove upriver to the Columbia River gorge area for our next Volksmarch. This Volksmarch was split between about 7 kilometers in Rooster Rock Park and 3 kilometers at a small park around Bridal Veil Falls farther up the gorge, and we had problems with the trail in both sections. The Rooster Rock Park part of the walk started out smoothly enough; we walked downstream beside the Columbia River until the land ended and then turned around at the boat ramp underneath Rooster Rock.

As we walked back through a forested area I found a big patch of blackberries and some of them were already ripe! I mean totally black ripe (not black with a little purple thrown in) where you know that they will taste sweet right off the vine, and that was how I ate them. Some of them were covered with the "cotton" drifting off the cottonwoods, but I figured that was just garnish (or maybe roughage because it certainly did not have any taste!). Monika patiently waited in the next available shady spot while I imitated a bear in a berry patch for a while, and then we continued our walk back past the entrance station and into the other side of the park.

That's where things went aglay, as the Scots would put it. We tried following the directions but either the trail between Interstate 84 and the woods was not there or it had become so overgrown with tall grass that we just weren't willing to chance it. I've picked enough tics off of my hide to want to avoid that situation again and Monika felt the same way, so we circled back to the paved path and tried to push on in the right general direction. That path led us into a maintenance facility where a house and fenced in yard blocked our way, so we again detoured around to the left and tried to find our way up the path to the lookout point specified in our directions. Well, back in the nude bathing areas the paths were not marked, which kept us really in suspense about exactly what we would see as we came around each curve in the trail. So we had to make an educated guess as to which path was intended, and we walked for at least a kilometer without seeing any sign of the lookout area (or anything else!). I imagine it was one of those problems like going downstream versus upstream on a river. Going downstream is usually unmistakably easy, but going upstream you have to decide which way to go at each fork and sometimes you just get it wrong. Apparently our guesses were not educated enough and after a couple of kilometers we finally had to give up and turn around. Going back ("down path", so to speak) was easy and we could then follow the chain of parking lots back to our truck. Since we had been walking about an hour and a half, we figured we had done the kilometers about right even if we had not followed the exact path, so we drove on to the next section of the walk.

A word of warning is in order here, and that would be not to drive anything broader than 7 feet on the old gorge road that lead up to the Bridal Falls wayside. It was definitely NOT big enough for me to tow the trailer there, and even the Tundra was a tight squeeze on one of the bridges. Also, the directions mentioned that it was 4 miles up the road from the exit on Interstate 84, and we found it was only about 2 miles up the road from the exit. To top it all off, after parking the truck we found that one of the two trails we were supposed to hike, the one that led over to the falls, was closed for reconstruction. What a disappointment! We went ahead and walk the circuit hike along the bluff, and that gave us very nice views across the Columbia River and up and down the very impressive gorge, but I really missed not seeing the Bridal Veil falls. Maybe next time. All in all, we felt that this was a creative walk in a beautiful setting, but the directions could use a bit of polishing, and a map that detailed the route in Rooster Rock Park would have been very helpful. Still, the scenery was great, the walk was fun, and the blackberries were very tasty!

On the way back to the campground we shopped a bit and then worked on the computers for a couple of hours and had an early supper. After dinner Monika played the dulcimer and I talked to Terry on the phone a bit. Then we switched on the dulcimer so that I could practice while Monika read. I decided that if I couldn't do art, music, and literature on each day, I could at least try to rotate among them to try to keep my hand in each one, so to speak. Finally we retired to read the first part of a Catharine Asaro book, "The Last Hawk" and at the very last turned off the lights to sleep, perchance to dream.

Copyright 2004 by Robert W. Holt and Elsbeth Monika Holt
Prolog Map Epilog
June 2004
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July 2004
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August 2004
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