Hiking in Gifford Pinchot

 We wanted to go hiking this last weekend, so Matt perused the Curious Gorge book and found 3 up in the Washington state area. We ended up doing two based on drive time and degree of wetness required. The area is the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. According to the Forest Service website, it was named after 

"Gifford Pinchot, an active conservationist, was appointed first Chief of the Forest Service. He played a key role in developing the early principles of environmental awareness. Pinchot's philosophy is made clear in his farsighted statement that the forests should be managed for "..the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run." In honor of his leadership, the Columbia National Forest was renamed for Gifford Pinchot in 1949."

On the way out you'll pass a Forest Service Station where you get a climbing permit for Mount Adams. If you had quizzed us on the elevations of the peaks in our general vicinity we would not have had a perfect score. Both of us believed Mt. Hood to be taller than Mt. Adams. Maybe it's because Hood is pointy and Adams is fairly flat top. [...]

Weekends in Oregon

June 22-23

So, there is something about living in Oregon in the summer.  It kinda rocks.  Random weekends are worth mentioning.  At the beginning of the summer, we bought Curious Gorge, which may as well be a hiking bible for the National Scenic Area in which we currently reside.  On this particular weekend, we decided to try some lesser known hikes mentioned in the book on Saturday.  The early hike was Shellrock Mountain 1872 Wagon Road.  There is actually the oldest road in the gorge right off I-84, and no one really knows it’s there.  You have to park on the eastbound side of the interstate, just after exit 51 and hop the guardrail to find the trail.  About a half mile in, sure enough, there is the old wagon road, built circa 1872.  Switchback up the hill and you can walk along and sit on the old road.  Just below is the freeway, where everyone blowing by is oblivious to the old road.  Never saw another soul on the hike, but just watching the world, and river, go by while sitting on top of the old road. [...]

Solo Snowshoeing

Bennet Pass Trail

Suz took Tuesday off and we went back to the Mt Hood area. She went snowboarding, but I don't do that. So I went to the Bennet Pass Trail to snowshoe. This was my first solo hike in I-can't-remember-how-long. Went about 4.5 miles total in around 2 hours. and there was hardly a soul in sight. Passed two cross-country skiers on their way out and a couple walking their dog once I was nearly back to the parking lot. The weather was very nice- at least on the Mt. Hood side of the trail. On the Badger Wilderness area it was fast moving fog with a light rain. [...]

Naked Snowshoeing

Matt, Suz, and I went snowshoeing with Naked Winery on Feb. 9th. We met at the White River West Sno Park with a bunch of winery members. Just like the winery- all the members are fun-loving and easy-going too! This was our first event with the winery outside of tastings and wine pick-up parties. Matt and I went to REI and rented the gear. It was a lot of fun and my first time snowshoeing in years.

We trekked and along the way dug up previously buried bottles of wine. They were marked with fake red roses- easy to spot, right- but apparently someone not in our group thought they should collect them. We spent some time looking for two of the bottles after the roses went missing, but we found eventually! If only they'd known there was wine underneath! We maybe went 1/2 a mile to a mile the whole round trip, stopping every 10 minutes of walking to uncover another bottle. It was a blast and I wasn't the only one who wished they'd eaten a bigger breakfast.  [...]

Autumn Backpacking Guide

Did you know fall hiking is considered to be the time span from September 22 to December 21? I didn't but maybe that's because I'm from Alaska. The time stretch provides quite a range of temperatures and weather conditions even at a single elevation. Last night we went to another REI hosted presentation  on fall backpacking led by Bernie Wilt. We’ve been to two presentations before and this one was exactly what I was hoping it would be. The first one was on Fall Hikes in the Columbia River Gorge and another one on trail running put on by Salomon, which was really just a 1 hour commercial for their products. It did answer the two questions I had about trail running though. 1) do I need any special gear or considerations to do it? No. Trail specific shoes might help but they aren’t necessary. We did learn some things to consider in shoe shopping though like materials and tread design, but overall we don’t need to buy anything new and definitely not anything expensive (thanks, but no thanks on the $500 watch with GPS, maps, weather, and altimeter or the super duper hydration vest because believe it or not we don’t run super ultra-marathons). 2) Where around here are trails to run on? Technically, trail running is running anywhere but on the road/ pavement, but the only places they had to suggest were Forest Park (which we have yet to check out despite it vast size and trails available and proximity to Portland proper) and a few short ones around the Beaverton area, one of which we have already run on- the Nike campus trails. So, all in all that presentation was our least favorite.  [...]

Labor Day on the Olympic Peninsula

For the holiday weekend we decided to head up to Matt's grandmother's in Sequim, WA. First off, who doesn't enjoy visiting their grandparents (especially fiesty, independant ones like Hana). Second, the weather was predicted to be GORGEOUS all across the PacNW and they have some great hiking. The bonus was that I discovered the Olympic Discovery Trail during the week while searching for activities. It's a paved pedestrian/ bike path that goes around the peninsula connecting all the towns. Naturally, this meant we were bringing the bikes! 

Olympic Peninsula National Park

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