Treks and Adventures
Taking advantage of a string of days of nice weather I did another training walk up to Pittock Mansion. Today was a blue sky day with clear views of Portland and the mountains. I also got better number on this walk. I did 4.8 miles with about 900 ft of total elev. gain and did 513 steps in an hour and fifty-eight min.
We decide to do another hike of Chehalem Ridge Nature Park but this time get some mileage number for a future Tom walk. It was a cool day but clear enough to get some views. Afterward we returned to Backwoods for lunch.
We had beautiful weather today so I thought I would take advantage of it to scout out a possible new place for the Tuesday hike. It was a lovely little lake with some interesting geology behind it. The park is really set up for summer with picnicking, swimming in the lake and camping. Winter time there were just a couple of folks fishing and some campers. As part of the scouting I want to check out the Chelatchie Prairie Railroad Trail that starts at the park. The railroad has an interesting history but the trail is still work in progress.
I had not done the stair route to Pittock in many years. Include a couple of short ones I did 10 flights of stairs total. The mansion was in a heavy fog so no views but the fog gave the place a feel of mystery. On the way down I found Balch Creek was running higher then I had ever seen it.
This was the 14th anniversary of the Mazama’s New Years Eve Roller Coaster Hike in Forest Park. Rex was the leader this time and we had a good turn out. It was a chance for me to see some old Mazama friends and to meet some new folks. We lucked out the the weather and did not get any rain. The hike was about 7.5 miles long with 1600 total elevation gain and we were on the trail for about 3:45 minutes.
