Treks and Adventures
Lori, Jeanette, Sylvia and I did a hike at Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge. We followed the same route as I had scouted a few months ago but shortened it some. Highlights were seeing a deer swim across the Willamette River and a playful Otter cleaning its self. Both happened to far away to get a photo of. After the walk we went to Muddy Rudder Public House. I had Stromboli, something I had never had before.
After several days of rain we had a break in the weather so I took advantage of it to do some more scouting on the Sandy River Greenway Trail. There was a new section of trail added to it that now connects Troutdale to it and on to the 40 mile loop. The new trail runs through the new Sharon Nesbit Heritage Park and then joins the Ch’ak Ch’ak Trail. There a number of user trails that connect to the Ch’ak Ch’ak Trail and run down to the Sandy River. I spent most of my time checking these out. In all I got nine miles of walking in.
Another testing hike at Oxbow with Lori, Jeanette and Sylvia. We start out going from our low point to the parking lot at the top about a 600 ft. elevation gain. After that we did some trail around the park. We did about 5 miles and 650 ft. total elevation gain. Afterwards it was back to Ye Old Pub for lunch.
Lori and I did a very brief scouting hike at Spring Valley State Park of about 2 1/4 miles. We had planned on doing a longer hike but a man with a hunting rifle showed up and for safety only did a couple of short trail away from where this man went. We went to Backstop Bar & Grill for lunch afterwards.
A road trip to visit and scout Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge and some other stops on the way. Lori and I headed out and made our first stop at McMenamins Kalama Harbor Lodge. I had a chance to try some more biscuit and gravy. Heading North on I5 our next stop was to scout Mima Mounds National Area Preserve. It has a unique geology of large mounds that no one for sure how they were made. We finally made it to Nisqually. With the government shutdown none of the building were open but the trails were. We covered about 4.5 miles of trail and started making plans to return to see more.
