On Wednesday, June 12, we arrived at the mountaintop hideaway of our son March and his partner Stephanie near Scappoose, Oregon, northeast of Portland, this after a whirlwind tour of the northern California coast, Crater Lake and the Willamette National Forest of central Oregon. (Prior to that, and since our brief visit to Las Vegas, we had made our way up through the Sierra Nevadas, starting in Sequoia National Park and King’s Canyon and continuing to Yosemite and Lake Tahoe. With any luck, I’ll upload a few shots of those adventures in coming days.)
The first thing we found upon our arrival at March & Steph’s was the 24″-diameter bigleaf maple tree that was lying directly across the driveway. March was awaiting my advice as to how to handle i it — potential value, etc.– before chopping it up. For the time being, though, we were forced to park the camper in a grassy turnout at the bottom of his driveway, and schlep all our stuff up to the house on foot. We needed the exercise anyhow, and, thankfully, Candy’s injured knee ligament is mending well, so she was able to navigate the steep driveway nicely.
March and Steph have tranformed the yards around their home into a vibrant organic farm, with thousands of plants arranged neatly in pots on hundreds of raised platforms that they cobbled together from discarded pallets and other salvaged materials. The 60′-long greenhouse that March built last fall is filled with several hundred tomato plants, all thriving and blossoming in this ideal climate.
The next big project will be to build a rolling retail store for their crops on the back of their big ol’ Dodge diesel pickup truck. The plan is to sell directly to consumers, which should be a snap in Portland, where food- and health-consciousness are a way of life.
Our mission on Thursday was to deal with the fallen tree, so we could bring the camper up to the house and get the kids’ vehicles in and out. After checking with a local Woodfinder supplier about the viability of bigleaf maple lumber (not, unless highly figured), we decided to try to swing the tree down and alongside the driveway. I’ve learned that nothing here is very easy. Frist, March didn’t have any pull chains or cables to hook up to our quarry, then we couldn’t find the trailer hitch, then we needed to chop off somee protruding branches but his chainsaw was dull, so we had to go buy chainsaw files, etc. etc. After wasting part of the day looking for chains, we decided to use a big old logging cable that was lying in the woods nearby. It was 3/4″ thick and 100′ long, with a loop on one end. We managed to wrap the other end of the cable around the end of the log, and, after hacking off all the protruding branches, we finally managed to yank this beast to the side of the road. The weather wasn’t exactly cooperative, as we had to suspend operations several times because of drenching rain showers. (Hey, it’s Oregon; what’dja expect?)
Yesterday, we celebrated our new mobility by heading over to the Mount Hood National Forest for a nice easy hike through some old-growth forest that hadn’t been felled by the relentless logging in that area. March told us that despite it being a National Forest (and theoretically owned by all of us), logging companies have taken over 2,600 clear cut tracts out of this forest alone. The evidence was everywhere, as many of the steep hillsides were totally deforested, leaving only scrub growth and all the unwanted slah from the logging operations. I had to wonder how they even managed to get trucks and equipment up to those steep hillsides.
We finally arrived at Wahtum Lake, about 12 miles northwest of Mount Hood. The lake was surrounded by steep slopes and tall conifers, mostly fir. The understory was a wonderland of trillium, columbine and wildflowers in every color. The hiking loop around the lake was about 3.6 miles, but we planned to gauge our route by how Candy’s knee was holding up. She had forgotten to bring her knee brace with her, so she was really on her own. By the time we had made it halfway around the lake, traversing steep hillsides and clambering over numerous fallen logs, it was just as easy to continue as to go back, so we pressed on. At one point, we came across a trail that scooted up to the top of Chinidere Mountain, “about 1/8 mile or so,” as March surmised. Well, it may have been 1/8 mile up, but it was at least another half mile of steep trail until we reached a lookout near the top of the mountain, and it turned out to be well worth the effort: the view to Mt. Hood and the surrounding forests was outstanding. (See lede photo.) Best of all, Candy’s knee was holding up!
The adventure wan’t quite over, as we found we had to navigate a 20′-wide (and probably 3′-deep) stream where the lake drained on its western end. The only way across was on two fairly narrow logs that spanned the stream, as well as a few odd logs. It turned out that the humans in our group were able to navigate the bridge pretty well, but the canine members, notably Jasper, ended up in the drink.
After much encouragement, we all made it across and on to the last challenge of the hike, a steep climb up the hillside to where we had parked the car. There were over 250 steps made out of sections of presssure-treated 8x8s that had been installed in the hillside — a natural stair-step machine if you ever saw one.
More later…