Multnomah – Franklin Ridge Loop, Nov 8th

Trying to catch falls colors in Oregon can be a bit of a challenge for many reasons. For starters, we don’t have a lot of trees that go brown and drop all their leaves in the winter. Most of our forests are covered in different pine species that stay green throughout the winter. The other reason is that it can be a very delicate balance. AS leaves start to turn yellow, the rain also start. If it doesn’t rain too much, then you get a chance but, this is Oregon. Nothing like not too much rain. This year in particular with the visit from el Niño, weather started turning grey and rainy pretty fast so we had kind of a boom, everything is yellow now kind of deal. Still, with lousy weather, we wanted to get a hike in an area with good fall colors. After looking for a while we ended up re-visiting an old loop that usually has a lot of potential. We usually stay away from Multnomah as it’s a tourist attraction and you get a lot of people. This day though, for some strange reason (or just because we got there early) the parking lot was almost empty. That gave me a chance to take a picture of Multnomah Falls and the bridge without any people, a very rare sight. After admiring the fall we marched our way up via the 11 (yes, they are numbered) switchbacks to the top of the fall before entering he Multnomah basin. That’s when people start to thin out and you finally are in the forest. We were welcomed with a very lush forest covered in moss. Even though the sky was covered in dark grey, we had some really nice colors ranging from the still yellow leaves on some limbs to the brown covering the ground. It was a quiet hike as some parts where almost deep in fog. Creeks were also noticeable higher with the rain so that was a relief. IN all, nothing to complain about. It was a fantastic fall hike



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BPA Road – Newton Road loop, Oct 18th

With cooling temperatures and overcast predicted pretty much in the entire state we didn’t have a good choice for a hike. Still, Val and I needed a descent loop for a workout. Something in the 10+ mile range with descent elevation gain just to keep our hiking legs in motion. I generally overlook trail in Forest Park because most of them have very easy access so you get to share the trail with runners and city walkers. Also, you rarely get far enough not to hear he city so the sense of being out there is just not there. But I was proven wrong. Val found this loop on the Northern end of Forest Park that combines two service roads with some trail to form a pretty descent loop. It’s not visited as much because the trailhead is right on the Northwest Saint Helens Road which is like a secondary highway. When we read the description, it did say to park in the shoulder, but that meant leaving the car right there, sitting b itself in the middle of a busy road. It didn’t look like we would find it on our way back. So we made a turn on Marina Bay Road and park there which worked pretty well. The hike starts from the closed service road that quickly climbs up towards the power lines. As it winds up, you get far from the road, and the noise pretty quickly. Being an overcast and almost rainy day didn’t give us a lot of views so not much to comment on that front. WE did take a detour for and out and back, down the hill to a view point where you can see the river and the Sauvie Island Bridge in the distance. Once back on the primary loop, we continued up to a couple more viewpoints that didn’t offer anything due to cloud cover. From there the return actually felt a bit more familiar. Part of it was following the Wildwood trail that traverses the entire park until we got to Newton Road which we followed all the way down. The cool thing about this hike is that you get the distance and elevation and then you can get home quickly for well-deserved hot shower and a meal



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Silver Star, Oct 4th

Without super busy summer looking for houses, we decided to take the day off and go hiking. Without a lot of planning, Val and I browsed our go-to list of hikes we like to do in a short notice when the weather is cooperating so we picked Silver Star. The day was clear but not crisp and we were looking for some fall colors that had eluded us. The hike was nice with the splendid views you get from the top. We visited both view points and were planning on spending some time under the sun while we ate some lunch but found that to be a bit tricky. The wind was blowing pretty hard which made it a bit cold up there so we waited a bit until we were protected by the ridge but then we never stopped. We continued down via the Sturgeon Rock trail. We thought about taking the detour but another group was scrambling up there and we had done it before, besides, without lunch we were getting hungry very quickly. We got back down in very good time to make a stop on the way to eat. We got our sanity back



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