Central Oregon Trip

My brother Scott was in Portland for a business trip the past week. At the end of the week we took a trip to Central Oregon, which turned out to be a good diversion from rainy Willamette Valley weather.

We covered a lot of territory on this trip. We hiked up Misery Ridge at Smith Rock State Park and watched climbers on Monkey Face. In Bend we caught up with Jen Floyd, who we worked with at Camp Parsons. We also checked out Cline Falls State Park, home of an unsolved attempted axe murder. On the way home we stopped at Silver Falls State Park to relive some childhood memories.

The big surprise of the trip was the hike along Tumalo Creek. I had heard about this area, but it was my first visit there. Tumalo Falls is located within tripping distance from the parking lot, but this is one of those hikes where continuing down the trail is well worth the extra effort.

Tumalo Falls

Upper Tier of Middle Tumalo Falls

Upper Tumalo Falls

Robert Marx Memorial Service

This weekend I traveled to Springfield, VA for the memorial service for Bob Marx, my father's cousin. Even though his family lived on the East coast, we saw him a handful of times during my youth. I always liked seeing cousin Bob. His easy going demeanor had an encouraging and supportive tone.

I knew that he had a long career at the Census Bureau, but until today I did not know the extent of his professional contribution. He was the architect of the Census Bureau's TIGER Format, which was used to improve the Census Bureau's process of taking the Decennial Census. In fact, Bob was the one who coined the acronym TIGER, which stands for Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing. If you are interested about TIGER, you can read more about it here on Wikipedia.

But this gathering was about much more than Bob's professional achievements. His 4 year old grandson got up in front of the audience to say how he wished that his grandfather would return to to play in his sandbox. I doubt at that moment there was a dry eye in the sanctuary. For me, I grieved that my father had lost his surrogate brother and childhood friend. The occasion also provided the opportunity to reacquaint myself with the Marx side of our family. I also got to meet many relatives that I had never met before.

Port Townsend

It has been a long time since I have visited the seaside town of Port Townsend. Lately the closest that I been there was passing by on Highway 101 on the way to Port Angeles and Olympic National Park. That changed when my girlfriend Deborah participated in West Coast Sea Kayaking Symposium in Port Townsend. Since Port Townsend is only an hour away from Camp Parsons, it was a great opportunity to see her doing something that she loves.

The symposium was held on the beach at Fort Worden State Park. Scenes of An Officer and A Gentleman, mostly filmed in Port Townsend, were rolling through my mind as I arrived. It was a glorious day to be out on the beach. In the distance I saw the gun embankments of Battery Kinzhe. It was here that fellow Parsons staffers and I had played games during one of our weekends off. At the Symposium there was a large selection of vendor booths selling various wares. There were dozens of kayers out in the water, including Deborah taking an Advanced Rescue class.

Later I hiked up to Artillery Hill to explore some of the other batteries. I cautiously walked thought the dark corridors of the fortifications, just like I did as a boy. At Battery Quarles I found a scenic lunch spot. Across Admiralty Inlet was Whibey Island and Ebby's Landing, a place that I have hiked with friends and family. Further in the distance was Mount Baker, reminding me of my visit there last summer. I was also eying Mt Shuksan.


Whenever I visit the Olympic Peninsula, I am always looking inland for glimpses of the mountains that are dear to me. While I suspect that always will be the case, today I benefited from someone giving me a good reason to shift my focus somewhat.

Silver Marmot Grill

Saturday I volunteered at the monthly maintenance party at Camp Parsons and ended up tearing things apart. This time it was the porch of the Silver Marmot Grill, a building that is 90 years old.

Actually it was the backhoe that was responsible for most of the destruction, I just had to clean up after all of the carnage. With the porch removed, I as able to see the original structure and how they had renovated upon that in the 1960s. We could also see where some of the original beams had been removed and replaced about 12 years ago where part of the structure had rotted.

Even more shocking was to see the inside of the building after it had been gutted out. The small office where I had spent two summers as the Business Manager is gone. The plan is to move the Trading Post into the Program Office, making more room from offices and a meeting room.

Old Snowy

I hardly expected that I would be changing a flat tire just before my first climb as a full fledged Mazamas Climb Leader, but there I was underneath a car positioning a tire jack. We were camping at the Berrypatch Trailhead, preparing to hike into the Goat Rocks Wilderness and climb Old Snowy. This location was an alternate one since we discovered that Chambers Lake campground was full. It was after getting everyone together that one person noticed that the flat tire.

The rest of the climb went much smoother. The Assistant Climb Leader George Cummings was invaluable as he helped others ascend the crux of the climb. The weather was ideal and the views of Rainier and Adams were stellar. As a bonus there were blue huckleberries to eat and fat marmots to photograph.

As for flat tires, we were not the only Mazamas with that challenge this weekend. The Assistant Climb Leader of the Washington Ellinor Traverse return to the trailhead to find that she had a flat tire as well. It was an amazing coincidence.

Yosemite National Park

Ever since my acceptance into the Mazamas Advanced Rock class, I had been looking forward to their trip down to Yosemite National Park. While I had no plans of big wall climbing in this cathedral of rock climbing, I relished the chance to practice my newly learned trad lead climbing skills on the world famous granite.

Then in July I stumbled and landed on my left thumb. The injury was not serious, but damaging enough to curtail my climbing plans. So instead I planned to climb with my feet and explore by hiking and backpacking.

Our class set up base camp at a campground overlooking Saddlebag Lake on a pass at an elevation of 10000 feet. For you Oregonians out there, that is like camping at the base of Mt. Hood's crater. Even though it was just outside of Yosemite's Tioga Pass entrance, it offered more peace than the car camping options inside the national park in a beautiful alpine setting.

While my colleagues were out climbing, I took a handful of hikes. My first was was to the top of Mount Hoffman, near the geographic center of the park. I also took a short hike amongst the Giant Sequoias in the Tuolumne Grove. Then went down to Yosemite Valley and braved the crowds and explored some of the meadows. On the way out of the valley I stopped at Tunnel View and understood why this place is known as the 'Incomprehensible Valley'.

The highlight of the trip was three day backpacking trip from Tuolumne Meadows down to Yosemite Valley. Monday morning I was dropped off near the Tuolumne Meadows Lodge, elevation 8600 feet. With my wilderness permit and bear canister loaded in my backpack, I headed down the Muir trail and then headed south along Rafferty Creek. After gradually gaining altitude I found myself at the Vogelsang High Serria Camp. As I ate lunch at Fletcher Lake I soaked in this glorious high alpine setting. It got even better as I hiked past Vogelsang Lake and then up to Vogelsang Pass (elevation 10600 feet). My breath was taken away as I rounded the corner and saw the water tumbling down the from Gallson Lake. Below me was the Lewis Creek Valley. As I descended down this valley the creek would slide down slabs of granite. In the distance grand granite domes rose above me. My final mile was a pleasant walk through the shaded forest to the backpacker's campground at Merced Lake. Here I found a flush toilet (such a luxury) and friendly companions that invited me to join their campfire.

Tuesday morning I broke camp and followed the Merced River to Echo Valley. At the trail junction I was startled when a cinnamon colored bear crossed my path. It was not that big, so I paused a looked for mama bear. After awhile it appear that this bear was out solo so I pressed onward. Above me I heard the woodpeckers pecking out insects from the bark, a reminder of home. I gained some altitude and soon found myself above the Merced River valley. Here I was looking down into the Lost Valley, dominated by the impressive granite dome of Bunnell Point. I rejoined the John Muir trail and set up camp at a trail jucntion with good water access. I loaded up my fanny pack and started up the trail to Clouds Rest. The view of Half Dome and the Yosemite Valley got better as I rounded each switchback. Then the big surprise of the day, a hiker that was descending the trail recognized my voice. It was Chris Bibro, a fellow Mazama, who was backpacking with his girlfriend. Chris told me the view from Clouds Rest was spectacular and he was not kidding. At 9926 feet elevation, I was looking down on Half Dome and the Yosemite Valley. Not far away I could see Mount Hoffman plus I could make out the route that had brought me here. After lingering at the summit for some time I descended down to my campsite to rest for my day three.

Tuesday morning I broke camp and headed down the John Muir trail to the Half Dome trail junction. I read that bears were active in this area, so I left my backpack behind, separating my stove and bear canister. Gradually the trees thinned out and I found myself at the base of Half Dome's Cable Route. This is the famous final 400 feet via two cables strung between poles that rest in holes drilled in the steep granite face. As I ascended I got into a rhythm with my arms doing most of the work pulling myself up. The time I spent climbing on granite at City of Rocks gave me the confidence to trust that my feet would hold. The view was worth every step of the way. My efforts to get up here early paid off as I did not have to deal with too large of a crowd as I descended. Downclimbing involved communicating with those who were ascending as the space between the cables is too narrow for two people.

Back down at the trail junction I discovered that chipmunks had gotten into my backpack. I found one of my chemical hand warmers 20 feet from the backpack. Better them than bears. I descended down into Yosemite Valley, enjoying the view of Nevada Falls. During this trip I had seen some incredible sights, but none were as welcome as my car waiting for me at the trailhead.

But this was not the last chapter of this backpacking adventure. The Big Meadows fire had broken out in the National Park, closing a critical road for my return to Saddlebag Lake. A drive that should have taken 2 hours lasted 4.5 hours. When I finally made it back to home base all had retired for the night and the last of the campfire embers were fading.

When my time in Yosemite had ended, I drove north to Truckee to visit my cousin Eric and his family. We had a wonderful picnic dinner at Donner Lake and then later I got to read bedtime stories to his girls. The next morning I packed up one last time and drove home.

You can see more photos at this link.

Neahkahnie Mountain

While I would prefer to be in the mountains than on the beach, my summer would not be complete without a visit to the Oregon Coast.  For some time I have been itching to return to Neahkahnie Mountain, which would give me both my mountain and beach fix.

Our group departed from the Hillsboro area Sunday afternoon, our destination was Oswald West State Park. One member of our group was from Germany and this was his first time seeing the Pacific Ocean.  Seeing numerous surfers headed towards the beach only seemed to add to his excitement.

We paused at the Devils Cauldron to soak in the view of Smugglers Cover and Cape Falcon.  From here the trail started to climb in earnest.  I had forgotten how magnificent the Sikta Spruce trees are along this hike.  In some places they were growing in so close that the sun was blocked out.

The translation of Neahkahnie is place of the gods, which seems a fitting name for this viewpoint.  Looking south towards Nehalem Bay with the surf crashing along the beach is certainly a view fit for the gods.

After a leisurely dinner and dessert on the summit, we descending back to the Short Sand beach.  I was hoping to catch the sunset, but a narrow band of clouds on the horizon had the sun disappearing ahead of schedule.  While we did not witness the sun as it set, we did catch the surfers gliding back to shore.  That was thrilling enough for our German friend.  Welcome to Oregon...