Day Eight_Portland to Walla Walla

We wake up at a reasonable time and head to the breakfast room at the Ace - it’s pretty good, with a small dining table and a help-yourself approach to the pastries, fruit and drinks on offer. I have a cheese scone, because I’m desperate for something other than a doughnut or sweet pastry and some tea, along with the first and only apple I’ve had so far on this trip - fresh fruit and veg are hard to come by outside of supermarkets, and it’s good to grab the opportunity for something that isn’t fried while I have the chance. Feeding time complete, we pack up and drop the bags in the car before setting out to explore Portland by day.

First of all we walk for around an hour to find an Arcteryx store - my companion needs some new hiking trousers and I will take any excuse to buy more outdoor gear - which ends up taking us to quite a nice part of town, with lots of nice shops and cafes. American cities are sometimes a bit unusual for people from Europe, as they tend to be laid out with the assumption that everybody has access to a car - in my experience at least - so you end up with these clumps of city life scattered through more work-a-day parts of town. When we arrive, we’re a bit early so we take the opportunity to sit in the sun and wait for the store to open. When it eventually does it takes my friend an inordinate amount of time to actually select his trousers - clearly the man is a very fussy shopper.

Following this successful bout of retail therapy, we walk on a little further into Washington Park - although the park is nice enough on its own, we actually want to specifically visit Portland’s Japanese Garden, which was designed to try and heal some of the American-Japanese cultural rifts created during the Second World War. Designed by a Japanese agricultural professor - Takuma Tono - in the 1960s, the garden brings together five distinct styles of traditional Japanese landscape design in one easily navigable place. It also features a new pair of pavilions designed by one of Japan’s most notable contemporary architects, Kengo Kuma, so we were almost obliged to visit. Although some parts of the garden were closed due to the effects of the winter, it’s a wonderfully serene place - screaming kids and shuffling feet aside - and it feels like the first truly cultural stop on the trip so far. I’d recommend the steep climb if you’re ever in Portland, it’s well worth a visit.

Leaving Washington Park, we head back to collect the car - stopping at Aesop for my ever-fussy compatriot - and set off out of Portland. We do make one stop on the way however, at Voodoo Donuts, which has gathered a big following in the city for their variety of pastries with clever names like Marshall Mathers (covered in M&Ms, ha!), Strawberry Go-Tart and the eponymous Voodoo Doll (complete with pretzel stick jabbed into his cakey form). We order a selection, including a truly monstrous apple fritter, and sling them in the back for the journey.

A brief stop for lunch, and we’re on our way - this is a long leg of the trip as we’re trying to get as close to Spokane today as we can, as this is our next waypoint on the way to Glacier National Park. The route takes us along the Columbia River Highway, which drags us (somewhat predictably) along the Columbia River until we spy a large dam stretching across the banks. We stop at the Bonneville Dam and take some photos, even managing to spot out first American eagles perched high on the dams exposed trusses.

As we move on, the sun starts to dip behind the hills and creates a beautiful red sky as we arrive into Walla Walla - tonight is a quieter night and we take the chance to catch up on the mundane things that we’ve neglected - emails, messages and (most importantly) laundry. The simple act of folding my companions now clean underwear make this a memorable way to end off such a busy day.

Day Seven_Bend to Portland

After the hike, and our reasonably late night, we wake a little later than usual. My companion has decided he needs a haircut, so as he heads off I wait in a nice little coffee shop for a while although I’m still unable to secure a flat white. With one of our party neatly and newly shorn, we continue on towards Portland, which is a fair drive from Bend and we’re hoping to stop for a hike on the way. We stop for some lunch on the way out - I did say it was a late start - and move out into the countryside around Bend, which is pretty incredible. 

Suddenly we seem to have left the mountains behind, and we’re now in the wide, open valleys between the peaks. We see tumbleweeds rolling across the highway, something I’ve seen before but that always makes me feel like we’re in some sort of western movie, snowy plains and deep canyons, where angled basalt columns look like they’ve been hammered into the ground. The snow starts to creep back as we head back into the mountain passes, with fresh drifts visible alongside the road and a steady stream of snow falling as we approach the Frog Butte trailhead.

The snow is really coming down as we get our gear ready, including my new snowshoes this time, and we meet a man who’s just returning with his two dogs as we start the trail - he gives us a mild warning about backcountry shoeing but we pay him little heed and head off. The initial start to the track is a pretty much entirely uphill road, with nicely compacted snow that makes the going a bit easier than the last hike we tried. We continue up, and whilst it’s a bracing journey, the heavy snow clouds limit what we can see across the valleys. 

Eventually, we reach the turning for Frog Butte (I’m not attempting to be funny here, a butte is a tall, flat-topped tower of rock), which reveals itself to be an untrodden path into deep snow. Again. Using myself as a sort of pathfinder, we make our way as best we can, trying to find purchase in the snow but inevitably failing at points. The going is again slow, but steady and after another hour or so we find ourselves facing a massive radio antenna, the surrounding fence of which is barely visible in the drifts, but is a sure sign that we’ve reached our first peak of the trip. We celebrate by adding another layer to our clothing, as the wind is bitter and biting, before heading back down through the forest to the road and our car. We’ve been out for quite a while, almost three and a half hours, so we set back out as the sun is starting to go down.

The journey to Portland was pretty intense, with snow constantly sleeting down as the day;ought started of ebb away. The roads are covered with slushy, melting ice and there are a significant amount of signs warning of the need for snow chains in the event of bad weather (which we do not have, given we collected our car in California). Thankfully, the journey into Portland is pretty uneventful although we don’t find space in our chosen hotel - we wanted to stay in another of the McMenamins properties, a cool looking tricorner building in central Portland, but they’re fully booked. We ‘make do’ with the `Ace Hotel’ a few blocks away, which is delightfully hipster if not overly large or practical - the woollen blankets on the beds can be bought for only $450, so it much be good.

We get showered and changed and head out into the city - as you might have gathered, these trips tend not to focus on city dwelling but we’re happy to give it a go once in a while. Portland is the home of grunge and is renowned for being quite an eclectic place, who we head out for dinner at 10 Barrel Brewery, a local place serving pretty good food and on-site brewed beers. After filling up, we try a few bars, but the mood is decidedly subdued - the barman at the Teardop tells us that Portland has been hit pretty hard during the pandemic and many people are still wary, hence the quieter-than-usual nightlife. He points us in the direction of a couple of places, which require an Uber to get to, and appear to be equally dead. We end up at a very peculiar bar, called the Goodfoot, which seems to offer pool, pinball and music to a group of almost entirely student customer. It’s fun, but odd, and we head home just after 1AM more than a little confused.

Day Six_Blue River to Bend

We awake a little earlier than usual as today’s hike might be a bit longer so we’re keen to get started. As we leave the motel, there’s a noticeable drop in temperature and the roads are covered in snow and slush, although it has to be said that the local governments in these regions do a great job of keeping the roads clear at pretty much all times. 

We follow the satnav directions to the trailhead, which leads us to a small lay-by just over a rising mountain highway. And that’s it. There’s a 2m high wall of snow to one side of the lay-by, which is where the trail should start and nothing else. In a fit of bravado, I kick some steps into the wall and manage to clamber over the top into waist high powder. A short walk on reveals the roofs of what would be, in summer, some small buildings that would support the trails - picnic benches, bathrooms, information boards. But these are all now almost completely hidden by snow.

As I near the buildings I can hear the sudden rush of water crashing in the distance. There are some old tracks from other would be explorers that are now just depressions in the snow, so I follow them and am confronted, eventually, but a large waterfall that is made larger by all of the snowmelt that must be rushing down off of the mountains as the weather softens a little. It’s a pretty awe-inspiring sight, and from where we’re standing we can see a small overlook at the head of the waterfall a short way off. We decide to make for it, scrabbling and climbing through the snow in our boots.

At this point, my compatriot decides to run back to the car for his snow shows - he brought them by chance following a recent move out of his apartment, but that decision is paying dividends now. I don’t have any with me, so have to plod on in my boots, trying to follow the relatively stable depressions that he is leaving in the snow - if I don’t, then I’m up to my waist and have to drag each boot out like I’m climbing a tall step. We find our own route up to the overlook at the head of the waterfall - it’s hard to capture the power and quantity of the water coursing over the edge in just pictures, but it’s an impressive thing to stand and watch for a few minutes.

We decide to continue on, finding a path through the powder, but the going is slow and consuming, especially for me. Eventually we arrive at what would normally be a bridge, again in more pleasant weather, but is now groaning under another couple of metres of snow. I slowly make my way across, trying to follow in the snowshoe imprints, but on more than one occasion I’m reminded that the edge of the snow resting on the bridge is not actually bridge - one wrong step could drop me into the fast flowing waters below. 

This not insignificant hurdle crossed, we turn back downstream to try and find the head of the waterfall from the other side of the bank. The going is even tougher on this side, somewhat amazingly, with almost every one of my steps requiring me to pull myself out of a deep hole in the snow, with my trousers, socks and boots now absolutely soaking wet. We trudge on, through piled drifts and up and down small valleys, always in deep, deep snow. It’s undoubtedly beautiful though, with small stops to see gushing rapids or dark blue pools as the river makes its way towards the falls - something nobody else has seen, at least in a good long while.

Finally, we hear the crashing sound of the waterfall and manage to twist down through some trees to peer over the edge - the sound is incredible and we wonder whether there’s a way down to the river at the foot of the falls to find a way back across. Given the width and height of the river beneath, it seems very unlikely, so we head back the way we came. The going is a little easier (subjectively, of course) as at least we’re following our own tracks, but the bridge is an interesting experience given the snow we’d removed on the first crossing - I’m very grateful to whoever built the bridge that they included side rails as these stopped more than one slow slide into the river.

Once back at the car, I have to literally change everything from my waist down, so sodden where my cloths - I’m most concerned that my mountain boots, which were used for the first time today, had a small pool of water in the bottom so they’ll need to be thoroughly dried before the next time I want to put them on. This whole hike, whilst very beautiful and offering a lot of adventure that we both enjoy, has underlined the need for taking the environment pretty seriously here - it’s easy to believe that people can be over-cautious with some of the conditions, but I think we’ll be facing more of the same over the next few weeks.

We continue to drive on, stopping for a small coffee in a place called Sisters, before we arrive at Bend, Oregon’s second city that is the home of many of the state’s winter sports. As soon as we arrive, it’s clear that it’s a pretty affluent place, with many small bars and restaurants albeit with some closed due to the time of year. We park up and do some shopping - I buy some snowshoes almost immediately - and have a beer in the sun that’s now climbing into the afternoon sky. We choose to stay at a genuinely amazing hotel - McMenamins Old St. Francis School, a converted series of school buildings that offers accommodation, a pub, a cinema and a soaking pool. The latter is something we head for almost immediately, given our exploits on the hike, and we arrive at one of the most cinematic spaces I’ve ever seen. Open to the sky, with an ornate fountain in the middle of the pool itself, we relax in the warm salt water for a long time, before heading out for dinner.

We’d spied a restaurant that looked good earlier in the day, 900 Wall, and decided we’d escape the usually burgers and fast food we’d been eating until now. It was a great meal, with steak and wine, and afterwards we headed out to a local bar to play some pool - a famous victory for me, after some shocking unforced errors by both of us. We continued on to a few more bars and pubs, but it’s clear that the time of year (along with the pandemic) is keeping places pretty quiet. We retire to the hotel to prepare for our next stop in Oregon’s capital city, Portland.

Day Five_Coos Bay to Blue River

As has become SOP now, we wake, pack and load up the car. We’d noticed that Vinny’s had a breakfast menu when we were there just sixteen hours before, so we decided to try our luck a second time. I had pancakes and bacon, which were excellent in that simple, homely way that America does so well, whilst my companion had a breakfast burrito - when this arrived it was literally the size of a brick and weighed about the same. He could only manage half of it in one sitting, so the rest came with us in a take out box. 

As we were driving out of town, we had to stop a number of times just to wonder at some of the sights that locals must treat as totally ordinary - thousands of tonnes of stacked lumber, awaiting shipping; rusting, crumbling industrial buildings; mint green wrought iron bridges floating in out of the fog. It seems, as we pass through them, that many of Oregon’s towns are built around industries supported by the stunning landscapes that encircle them - this gives every place a slightly gritty, entirely honest feeling, which comes with its own sort of practical beauty.

One of our latter stops is in front of what seem to be sand dunes, but intermingled with pine forest landscapes. It’s a bizarre combination, and seems almost impossible - that is until we take a turning towards a national park sign and are confronted with one of the most remarkable landscapes I’ve ever encountered, namely miles upon miles of towering dunes, dotted with what look for all the world like alpine groves and lakes. This is Hauser Sands, a stretch of wind driven sand that stretches for miles up and down the Oregon coast, but that stretches far enough in land that it’s started to engulf the surrounding forests - this battle between competing natures is actually the same landscape that inspired Frank Herbert’s Dune series and it’s not hard to see why as we put on our boots to explore. 

As it turns out, local Oregonians use these dunes as a sort of ATV playground and whilst the colder weather presumably keeps the place pretty quiet, we see a few dune buggies and motocross bikes whipping across the sand as we hike around. The dunes themselves are tens of metres high in some places, with the windward sides sculpted in subtle, sinuous curves by the ever present winds that rake across the higher ground. Whilst the sheer quantity of sand is impressive, it’s the juxtaposition between the desert and green forests that is most striking - small lakes are ringed by fir trees and devolve into almost-swamps filled with murky brown water as the two types of environment battle it out. The pictures don’t do things justice, so I’d encourage a stop, or even a detour, if you’re ever in the state. 

We hike for a few hours and then return to the car to continue up along the misty costal roads, before heading inland to Eugene - one of Oregon’s larger cities and where we were intending to stay for the night here, but it’s a gritty town and I think we’ve had our fill of motels, so after a brief stop to try and stock up on hiking gear (unsuccessfully) we keep moving an dry to get closer to the trailhead we have picked out for tomorrow. Leaving Eugene, we notice the roads start to climb upwards and snow begins to appear at the side of the road in ever-increasing amounts. By the time we spot our destination - a small selection of rental cabins - the snow is sleeting down and the temperature hovers around freezing. I leap out of the car, to see if they have any availability and am greeted by an older couple sat at what should be a busy bar but is currently deserted. They seem a bit shocked to see me, as I’d interrupted their dinner, and explain that they haven’t really opened the cabins yet, given the time year and (gulp) the terrible weather. They direct us back down the road a ways to a motel that we passed a few minutes ago.

The motel is called Harbick’s Country Inn and I’m greeted by a very pleasant gentleman, although he seems equally surprised when I tell him that we’re here to hike. Thankfully he has a room§ for us, so we move in and then head to Takodo’s, the only restaurant that’s open in the neighbourhood. We are the only two people in the place, other than the teenager that serves us and the cook, but we order some very serviceable sandwiches and a couple of beers before heading back to the motel - one thing we do discover is that the eponymous Harbick is actually a Senate hopeful who owns pretty much every building in the area. His politics are not something that I’d want to discuss here, but let’s just say I’m not sure I can buy his thinking on some issues. Slightly troubling political opinions aside, we retire for the night - tomorrow, we hike in the snow!

Day Four_Crescent City to Coos Bay

We awake in a freezing room, again, which is not the most auspicious start to the day. The weather has improved, and whilst it’s not exactly summer-in-Barcelona weather, at least the rain has let up a little. We pack the car up and head into town in search of both breakfast and some additional supplies. First we head to the great retail leveller - Walmart - as I need to get a water bottle for the journey. As an aside, it’s always such an interesting experience to visit a Walmart - perhaps the most highly evolved outcome of a consumerist culture. Shelves and shelves of products, with a variety and scale that dwarves anything else I’ve seen collected in one place. That being said, I still bought my water bottle there, as well as some more snacks, so what do I know?

Next on the agenda is breakfast - we saw a small shed in a parking lot called Java Hut so we stopped for a coffee and, hopefully, a pastry. It’s pretty much just a independent, drive-by coffee shop - a concept that will become more common as we drive on - but they serve a decent latte and we order a banana bread brownie for breakfast. What is handed to us is literally a slab of frosted banana bread the size of a smallish paving stone - it really is ridiculous but it tastes pretty good so we try to ignore the looming weight gain the States tends to enforce on visitors.

We set off for trailhead my companion’s picked out - the Mill Creek Horse Trail - an 18km hike into the Jedediah Smith redwood state park above Crescent City. The track starts climbing almost immediately and we keep moving upwards as the forests becoming more dense and green. There’s a fine mist that occasionally drifts across the trail and gives the whole scene a gently ephemeral character. Bright green ferns line the forest floor, through which is scattered the broken remains of some redwoods and firs, some which block our path and require some mild athleticism to cross. The forests in this part of California were used heavily by George Lucas during the filming of the Endor scenes in Return of the Jedi, something that I see in every corner we turn and rise we climb. I genuinely would not have been surprised to see white-clad Stormtroopers come streaming out of the undergrowth, so familiar is the scenery. 

This hike also underlines just how huge the redwoods can get - the scale of them is sometimes hard to perceive when they’re upright, but the trail is littered with the forlorn, decaying carcasses of these fallen giants giving us a different perception of their scale. The uprooted stumps of some of the biggest are larger than a reasonably sized house and I can’t help but think about the noise and chaos that must erupt when they finally topple.

The home takes us just under four hours and by the time we get back to the car, we are happily weary and ready to move north yet again - as we set off, we realise that Crescent City is the last town we’ll see in California, as we cross into Oregon shortly after leaving the city limits. The coast remains spectacular as we drive along, and we stop at a small cove, accessed via a slightly ‘rural’ road, called Whaleshead Beach. The beach itself is pretty tiny, but it gives us an eye-level vantage point to watch the waves thunder into a nearby atoll - it also affords us the opportunity for some pretty heroic photos which I’m sure you’ll see gracing our social media pages pretty shortly.

We are aiming for a small industrial town just a bit further north up the coast, and we roll into Coos Bay around 6PM. Our first priority is dinner, and I’d read about a sandwich shop called Vinny’s Smoking Hot Sandwiches - dear reader, if you ever find yourself in Coos Bay then please go to Vinny’s. From the outside, and the inside frankly, it looks like a sort of abandoned fast food joint - gaudy vinyl signs hang from the outside, the menu is handwritten on random pieces of paper and stuck haphazardly on the walls, the furniture looks like it’s been reclaimed from a hotel lobby, but the food… good heavens the food. Vinny specialises in home smoked meats of all types and the sandwiches we order are the best thing we’ve eaten so far. Whilst we’re eating, a piece of the building falls off and crashes into a window, but we didn’t even stop chewing to look up - that’s how good the food is.

After dinner, we head to a motel and drop our bags off - we’d spotted a small bar, Walt’s Pourhouse, so we went off for a drink to celebrate our hike. Whilst there, we managed to get chatting to a couple of locals, Sam and Tiffany, who give us some great tips on enjoying Oregon and introduce us to the Waltbomb - the bar’s signature tipple. After a fun evening, we head back to get some sleep before heading up into the Oregon mountains.

Day Three_Eureka to Crescent City

Today was something of a slow start. When we finally woke up, composed ourselves and left the motel, we decided to head out for a walk in search of food - we’d spotted an In-N-Out burger place (a Californian favourite) a short distance from where we were staying when we arrived, so we decided that would help us gather what remained of our minds before we set out on the road again. Unfortunately, we timed our walk with an absolute deluge of rain and the 3 or 4km journey left us sodden by the time we arrived. The restaurant itself, whilst immaculately clean, was pretty icy with AC blaring so we sat and shivered whilst we waited on our order. The food was excellent, and genuinely helped with our recovery, but the rain really hadn’t let up by the time we finished so we made use of a local Uber - a luxury, but it felt like a necessary one.

A quick change to get out of our wet clothes and we were off again. The roads north still hug the coast so we could watch the storm driven swells rage against a slate grey sky - as we continued, we noticed the shoreline break from the rocky edges we’d seen so far into a broad, grey sanded ribbon. We pulled off the highway and found a space to park the car and headed through the scrubland dunes that hemmed in the beach, which eventually gave way to a genuinely breathtaking beach - Clam Beach, to give it its proper name. The muted tones of the sand and sky, the roaring of the surf and a surfeit of jet black ravens gave the place a gloriously macabre atmosphere as we walked along the beach. The coastline is starting to include huge freestanding atolls, that stand stolidly off the mainland to be battered by the wind, rain and sea - these were clearly visible from the beach so we started to walk along towards them.

Along the way, the dunes continue to grow and recede, with high stretches seemingly cleared of vegetation and marked only with hardened fragments of driftwood, all to the screeching chorus from the ravens. We go as far as we can but our progress is impeded by an outlet from a nearby river and we stop to admire the view - just as we’re preparing to turn around a dark, fluid shape emerges from the water and lopes towards some rocks. It’s a sea otter, returning from whatever activity drove it to enter the water in the first place, the first real bit of wildlife we’ve spotted so far.

We walk back along the river as we return to the car - it seems like we’ve only been gone for a few minutes but more than two hours have passed. We continue up along the coast, the roads now alternating between sheer cliffs and forests almost mile by mile. We’re aiming for a small town called Crescent City, which is perched right on a large natural bay - we drive into town as it’s getting dark and a quick web search suggests a place for dinner. We head to SeaQuake Brewing, a local brewery and restaurant which turns out to be very good - pulled pork sandwich and chicken tacos - although, somewhat incredibly, I was asked to present my ID before I could order a beer. A surprise, but a welcome one. After dinner, we head to the Crescent Beach motel, a small place right on the shoreline, so much so that we can hear the beating waves as we decamp from the car. The room is older, and whilst serviceable, hasn’t been heated in a while - we discover a built-in deathtrap heater that operates like a  massive hairdryer but seems to keep out the biting cold. Tomorrow we’ve planned our first real hike of the trip, so I’d better get some rest.