Portland Report #1

Friday, December 5th-

2:45pm MST: Left Driggs to begin my drive west to Portland with Buddy riding co-pilot.

Saturday, December 6th-

1:15am PST: Arrived in Portland at my parent's new house after 11 1/2 hours of driving (including a 1/2 nap at a rest area outside of La Grande, OR).

2:30am: Went to bed after chatting with mom and dad.

In the morning, at 8:00am, I woke up, had breakfast and went out for my favorite Portland city run at Mt. Tabor. (*Note: My advice is to not attempt an intense 1 hour long interval stair workout the morning after sitting in a car for half a day then getting 5 1/2 hours of sleep. I felt like a slug and cut the run short. No more stairs!)

That evening, I stopped by to briefly visit my buddy Joe's parents, then headed over to Trevor's place in Hillsboro to have dinner with his fam and stay the night there for an early run in the gorge the following morning. Had a great time hanging out. Already looking forward to seeing you all again next time I'm in town!

By10:30pm I was Snoozin.

Sunday, December 7th-

We woke up at 5:00am and headed out the door. By dawn, we had arrived at Eagle Creek TH and we quickly got our gear together and set off. Task #1: Find the Buck Point trail at the back of the campground at the base of Ruckle Ridge and begin our ascent from elev. 100' to 4,000' in 3 miles. It took 2hrs, 15 min to reach Benson Plateau. Then it took a half hour for me to finally figure out our correct route after bumbling around traipsing through the woods from my inability to remember the way. (The last time I did this route was about ten years ago)

It took us an hour fifteen to cross the plateau, meet up with the PCT and follow it south for 4-5 miles until we reached the shores of majestic Wahtum Lake.








We were completely encased in heavy white misty clouds. As you can see, visibility was minimal.

In another hour fifteen, we arrived at the upper junction with the Eagle Creek Trail. This is where we really began to notice the rain that had begun. Up until this point, things had been damp, but not wet. Now we were getting wet. Really wet. (This stretch is also where we crossed paths with three teenage-looking kids coming up the trail from the other direction. 2 boys, 1 girl, all wearing ponchos. At this point, they were probably 12 miles out from the trailhead at Eagle Creek. None of them had backpacks. If they were heading to Wahtum Lake and back, that'd make for about a 30 mile + day of hiking. We saw no camps set up along our route. I hope they knew what they were doing and made it back ok.)












This was a perfect example of typical Oregon rainforest. As it began to rain harder, my camera got foggier and foggier.

It took another hour fifteen to arrive back at the car after descending Eagle Creek and passing by all the waterfalls along the way. We also encountered about 20-25 hearty Northwesterners and 5-10 dogs out braving the cold, drenching rain on their hike up the trail.



Total time was almost exactly 6 1/2 hours. Mileage? Somewhere between 20-25 miles.












Trevor enjoys dancing jigs in the rain whilst out running trails.