Columbia River Gorge – Occidentalist

Columbia River Gorge, 2021

Post author:Occidental
Post published:2021-03-25
Post category:Hiking Truck Camping
Post comments:2 Comments

In our continued spring tour of Oregon our next stop after Sunset Bay was the Columbia River Gorge. The wildflowers are usually out early and reliably in the Gorge and this year did not disappoint. For this trip we stayed on the eastern end of the Gorge and camped out of Memaloose State Park. It served as a good base when higher elevation camps further out were still mostly under snow. From there, we were up Saturday morning and off to find a trail to hike. Our first planned stop had an already overflowing parking lot at 9 a.m. Further up the road we found space at the Lyle Cherry Orchard Trail and started up the hill. I still don’t know where the cherry orchard was, but we were successful in our search for flowers.

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Oregon Apples, Washington Wine

Post author:Occidental
Post published:2019-10-08
Post category:Exploring Truck Camping
Post comments:0 Comments

Just when you think you have a plan for the fall, weather comes along and changes it. We were working down our list and the forecast for the coming weekend was for snow and freezing temperatures. So much for plans to view fall colors on the high desert. Luckily there is always another option. We wouldn’t want to do something extreme like stay home. We headed to the lower elevation country for a tour of the Hood River Fruit Loop, an ideal time with the fall harvest of apples, pears, peaches and such just coming on.

We stayed on the Mt. Hood National Forest. We had a wild pack of spotted owls wake us up in the night hooting and howling from all directions. Then we awoke to light snow.

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