Flagstaff - Lockett's Meadow (October 5-7, 2012)

The hike from Lockett's Meadow up to the Inner Basin has been something of a tradition; I think our first hike here was in 1989.  Our last visit was in 2009 (summarized here, with some older photos).

In the aspen-switchback zone.

Then there was a pretty massive fire north of Flagstaff, and the road leading up to Lockett's Meadow was shut down sometime in 2010.  Good news:  the road reopened in September 2012.

So we took a trip to Flagstaff.  Did the hike on Saturday, October 6.  Presumably as a result of the fire, they rerouted the trail - all for the good, we think.  The trail now features an amazing stretch of switchbacks with mild elevation gain through a huge stand of nearly 100% aspens.  The effect is dazzling.

Plus we love hanging around Flagstaff - have figured out the restaurants and hotel that work best.  Delightful dinners at Tinderbox, lunch at Criollo and Cuvee 928, breakfast at Macy's, Lumberyard Brewery visits, etc. I enjoy traveling with my little pal.

Click any photo to enlarge all . . .

Taken from window at end of hallway right outside our hotel room.  Morning of hike.

A few aspens hadn't changed color.

End of trail - Inner Basin.

PJ in aspen-switchback zone.

Inner Basin scene.

PJ scampering into a blaze of color.

I love pictures of winding paths.

Oregon trip - Portland (September 26-30) (3 of 3)

Last segment of Oregon trip - this part was based in Portland (part one is here) (part two is here).

Continued to have fantastic weather.  We liked everything about our experience (except we could have done with a few less hobos hanging around downtown and the Willamette River waterfront).

Some items:

I recommend "Carapulcra Con Puerco"  - Andina restaurant.

Rose garden

Japanese Garden scene

1.  Had good luck with restaurants, especially on our first visit to Andina (billed as Peruvian).  One of the pictures here is a menu excerpt - I had the pork dish with the chocolate - best meal of a trip where we had many very good ones.  We also particularly liked "Little Bird" (sister restaurant of "Le Pigeon").

2.  The microbreweries are really quite excellent; some (particularly Deschutes) also have better food than we expected.  I very much enjoyed this.  Photos include Tugboat, Hair of the Dog, Rogue; Deschutes tasting "menu" is below.

Willamette Valley . . . 

3.  Hotel Lucia - we liked the room and the location.

Willamette Valley wine country.

4.  Did our usual extended walking tours, including exploring the Pearl district, walking across the Willamette River to "Hair of the Dog" on the east side, walking from Deschutes up to the International Rose Test Garden and the Japanese Garden, walking onto the Steel Bridge and then along the waterfront, walking, walking . . .

Powell's City of Books

5.  Day trip into the Willamette Valley area.  Stopped at a few wineries; also did the roadside stand thing (peach and toasted hazelnuts, quite excellent).  Either we didn't go to the right places, or something; this was perfectly pleasant but we may allocate time elsewhere when/if we return to Oregon.

Crossing the Willamette River on a lovely evening . . . 

6.  Some celebrity chef had just opened a restaurant in our hotel - nice room, good place to stop for breakfast or something to sip on.  Public Domain - coffee.

"Hair of the Dog" "menu"

7.  Powell's Books was up to its billing - enjoyed browsing, actually ended up buying a used set of books.

Tugboat microbrewery

"Hair of the Dog" microbrewery - one of our favorites.  

Rogue "menu"

Deschutes Sept 2012

Oregon trip - Mt. Hood, Ramona Falls, Hood River (September 24-26) (2 of 3)

Per this post below, PJ and I toured Astoria and a bit of Oregon's Pacific coast.  Next was the Mt. Hood area.

When making our plans, we weren't sure where to stay.  Mt. Hood itself has a historic lodge - but we were a bit concerned with the weather "up there," plus felt the lodge might be like El Tovar at Grand Canyon (just without renovation for modern plumbing in the rooms, we had heard).  So we stayed at a quite-nice golf resort in the town of Welches - quite a bit lower elevation, a few miles west of the mountain - and this suited us just fine.

Sandy River (Ramona Falls Hike)

Mt. Hood area is surprisingly close to Portland - less than an hour east.  Beautiful car ride from Cannon Falls through Portland and onto Welches - forests for a big chunk of the trip.

Things we liked on this segment:

Nearing Ramona Falls . . . 

Ramona Falls.  PJ taking photos at bottom left.

1.  Found a little restaurant (named "Rendezvous") about a mile from the hotel and had dinner there both nights - these folks are doing very interesting stuff for a little place pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Featured beer was Ice Axe IPA from Mt. Hood Brewing.  Breakfast at the golf course restaurant at the resort - gorgeous setting.

Ramona Falls

Return hike

Return hike

Return hike, nearing Sandy River; Mt. Hood in background.

 2.  The highlight of this segment of the trip was a perfectly remarkable hike on the Ramona Falls trail - pretty high on the side of Mt. Hood.  Did this on Tuesday.  Very different from desert hiking, to say the least.  This is a loop, 7.1 miles total with 1000' elevation gain, and  wonderful but very different views on the two main trail segments.  First segment goes along the Sandy River - lots of forest but quite often open; great views here and there up to the summit of Mt. Hood.  Payoff point for the hike is the wondrous Ramona Falls - I'll let the photos describe it.  Return segment is much greener, shadier, tracking a small creek or river, sort of a "Lord of the Rings" atmosphere at the beginning of the return portion.  I would much enjoy doing this hike again.

15-second video on Sandy River:



3.  Another highlight was a road trip up to the Timberline Lodge (the place where we decided not to stay) - right at the timber line on Mt. Hood.  This is another wonderful Depression-era lodge - will need to read about this, they went for a "massive" look.  The third floor bar area was a delight - fantastic views of Mt. Hood, windows opening to the south to Mt. Jefferson, a large fireplace or whatever rising three stories, this was quite impressive.  And a beautiful drive to the top.  And we were really cold up there - great weather down in Welches but cold and very windy up top.  Should have kept a "beer diary" - here, I had the Mt. Hood "Multorporter."

30 seconds or so at Ramona Falls:

Surprisingly good local restaurant.

4.  To get to Portland, we decided to drive around the back side of Mt. Hood up to Hood River, and then drive into Portland via the Columbia River Gorge.  This definitely was another highlight.  Best part of thus segment was a stop at Double Mountain Brewery in Hood River (we walked into Full Sail right down the street - the main brewery in town - but preferred the look of Double Mountain).  Here I encountered my best beer of the trip (which is saying a lot in Oregon):  "Ferocious Five Bourbon-Barrel Brown Ale."  Wow.  Even their pizza was quite good.  And there were these two yucks from Portland (Kansas State alums) sitting at the bar who were really quite entertaining.

Breakfast view, resort, Welches, OR

5.  Driving through the Columbia River Gorge - very enjoyable, we crossed to the Washington side and stayed off the freeway for much of this.  Stopped at Multnomah Falls - which is fine, but probably would be very fine had we tried one of the hiking trails there.  There had been some wildfires and things were a little hazy in the first miles coming out of Hood River.

View from Timberline Lodge (Mt. Jefferson)

View from bar, Timberline Lodge - right up to Mt. Hood summit.

Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood

Timberline Lodge

With K-State buddies at Double Mountain Brewery - Hood River, OR.

Hood River, OR

Multnomah Falls

Onto Portland . . .

Oregon trip - Astoria (side trip to Cannon Falls) (September 22-24) (1 of 3)

Hotel is farthest building out on the Columbia River.  Looking across to WA.  Taken on one of our walks.  

(Click on any photo to enlarge all, per usual)

PJ and I had pretty high expectations for our trip up to Oregon, and they were consistently exceeded.  We didn't know much about Oregon, beyond recommendations via news articles and Mayo co-workers.

View from hotel room.  Astoria, OR.

We wanted to spend part of the trip on Oregon's Pacific coast.  I'm sure most of the beach towns are quite nice; but we settled on a bit larger town situated right at the mouth of the Columbia River - Astoria.  Some things we'll remember:

Clemente's - delightful lunch and dinner.

Walking about in Astoria.

1.  Fantastic hotel - about five years old, built out on the Columbia on a pier, intentionally evocative of the canneries built out onto the river on piers a century ago.  The river slips by quietly right outside the room on its way to the Pacific; the bridge crossing north to Washington State shelters us on the east; steady traffic of all kinds of boats (including two cruise ships docking a quarter mile to the west); fireplace; very nice happy hour and breakfast; views that won't quit; delightful.  We didn't get tired of watching the shipping, perhaps because it's such a novelty for us.

Walking about in Astoria (#2)

2.  Named after John Jacob Astor - part of early 19th century fur trade efforts - first US city settled west of the Mississippi - historical neighborhoods.

Tasting at Ft. George Brewery - Vortex IPA was a good find.  OR beers were every bit as good as advertised.

3.   Great walks throughout the town - with quite a bit of climbing - fine views down toward the water at pretty much every turn.

Our hotel room.  On the mighty Columbia.

4.  Ft. George Brewery - our first Oregon tasting session.

Ship traffic viewed from hotel room.

5.  Farmer's market was in session - I'm always looking for peaches.  Success.

Maritime Museum.  

6.  Traditional downtown.  Nice restaurants.  Loved Clemente's.

We had no idea how dangerous this area was for shipping . . . 

7.  And how about the maritime museum.  I didn't know this area was so dangerous for shipping - the "Bar" - something to do with the huge Pacific beating up into the immense Columbia discharge - very interesting.

Lunch in Cannon Falls . . . nice view of Pacific Ocean and the "Haystack."  Yup, that's a Vortex IPA.

We were sorry to leave.  Had great weather throughout.

Haystack . . . 

But onto our next stop - the Mt. Hood area.  Drove down the coast a bit before heading east toward Mt. Hood - stopped for lunch at Cannon Falls.  Saw the famous "Haystack".  (POC reminded us that something named "Goonies" was filmed there.)

Our trip was off to a great start.

Showing Astoria, mouth of Columbia River, Pacific Ocean, "The Bar"