I have had the opportunity to look for chanterelle mushrooms a number of times while out on hikes and have found a few. Recently my son took me out to do some serious chanterelle picking. What a ball. It is like a big game of Easter egg hunt only the prizes are the great tasting mushrooms.

Before going any further here, I am not a mushroom expert and great ca re needs to be taken when picking them as there are look alikes that can be hazardous.

From my experience the best way to find Chanterelles is to have someone give you a real gift and show you a spot that they know of. Once in such a secret spot the fun really begins. Since the mushrooms grow up from the forest floor they can be hidden by the moss and debris.

Can you spot the chanterelle in this photo?

Does this help?

They can also be much more obvious.

In the end a fun day was had by all.

 

 

Length: 7 miles round trip

Elevation Gain: 1000 Feet

Trail Surface: Gravel road – very little if any car traffic

Corvallis Oregon has a real gem in its backyard, McDonald
Forest. The forest is the research forest for Oregon State University and is
riddled with miles of logging roads.

This hike follows Patterson Road from the gate on Oak Creek
Road. To get there you had out Harrison Blvd going west. At the end the road
Ys,, take the right leg on Oak Creek.

The hike is an out and back route which continuously gains
elevation on the way out.

The roadway is a well maintained gravel road that generally
does not have vehicle, you will want to keep an eye out for bicycles coming
downhill at breakneck speeds.

You will see billboards that could have important information regarding closures or any warnings.

  

Enjoy the way; you will see some very large fir trees. Since this is a research forest there are a
wide variety of forest experiments with trees of different ages and densities.

Near the top is an intersection where four roads come together, one leg is a continuation of Patterson Road, take the right leg.

Stay on the logging road to the end. To get the best view
you should hike a 100 yards or so down a trail that heads down the face to get
below a grove of fir trees. The face drops off very steeply so be careful.

Mary’s Peak, the tallest point in the Oregon Coast Range.

I added a new meal to my trail dinners. I started with a
recipe taken from Lipsmakin’ Backpackin’.

Ingredients:

1 can tomato paste

1 cup couscous

3 tablespoons Parmesan

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1 tablespoon olive oil

Mushrooms

Salt to taste

 

At Home preparation:

1. Dry the tomato paste in a dehydrator to form a
   tomato roll up.
2. Dry the mushrooms.
3. Put the olive oil and parmesan in a small bag, I
   use small bags designed to hold pills.
4. Place the couscous, tomato roll up, mushrooms,
   salt, oil and parmesan bag and Italian seasoning in a zip lock bag.

On the trail:

Place the ingredients into your cook pot, including the oil
and parmesan, add 1+ cups of water and let it sit for 15-20 minutes. I found
that I needed to add some additional water as it sat. Heat the meal on your
stove and heat. This made almost more then I could eat.

Options that I will consider next time:

I take beef jerky that I make that would be a nice addition.
I also sometimes take salami as part of my lunch fixin’s. I am going to try
making the dish with quinoa next time to take advantage of the protein.

The Big Indian Gorge is one of several gorges created as the ice cap that covered the Steens Mountains receded.

This shot was taken from the loop road at approximately 9500 feet.

The entrance to the gorge is via a trail that starts at the South Steens Campground.

Hike Length (if you go all the way to the headwall): 8 miles

Elevation Gain: 1800 feet.

The trail requires three river crossings. Our trip was in Mid July of a very heavy snow year and the crossings were straightforward. The Big Indian flows into the Donner und Blitzen and that river has an automated river level gauge which can be used to get a relative notion about the flow in the Big Indian. The flow rate when we hiked was 200 cfs. Snow melt is a significant variable, I measured the afternoon versus morning flows at our camp and it varied four inches. Earlier in the year when more snow exists I am sure that this variation is much more significant and could present challenges.

From South Steens Campground we hiked up 5 miles. Once into the gorge the trail meanders along besides the river crossing through meadows and groves of trees. Sections of the trail have heavy water runoff erosion. Another fixture in the gorge is the mountain sage brush which often encroaches on the trail and since is it very stiff and prickly it is advised to wear long legged pants

The flowers are very special and with time I found myself seeing flowers that I had previously missed.

  

  

The Steens Mountain Thistle pictured below is unique this area.

 

 This area is a bit unique in that there are no pine or fir trees. Juniper, aspen and cottonwoods are the dominate trees. We also saw Mahogany bushes that were really more of a tree.

Our camp was in a grove of Cottonwood Trees and was right on the creek.

The Big Indian provided a nice rushing backdrop.

After setting camp we hiked up to the Headwall, an additional 3 miles.

Snow melt and springs create beautiful waterfalls.

Near the end of the gorge are a set of aspen groves. If you look closely you can find carvings made by the sheepherders that grazed their sheep in the gorge.

There were a couple of other nice camp sites higher in the gorge. The log from people camped at the higher camp said that it was very buggy.

As evening fell the gorge took on a reddish glow.

I am not a botanist or other type of plant expert so if you are looking for a technical discuss about Poison Oak this post is not for you. The information here is taken from the school of hard knocks. Living in Western Oregon poison oak is those noxious plants that you want to avoid. The oils from it can cause a very itchy rash and if you are especially allergic to it can require hospitalization.

One of the most identifiable characteristics poison oak is the cluster of three leaves. The leaves tend to be very waxy, although later in the season this may not be as obvious as here. In the spring the new leaves have this reddish color and it very obvious. I will try to scout trails this time of year because the plants are so visible.

This is a typical short plant that has lost the reddish color.

 

In our area there is another plant that sometimes can look like poison oak, blackberries. They have a similar three leaf set but the leaves have hairs and are soft. The stalks of blackberries have thorns so be careful of them.

 

Poison Oak comes in a variety of shapes from bushes to climbing vines.

Poison Oak can be a bit sneaky, hiding in the grass or reaching out from the leaves of an Oak Tree to get you.

I spent the morning walking my favorite section of the Portland River Walk (see previous post) and took along my camera. The morning was cool with the threat of showers and it happened to be the first weekend of the Rose Festival.

The photo is looking down the walkway that crosses the Willamette River on the Steel Bridge. The bridge is a draw bridge and when the bridge is open you will have to wait for it to close. The spires in the background are the Civic Auditorium.

A fun feature on the Vera Katz Esplanade is a section of floating walkway.  This gives you the opportunity to really get the feeling of the river that is such an important part of Portland. On this particular the day the river was very high, the ramp down to the floating section usually goes down 5-10 feet.

View back at the Steel Bridge. The walk way has many nice benches with great views of the City so consider bringing a lunch.

The tower on Union Station pokes above the trees. Union Station is the Portland Amtrak station and provides a good jumping off spot for travel up and down the west coast or to make connections east.

 

Downtown Portland has an interesting variety of architecture and it is nicely back dropped by the Portland hills. At the top of the hill is Washington Park with the Portland Zoo, Hoyt Arboretum, the Rose Garden and connection to many miles of forest trails.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take the time of notice the detail on the bridges. This is  a shot along the Burnside Bridge looking at the US Bank Building, also called the Pink Building for rather obvious  reasons. There is a great bar and restaurant at the top named the Portland Grill with spectacular view of Portland and Mount Hood.

 

 

 

Along the path there are many art pieces and signs that describe sites of interest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The river is used heavily by boaters, including big freighters. The Ferris wheel at the base of the bridge is part the carnival for the Rose Festival. On summer there is a Saturday Market that features local crafts and foods.

 

 

I crossed back across the river using he Hawthorn Bridge.  The walkway is up at the road level and is accessed via a spiral ramp. The view from the bridge is nice. At the end of the bridge you can take a set of stairs down to the river front.

 

 

 

 

The river front is a very pleasant walkway with a wide greenway/lawn. On this day the Rose Festival fair was in full swing. The boat is the Spirit of Portland and provides nice river tours and dinner cruises.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A number of memorials are along the river front including this one that is a memorial to the Japanese.

 

Take the time to enjoy this nice walk, it is about a mile and a half.

 

 

 

 

 

I recently rediscovered a site with the same basic name as
my blog, it has no connection to my blog and I am not involved in the site. The
site does have some outstanding pictures from around Oregon and is worth a
look.

The URL is:  http://www.oregonhiker.com/

I find that you have to do something at least once to discover some of the questions to ask. I thought that I would pass on my tarp and tent experience. It is important to realize that I work towards the lightest pack possible while maintaining some levels of comfort. In other words I am not an ultra light purist.

Tarps

I made the tarp myself from plans on the Go-lite web site http://www.rayjardine.com/index.shtml  and purchased the materials from The
Rainshed  http://www.therainshed.com/.

The total weight of my tarp including guy ropes, stakes,
ground cloth, tarp and bag is 25 ounces.

Pros:

• Weight
• Total area under cover
• I liked the open airy feeling when sleeping
  under the tarp; you can position the tarp to provide a great view.
• Flexible set up – we used the tarp for a
  sunscreen at one camp.

Cons:

• Privacy
• Head height – you can set the tarp up as high as
  you want; there is a trade-off between height and the level of rain protection
  that you get especially if there is any wind.
• Mosquito and bug protection – various bug net
  approaches can be used, I find that they add quite a bit of weight for real
  solid protection. In my case a full “bug tent” weighed 14 ounces.

Ultra light Tents

I have seen tent reviews of these tents from people that
clearly have come from much heavier and larger tents. With weight you do have
to give up some of the luxuries from more traditional tents.

I have experience
with two tents in this category.

The first was a one person single wall tent with external
poles. The tent had two doors with a vestibule on one side. I don’t have the
exact weight, but would guess that it was approximately 3 pounds. The tent
survived strong winds, rain and snow without a hitch.

Pros:

• Easy set up
• Solid bug protection
• Reasonable weight
• Nice head room and space to hang out to avoid
  bugs and bad weather.
• Good protection – one issue with this tent was
  that the door without the vestibule needed to be completely closed to provide
  rain protection, which means that when entering the tent I got drips into the
  tent.

Cons:

• Interior space – I am 5’10” and was pretty much
  end to end. I had to put my pack and gear in the vestibule area, this actually
  worked fine, and this did mean that I couldn’t use the vestibule as a protected
  entry or cooking area.
• Condensation control – I needed to allow plenty
  of airflow thru the tent to avoid significant moisture build up.

The second tent is the Big Anges Fly Creek UL 2 with a pack
weight at 3 lbs, including tent, fly, stakes and ground cloth. This is a double
wall design with a rain fly.

Pros:

• Interior space – going to the 2 person version
  adds weight, but provides enough space to bring my gear into the tent.
• Bug protection
• Head height – this allows me to retreat into the
  tent to avoid bugs and weather.
• Vestibule is small, but provides enough space to
  do cooking in bad weather. It also provides a dry zone for entering the tent.
  This tent has the same general problem with rain drip when the vestibule is
  completely open.

Cons:

• Weight – this pushes the limit for UL hiking.
• Interior length – again even with my height it
  is fairly short and foot space narrows and has a lowered ceiling.
• Tent is designed to have a gap around the bottom
  which means it is airy in wind.

During a break in the weather I went out with a friend for a short hike. Along the way we came across some fun surprises.

The owner of the property is trying to recreate a French forest planting daffodils throughout the forest. The flowers add a fun color splash. I made it feel like we were back in civilization.

It didn’t take long to be transformed back into the wilderness.  This is a picture of the base of a tree where a bear had scrapped away the dark so that it could eat the sap from the tree.