Need some motivation!

Okay, this is getting ridiculous. We've been walking, but not every week and mostly the local walks, so we've decided that we really need some goals. It worked with Portland to Coast - yeah, we didn't start training as early as we should have, but once we got close enough to panic, we trained HARD. We're thinking about possibly putting a team together for the 2018 Portland to Coast (maybe) but in the meantime the plan is to hike Silver Falls, probably in the spring. Now, we could hike Silver Falls right now. There are a lot of hikes at this park, ranging from 1.8 up to 25 miles, but our goal is the Trail of Ten Falls which, according to their map, "takes you above, behind and around 10 stunning waterfalls. The moderate hike includes 800 feet of elevation gain on paved and unpaved trails".

Gorgeous, right? And an 800 foot elevation gain? That's only 55 feet more than the Marquam Hill to Council Crest trail...that almost kills me every time we do it...yeah, we need to train. Oh, and Ten Falls hike is also 7.2 miles. Which we've both done during PTC, but it's going to take a little prep work to bring us both up to speed. So, a goal! For spring probably, when the weather is starting to clear and everything's starting to bloom and we've had a lot longer to prepare.

Our training will probably involve a lot of walking the old and familiar close-to-us trails, depending on the amount of time we have each week, but we'll try to keep this blog updated, even if it's just a quick blurb of where we walked and when. Motivation and accountability, our watchwords for this new adventure. If you're out there and by some chance find this blog, leave us a comment. An occasional "you're doing a good job" or "hey, it looks like you're slacking" will be a big help in keeping us on track and working toward those goals.

PTC Pictures

Van 2 waiting for our turn to walk

My beautiful daughter Nellie

Nellie was nice enough to walk with me for a bit

Just having fun on the race course!

That BIG hill Julie talked about, it felt like it went on forever...

The Super Honey Badgers Walking team

Yup, one more picture of Van 2.

Have you missed us?

So, um...yeah. It's been a while. At about the time of our last post Katje and I had just joined a team for the Portland to Coast marathon and decided we really needed to train hard for it. We'd heard horror stories about the heat, dust, blisters, hills, rocks, spandex...yeah, you're scared now, huh? If you've read our blog before, you've probably noticed that we're not what you would call serious hikers, and committing to walk the PTC is pretty huge. In looking at the various legs of the race, there are maybe 3 or 4 (of 24) that don't sound too bad, so we decided that we really needed to crack down and seriously train for this thing. Sometimes we walked with the other ladies on our team, and we increased our once weekly walks to twice a week. Usually. It was about July that we realized that we were a month out and probably not as ready as we should have been, so we found a longer neighborhood walk with a big hill, which we sweated up a couple times a week (why did we wait until July??), breaking in our newly purchased walking shoes and testing out the spandex. Which is really comfortable for walking in once I got over the fact that I look distinctly orca-like in spandex. Hey, it's the Portland to Coast, right? This orca was heading in the right direction.

Now, the way the Portland to Coast works is that each team splits into two cars of six people each. The first car takes the first six legs, then we switch off and van 2 takes over while van 1 rests, then we do it all over again. We were in van 2, which meant that we didn't have to start at 5am and we didn't have to walk all night, but we did get some of the worst legs of the race – I got the dusty one that nobody liked, Katje got the one with the Godawful hill, I got the longest leg, and Katje got the second longest leg, again with hills. Not as bad as the Godawful hill, but pretty steadily upward the whole way. Lucky us!

I was the second walker in van 2, so I walked leg 21 (they start numbering from Mt. Hood, where they start the Hood to Coast runners), 5.06 miles of breathing dust kicked up from the gravel road by all of the other teams' cars. Slow it down, people! It's hard enough just to walk on the ankle-turning gravel without having to eat your dust! I started out with my eye on a lady of about my size dressed all in pink, thinking I could catch up with her and maybe have someone to walk with for a while. Yeah, she left me in the dust (no pun intended). I passed a couple of people, got passed by a few more (people who get passed are called roadkill, and serious walkers actually count their 'roadkills' and post them on their vans. If I ever walk the PTC again I'm getting a t-shirt that says “Roadkill” on the back. Maybe I'll count my roadkillers and mark them on my shirt).

I finally finished my 5 miles and passed the baton – well, the slap bracelet – to Katje, who started her 6.7 mile walk with the aforementioned Godawful hill. She pushed really hard and hit the next exchange swollen footed and exhausted – but with a really good pace time! As we sent our last van 2 walker off we stopped at a grange fundraiser and Katje and I split a HUGE baked potato and a hamburger, then we picked up our last walker and went to a local school, which was renting out floor space in the gym for the racers. Katje, her daughter Nellie and I opted to sleep in the car rather than on the hard wooden floor, and spent most of the night discovering that runners, who were now catching up to us, are rude. They talk really loud, they slam doors repeatedly, and they seem perfectly okay with the dents they put in your car by not watching how wide they opened their doors. Between that and the GPS screen that would not turn off, we didn't get a whole lot of sleep.

Next morning we got up early and traded out with van1 for our last quarter of the race. Katje and I had exchanged so she took the 7.2 mile leg and I took the hillier 6.9 miles. Best idea ever! While she was on leg 33 the wind started to come up and the rain started to come down. It was even worse for Nellie on leg 34 (fortunately a short one) and by the time I took off on leg 35 we had sustained winds of 30 mph with 50 – 60 mph gusts and the race organizers were telling everyone to continue at their own discretion, with no penalties for dropping out. Did I mention how changing legs with Katje was the best idea ever? I LOVE walking in the wind and rain! Okay, so I had to pause when the wind gusted really strongly to avoid getting blown off the road, but it was so much fun! 

This leg of the race turns off onto a private back road and your van has to go around and meet you at the end of it. I took off on the back road – no cars, just the wind and the rain and the runners roadkilling me - and boy, was it windy. You'd see runners get blown sideways in midair between strides, and we had one gust that actually slid me back a couple of inches on the gravel road. I met a nice young man (God, I sound old!) who slowed down to walk with me for a while, telling me about his teammates and the celebratory pina coladas they were planning for their after-race party. With him slowed down and me walking my absolute fastest so I didn't hold him back too much, we stayed together for probably a couple of miles before he went back to his regular pace and quickly disappeared from view.

It was actually starting to get a bit miserable with a steady soaking mist and gusts of wind blowing branches and pine needles across the trail when all of a sudden the heavens opened up and it poured. It was glorious! Not too long after that we met up with the regular road, about half a mile from the exchange. I was a little worried about my time, figuring the wind gusts had probably slowed me waaay down, but thanks to Pina Colada Guy I came in at two hours instead of the three I was expecting. Thank you Pina Colada Guy!

Usually at the end of the Hood/Portland to Coast there's a big celebration at Seaside, and you end the race by meeting up with the rest of your team and running across the beach to the finish line together. And then there's music and food and beer and vendors and basically just a huge celebration on the sand...unless of course there's a windstorm that blows all of the tents down and throws everything around so violently that they have to drag the vendors and sponsors off the beach and just let their stuff blow around until it all slows down enough that nobody is in danger of being killed by it. Other members of our team had rented a house and were staying the night, so Katje's husband David drove down to Seaside to pick us up, and he took us to Camp 18 for a wonderful dinner (mmm, beef stew) and then home.

Now the question you'd probably like to ask is this: would we do it again? The answer is a qualified yes. Having done it once, we now know that the teams who decorate their cars and ring cow bells (it's a thing) and yell encouragement to all of the walkers they pass really do make a difference for morale. When there are five women dressed as chickens waiting at the side of the road to tell you that you're doing a great job, it helps. So if we did it again we would decorate the cars and maybe dress up a little (no chicken costumes, though, that's a whole other level of bravery) and ring our cowbells in encouragement as we went by. And if someone could guarantee me another rainy day instead of the usual August hot and dry, I'd sign up in a heartbeat.

Sellwood Riverfront to Johnson Creek Loop Pictures

Beautiful view of the Willamette River and the Sellwood Bridge

This set of three trees was actually 5 trees that had all grown together.

These trees look like they are holding hands

The Dance Pavilion at Oaks Park

Bonus of the day, we get to wait for the train (and wave to all the passengers!)

The Carousel at Oaks Park

Out of the park and back to nature

some cool stone steps we get to climb 

Add caption

Chickens!

Yes, I like tree pictures...

We both liked the front porch but thought it was very plain, needed some plants, a rocking chair or something

St. Agatha 

This tree is a Historical Tree. It was planted around 1892.

Love the bridges over the creek

Had to take a picture of the gate, it has grapes across the bottom!

New duplexes made to look old

This is at Share-it-Square. Each corner has something different and the street is painted.

Newspaper box

Julie was very excited to see the newspaper was The Bee. She grew up in this area.

The street is painted! Looks so much better in person (you really should go check it out).

A bench on one corner

Need Coffee or Tea?

This bench and the picture before it (roof with plexi-glass) are on another corner

Kids play area on the last corner

I know we have taken a photo of this church before, but it is so cute I had to take another one!

Monday, July 28th - Columbia Gorge Hikes (part 2)

If you haven’t read part 1 of this post, go back and do so now. I’m going to refer to stuff from that post, and it will make a LOT more sense if you read that part first. 

After looking up some better directions on a hiking website, we backtracked to the Elowah Falls trailhead. We had to park on the road as the lot is pretty small, but our roadside spot was nice and shady, perfect for a hot day. The trail started up past a big wooden water tank type thing with a steady stream of water pouring out of a hole near the top. No clue where the water comes from, but the steady spattering of water was a nice sendoff to the hike.

The trail heads uphill paralleling the highway, accompanied by all of the traffic noise from I-84. It did start to fade the higher we went, which was a relief because it was pretty loud at the beginning. After a bit the trail split, and a paper sign nailed to a post informed us that 1.1 miles up the right hand path we’d find McCord Creek Falls and .4 miles to the left was Elowah. Since McCord was uphill (remember our motto?) we decided to take that path first. 

‘Up’ doesn’t describe this walk. It had switchback after switchback, snaking its way up the side of the hill and narrowing as it went. Or maybe it was just that the higher we went the further we were from the ground – remember that fear of heights thing? At one point we passed a big rusted pipe running downhill, which might have been the source of the water in the tank at the bottom of the hill, if it hadn’t been corroded through and filled with dirt. A little farther up we came upon the same pipe, only this time it was completely blocking the path with only a narrow section to step onto to get past. NOT a happy place for me. 

At last we looked up and saw a sheer rock wall above us. We had to be almost there, right? Because there was no way to get around that straight sheet of rock, right? HA! Apparently if you’re a Gorge trail builder and you can’t get around a huge chunk of rock, you just carve a path into the side of it. They were nice enough to put in a metal handrail, but the rock drops straight down on one side and looms overhead on the other (seriously, they must have blasted it out). Interestingly enough, with the handrail there I was much better, despite the deep drop and the lovely view of the Columbia. The lovely view that showed just how far up we were!! But hey, I had a handrail, everything was good.

Past the section that was either vertigo inducing (because of the height) or claustrophobic (because of all that crumbly rock overhead) we went into a gorge bordered by lots of comforting vegetation with occasional terrifying gaps where you could see waaaay down.  And then we came around the corner and there was the waterfall... Seriously? We walked all that exhausting and terrifying trail for that? The trail does one last odd clamber around a corner and…you can see the creek that feeds the falls. Yay.

So down we went, through the carved-out-of-rock section, over the scary pipe, through all the switchbacks and (finally!) back down to the junction. The trail to Elowah falls is shorter, less than half a mile, but it's all steeply downhill. As in, the extremely fit people in their spandex were panting as they climbed past us. Not a good omen.  The falls are slightly more impressive than the ones up above. They fall from higher up, anyway, making a refreshing misty breeze as they hit the rocks. 

After enjoying the mist for a few minutes we headed back toward the car. We won’t talk about the walk back up, except to say that I understand why the spandex people could hardly find the breath to say hi. But we made it, and we get to mark two more hikes out of the Easy Day Hikes book. Hooray!

A few mental notes we took during the day’s hike: 1) Don’t wear flip flops. You look like an idiot when you hike in flip flops. 2) Same with white pants. Nobody should hike in white pants, and for some reason it’s worse when it’s a man. 3) Hiking poles make you look like you’re a serious hiker, especially those ski pole looking ones.  5) Being young and wearing spandex does not make you fit, but it gives a good illusion of it – especially if you just smile when you pass people and don’t try to gasp out a greeting.  

Columbia River Gorge Walk(s) pictures- July 28, 2014

The start of our walk find us at Wahclella Falls

Most of this walk was along the stream

So pretty! Love the bridge along the water

We stop to take a selfie by some water cascading down the rocks (this is not the falls)

Water cascading down the rocks

We think this might be a Gnome Home

one set of man made stairs to climb

love all the rock formations here

I do love trees! These trees are piggy backing each other. You can see the roots from the back tree crawling up the front one.

Wahclella Falls!!!

nature made stairs down to the water

This was so worth the walk! So beautiful!!

We see a tree with a window to the falls and had to take a peek.

starting the trek back to the car

one more look back 

Our second walk of the day takes us to Elowah Falls and Upper McCord Creek. We start the walk by going to Upper McCord Creek

We stop for a quick selfie (ok, and to rest! The first part of the walk is all uphill and very tiring!)

more up hill 

We encounter this pipe in the trail several times. Not sure why it is here.

more pipe

The view from the top! 

Oh, wait, we have a little further to go! You can't tell from the photo, but the next part is a narrow path, steep drop off and on the side of a cliff! Thank goodness for the little rail they have...

The small rail along the really scary part

We stop in the middle of the scary part to take this beautiful picture. So worth it!

Upper McCord Creek

Starting the trek back down so we can go to Elowah Falls

Um, yeah, we were up there!

Elowah Falls

Very pretty!

Another selfie, the falls are way in the back...

Our end of the trail walk. Tired but had a great time!