Oneonta Gorge and Portland

After Bend, it was a long drive back to Portland, the latter half of which was spent tracking the early EU Referendum results, back when we were still blithely confident that the UK would probably vote to remain. Suffice to say, the evening in our hotel room grew steadily gloomier. Don't blame us--we voted by proxy, apparently while exploring the lava tubes yesterday.

Once we had slept on the fact that our country has decided to jump off a cliff to see what would happen, it seemed a good idea to go and lose ourselves in the Oregon wilds. After Thor's Well, there was one other place on Buzzfeed's most surreal places list that we were determined to tick off this holiday: Oneonta Gorge.

The attraction of this short, half-mile hike is that the creek is the trail. We came prepped in our swimsuits and water shoes--and warm layers and towels, since the day was colder than we had hoped.

Steps lead down, but from there you're on your own.

Our research had told us that we would need to get over a log jam near the start. This proved tricky, especially with the kids but we managed it. I was wearing toe shoes with thin flexible soles, which were great for this, and I comfortably balanced along all kinds of logs while steadying my daughter. However, in the river, I could feel every stone shifting beneath my feet and it was incredibly difficult to manage any speed but sloth. I saw at least one person doing it barefoot, so it's feasible, but I wouldn't recommend it!

The problem was that the water was ridiculously cold and a little higher than we had hoped, with a current forceful enough to make the kids struggle on the shifting stones. Even carrying them through the first 'deep' bit (up to our thighs), they started crying, so we stopped on a small island midway down the gorge.

Even going that far, it was an eerie place with mossy, ferny cliffs towering on either side and a constant 'rain' dripping off them. Birds swooped casually past us and my daughter spotted a small snake curled up in a crevice by our island.

A common garter snake but very cute.

My husband went on ahead to a smaller log jam, and from there he could see the falls. However, the water got steadily deeper from his logs on. We watched two girls (who had done this before) pass us and strip off most of their clothes to leave on the rocks before tackling the last stretch. They made it and took selfies, but we decided we would have to call it where we were.

As close as we got!

The kids had perked up tremendously once we put warm clothes on their top halves and gave them some sweets. They were quite happy on their island, snacking and cooing over the snake, so I also went out to the logs, to see the falls for myself. Then we turned back, carrying the kids again--I was so ridiculously slow with my shoes, that my husband deposited our son on an island near the log jam and came back to take our daughter from me.

We were all cold, but our daughter was really struggling. By the time we got back to the log jam, she was shivering and her lips were turning blue. This gave her a lot of trouble crossing the logs, though mostly we managed pretty well, with me sitting astride logs and swooping her over to the next steady spot, my husband assisting at the trickier, more perilous moments.

Giant Log Jam of Doom. For scale reference, all four of us could stand without touching each other on the foremost rock at the bottom of the picture.

Then my husband stepped on a log which broke. With a "Holy shit!" he disappeared into the depths of the logjam. I freaked out, tried to rush to his aid shrieking his name and slipped on a log myself. Fortunately, I was holding a spur of wood, so instead of plunging  to my doom, I swung around until my knee whacked into something, and I came to rest sitting on one log and clinging to another while my husband yelled at me not to come after him.

When he had fallen, he had managed to hold on to a log with his left hand, so although he hit the water, he did not discover how deep it was. He got himself out, with help from a floating log as a foothold, and although his entire lower half was soaked, he managed to keep our bag of possessions (complete with phone and car keys) dry.

Through all of this, our daughter sat patiently on her log and waited for us to stop trying to kill ourselves and get back to helping her across.

I don't remember getting these bruises on the back of my leg, but I'd guess that happened when I slipped.

So I suppose our verdict on the Oneonta Gorge is that it's a little ambitious for children as young as five. That said, it was stunning and a really cool little hike, to the point that my husband is suggesting we go back on Monday before our flight home. Today was a cold day after a rainy day. Between now and Monday, Portland weather should be hot and dry. Perhaps the creek will be lower or at least the cold water will be more tolerable.

I'm not sure we will be able to talk the kids back into it (even if they were pretty chipper by the end of the walk), but watch this space?

After turning the car's heater on full blast and changing out of our wet things, we drove a short distance back along the pretty Historic Columbia River Highway to the even prettier Multnomah Falls. The car park there was overflowing, and it took us three passes to find a space. (Afterwards, we realised you could also access it from an interstate rest area via a pedestrian underpass.)

Multnomah Falls

The Upper Falls as seen from the bridge.

There's a lodge and assorted snackbars there, so we got the kids a giant cookie because they needed a sugar pep-up, got our dry clothes wet with waterfall spray, and then got ourselves a hot chocolate before returning to the car.

We had no further plans for the day, since we hadn't been sure how much time to allot to Oneonta Gorge, so we lunched at a McDonalds with a play area and did some quick googling which led us to take a ride on Portland's Aerial Tram, which runs between the university campus by the river and the hospitals at the top of the hill. This short trip gave us stunning views of Portland and a pleasant walk around the two tier balcony garden at Oregon Health and Science University.

Looking down Marquam Hill to Downtown Portland and the Willamette River.

The Upper Tram Terminal.

 Afterwards, we took the kids to Washington Park. We did not have anything like the time required to explore it properly, but they played at the playground, while I wandered briefly around the Rose Garden before we headed out for dinner. (At Hopworks Urban Brewery Bikebar. They had a train table for the kids to play at. It was phenomenal. Food and atmosphere was great too.)

The Inkspot, Washington Parks' 'blackest' rose.

Finally a dip in the hotel pool, where the kids tried to see if they could drown me by making me laugh. (They failed.) An earlier night for them, and laundry for me; tomorrow we are Seattle-bound!

Crater Lake and Bend

Our next destination was Crater Lake, created 7,700 years ago when Mt Mazuma blew its top. The lake is almost 2000 feet deep at one part and clear enough to see hundreds of feet below the surface. Our plan was to maybe take the boat to Wizard Island (expensive, but reportedly worth it) or to at least hike down to the shore and consider taking the plunge into the icy water.

We knew we were going a little early in the season, and some trails were likely to be closed due to snow still... We got unlucky. All the trails were closed except for the one to the shore--and the road to that was closed. (I assume that with time and energy we would have been able to bike or walk there;  that just wasn't feasible for us.) We literally couldn't do a single thing on this top 5 list of Crater Lake adventures... Not even the default of driving around the rim road.

Admittedly, we did get a pretty big kick out of the snow.

A small section of the rim road was open, so we could see the lake, and it was a clear day, so we saw it in all its glory. It's blue. I cannot emphasize this enough. It is really, really blue. No Photoshopping required!

Wizard Island

Llao Rock, an old lava flow pre-dating the lake's formation.

Ultimately though, this was an exercise in frustration, and it was with much disappointment we drove on to Bend. This, at least, turned out to be much nicer than we expected. Having read about floating the Deschutes River at Bend, we ate dinner in the Old Mill District, so we could watch people bob past on air mattresses, tubes, kayaks and paddle boards.

The Old Mill District, complete with a couple of air mattresses bobbing downstream.

Our restaurant was Greg's Grill, which was an impressive building, though we preferred to sit on the patio and watch the action on the river and river walk. They handed out etch a sketches to the kids. They had never seen this classic toy before and were instantly absorbed. My son spent a good twenty minutes crafting a minecraft scene that put my childhood etch a sketch efforts to shame.

I try not to be the "Look what my kid did!" parent, but seriously... Look what my kid did!

When not etch a sketching, the kids saw enough of the river floating to agree with us that we should do that tomorrow. At one point we had discussed Rafting on the river, but in the end we were put off by the cost, especially after splurging at the Treehouses. Hiring something to float on was in a much more appealing price range.

However, float rental didn't start until 10am, and we were up and about earlier, so we started the next day by going to the Lava River Cave, a mile long lava tube. Lava tubes are formed due to the outside of a lava flow cooling faster than the inside, so a rock 'shell' forms which the lava flows through and drains out of, leaving a tunnel.

Warm clothing is a must as the cave is about forty two degrees. We didn't have a torch, but some pretty powerful lanterns could be rented on site. The light spot on the below pictures is invariably the center of my lantern-beam.

You see a hole in the ground, you explore it.

Lava flow lines and a rock fall.

Stacked tubes.

The sand gardens. Sand is carried through the tube as sediment. Erosion from water dripping through cracks in the ceiling causes these formations.

Ceiling gets pretty low in a couple of places...

End of the line. Just beyond the stop sign here, the tube ends in a sand plug.

Although my daughter fell over several times, and there were a few grumbles about the cold, both kids were sufficiently taken by the novelty of the cave to take the two mile round trip in their stride. (As they should! But they've been very suspicious about hikes this trip.)

Once back out into the sunshine, we returned to Bend, more specifically Riverbend Park where we rented paddleboards from this on site trailer.

Although our intent had been to float down the river, they recommended that we instead head upstream and float back once we were tired. There is a bus available downstream that can bring tubes back up, but paddleboards are a little more cumbersome so need to be paddled back.

We had never paddleboarded before, and I soon realized the wisdom of their advice when I found myself struggling to make any headway against the current whatsoever. It took me about ten minutes to get past the small landing beach. My husband had less problem paddling, but didn't feel so comfortable standing up. (The kids sat on the front of our boards and generally couldn't see what the problem was.)

Despite this, we powered on. My husband and son far outpaced my daughter and I, but I got better at it--though ultimately, I just don't have the upper body strength to really be effective against a current. That said, if I paddleboarded regularly, I soon would. After about forty-five minutes, we caught up to where the boys were waiting for us and we all floated back down again together--which took about ten minutes!

Relaxing as we go downstream.

Three of us stayed dry. My daughter (of course, my daughter!) managed to fall in from a sitting position while messing around with one hand in the water. Fortunately, life jackets were included with the rental, and although she came up shocked and spluttering, she got herself back to the board with no problem and I was able to help her back on without falling in myself. She assured us that the river wasn't too cold. All three of us preferred to take her word for it.

With the boards returned and my daughter changed into dry clothes, we bid farewell to Bend. Like Missoula on our Montana trip, this is another city in the US where we would actually like to live. I wouldn't pick between the two of them, but my husband prefers Bend because of the river, the bike-friendliness and, of course, the (traffic) roundabouts. All in all, a great pick me up after the disappointment of Crater Lake.

Out'n'About Treehouse Treesort

The genesis of this entire trip came about almost a year ago, when we needed some holiday therapy, I randomly googled treehouses and discovered the existence of Out'n'About Treehouse Treesort in Oregon. Did we want to stay in a treehouse? Yes! Did we want to visit Oregon? Why not? Treehouses book up quickly, but the cancellation policy was cheap until a few months before the stay so we booked in September for June.

We don't usually plan our holidays that far in advance, our mantra being: "Maybe next year, we will move back to England." So for six months, all we had was a couple of nights in a treehouse, and I finally started researching what else was in Oregon in March or so. Oregon proved to be a goldmine of things to do, but it was the treehouse that lured us in.

Ewok Wish Fulfilment

There were a variety of treehouses available, ranging from ones that are about ten feet off the ground with a staircase up, to ones suspended 30-40 feet in the air and accessed by hanging bridges. Sleeping arrangements and toilet facilities also varied hugely.

The house we chose was the Pleasantree (in the above picture), which we reached by two spiral staircases and two bridges. (There was a pulley to raise luggage.)

Mind the branch on the first landing.

Our bridges.

It had a shower and a toilet and had bunk beds for the kids and a loft bed for us. By loft bed, I mean we had to climb up a ladder and then crawl around the tree trunk to a double mattress under the rafters which didn't have enough headroom to sit on one side, while on the other, you risked cracking your head if you lifted it too far off the pillow. They had warned us of this when we booked, and it certainly wouldn't be a suitable sleeping arrangement for anybody with back problems, but we got a kick out of it.

Our bed.

Lying in bed, with one foot touching the rafters.

If needed, you can sleep a fifth person in the crawlspace.

Looking down the ladder, this is basically the entire living area.

The sink and bathroom mirror were attached to the tree trunk.

Living space viewed from the bunk beds. Lack of surfaces was our biggest problem.

Behind the purple curtain in the above picture is this compact bathroom.

The house also had a porch with seats, which meant that--for the first time this holiday--we could put the kid to bed and then close a door on them instead of having to sit in dark and quiet. We had some concerns about the temperature, but with the windows open, the house stayed cool in the heat of the day. Although it cooled down significantly overnight, the blankets were more than sufficient. The shower was better than most hotels too, and phone reception was pretty decent 30ft off the ground.

In general, this whole stay worked out better than we could have hoped. The resort is a fairly small area, and we were able to let our five and seven year olds roam unsupervised. There are swings all over the place, a games area, picnic tables and a fire pit. My son didn't take long to make a friend and spent most of his time outside.

There was a stable right on site, so you could hear the horses and pet them if they were close to the fence. (While we were clearing out our room for check out, our daughter was down there chatting away to the stable girl setting up for the morning's rides.)

Stable yard as seen from our porch.

Out in the meadow where the ziplines were, there was the best tyre swing we have ever seen, suspended from a disused zipline cable, maybe twenty feet up. The zipline gave the swing some bounce, so adults were too heavy to use it (to our disappointment), but the kids had some fantastic rides with Dad slinging them about. The testing zipline also had a couple of swings attached to it, so the kids could play on it when it wasn't otherwise in use.

Possibly the World's Greatest Tyre Swing

The nearest town is Cave Junction, which is the middle of nowhere as far as Oregon landmarks go. Both days, we got takeout to eat back at the Treesort, and both the pizza and the Chinese were great. There are quite a few things to do and see, and we opted for Great Cats World Park. A guide takes you round on a walking tour that takes about an hour, most of it sitting on a bench in front of one exhibit or another while the guide fed the cat treats through a fence to encourage it to exhibit certain behaviours. It was very educational, utterly fascinating, and they seemed to be legitimate in how they cared for their animals. Besides, my husband is a sucker for mogs of all sizes, so we were onto a bit of a winner.

Sleepy roar.

Stalking.

After that, we had a hasty lunch and returned to the treesort for the ziplines. Having done junior Go Apes a couple of times, we knew the kids had no problems doing ziplines, so doing a longer course was something we had talked about for a while. Despite the price, we decided to finally take the plunge here.

There is a lot of waiting around, particularly when there is a large group, and that gets tedious... (You make friends with your group, and you learn all the guides' terrible jokes.) But the lines themselves were fantastic. We were seventy feet up a few times, a couple of lines took you at ridiculous speeds and I nearly took out the guide on one occasion when I didn't brake in time (the kids are light enough that they didn't need to brake), and all four of us had a blast.

Seventy feet up.

This is me remembering to brake.

Afterwards, my daughter and I tried out the riverfed pool.

Water going in...

Water going out.

Easily the most beautiful pool I have ever swum in, but I needed that incentive to swim--it was ridiculously cold. Of course, the day was so hot that the moment you got out it felt fantastic. I ended up swimming the length of the pool twice, while my daughter did the width two or three times, just for the rush.

Even the floor of the pool was paved with riverstones.

As much fun as the activities were, mostly it was good to stay in one peaceful place and do minimal driving for a day. The perfect midpoint to our trip, and it was with some reluctance that we said goodbye to our treehouse and headed north.

South Coast to California and Jedediah Smith State Park

We left Florence on Monday morning to finish off the Oregon coastline. Our first stop was Bandon, a little over an hour away, where we planned on doing horse rides on the beach with Bandon Beach Riding Stables. As it happened, we were late leaving--having finally got into the Pacific time zone--and missed the ten o'clock ride with two hours to wait until the next one. So we passed that time by going to the West Coast Game Park Safari. Here they had an abundance of animals--goats, donkeys, sheep, deer and llamas--roaming around to be fed, plus some exotic animals in pens. The exhibits weren't great, but the draw of the park was that they let you pet whatever baby exotic animals they currently have. On our day, it was a baby bear, lynx and a tiny eight week old bobcat--plus a skunk, possum, two ferrets and a fox cub.

At one point, they handed out bottles for the baby goats.

Big lynx kitten.

Afterwards, we headed back to the stables for our ride. This was the one thing our daughter had wanted to do, remembering when we went to Yellowstone and her brother (then five) had gone on a pony trek with me. As far as she was concerned, she was now old enough to go for a horse ride of her own. Not many stables offer that sort of ride for five year olds, but this stable was willing to do it with her horse on a leading rein.

Down the beach

None of us had ridden on the beach before, so that was a novelty, but as we are not riders, the hour was more than enough time for us all to struggle walking afterwards. The ride took us down the beach to see the rock formations and back again. Bandon's most famous rock is Face Rock, resembling a head lying back with nose pointing upwards, while Cathedral Rock has caves you can explore at low tide--as per usual, we were there at the wrong time, tidewise.

Face Rock is the top left; Cathedral Rock, top right.

And then onwards, driving right down the Oregon Coast and into California. We did this partly to complete the Oregon Coastline, and partly because my husband wanted to see some of the giant redwood groves. For the latter, we headed to Jedediah State Park which was both on the route back to Oregon and the home of some of the largest known redwoods (though the locations of these are a secret, and we weren't going to figure out some unmarked hike to find them.)

Yup. Tall.

We opted to do the Stout Grove trail, since it was a short hike with some giant redwoods and looked best in the late afternoon--not only that, but it was along the Howland Hill road which takes you past some giant redwoods in the comfort of your car. The trail was great. The kids were hideously reluctant to do it: "What's so interesting about trees?" but ended up having a great time, climbing and running along fallen redwoods.

No balancing required.

 

Our rule of thumb for walks is that if there is something that is safe to climb, we are almost certainly going to do so. Similarly, if it's safe to get our hands and feet wet, that's going to happen. We deviated from the trail at one point to pay our respects to Smith River.

And then it was back to Oregon, and onwards to our next stop: Treehouses at Cave Junction. That's going to be an entire blogpost in and of itself.