Waterfall Bagging in Oregon

It has been said that the road trip is a right of American passage.  For some it is the thrill of endless possibility, the rush of the open road and a pervasive sense of freedom.  For others it is literally Hell on wheels.  Visions of being cramped in a car, with endless miles of road, each more or less indistinguishable from one another, took me back to the days of driving across the country with my family.  We would drive for hours on end without stopping.  Bathroom breaks and were frowned upon and McDonalds was mandatory.  With this in mind, I hoped that this trip might just heal my childhood cross-country trauma.

As we traveled a definite theme emerged without any planning at all.  We knew that Oregon was home to several fantastic waterfalls, after all we HAD done our research well.  What we didn't realize was how addictive "waterfall bagging" can be.  After a few days or driving around central Oregon we'd already bagged 7 beautifully photogenic falls and all we could think of was finding just one more.  Just when we'd thought that we'd seen the most beautiful one, another would surpass it and we would have to amend our rating scale once again.  By the end of the month (aided by a drive to "Waterfall Alley" near the Columbia Gorge) we'd bagged our 17th one.

Here are a few of our favorite ones.  By the way, hiking to them made them that much more spectacular so some of our choices are most definitely influenced by the effort exerted to reach them.

Bridal Veil Falls on the Historic Columbia River Scenic Highway.  An easy 1 mile round trip hike to this small but lush rainforest falls that empties into the Columbia River

Tokatee Falls is one of the most famous in Oregon and we agree that it is spectacular. 1 mile roundtrip.  It was at the end of a very long day for us that started in Crater Lake, so we didn't take as long as we would have liked here.

The two-tired falls are fantastic but we were more excited by the two bowl shaped pools at the top of the basalt falls.

Elowah Falls was a hidden gem.  We hiked a bit further to get to it but who cares when you are hiking through rainforest, lush with green and wildflowers booming all around you.  The falls had a distinctly Hawaiian feel to them and were very peaceful.

Our Chow thought so too.

The last falls that I will share with you are Salt Creek falls in the Willamette National Forest.  It is the second highest waterfall in Oregon and a great starting point from which to explore more falls.

Drawn in by the name Too Much Bear Lake, we went on to Diamond Creek Falls from here and hiked through thickets of rhododendron loaded with blooms and buds.  We were the only people on the trail and enjoyed the many bridges and streams along the way.

Without question the best road trip yet...and not a McDonalds in sight.

#Oregonorbust, Let the adventure begin

After the initial excitement of picking our spring family road trip destination cooled, we realized that Oregon, although much smaller than our own California was still an ENTIRE state and without family to stay with or knowing the area very well,  we still needed to pick a town as our home base from which to explore.

After an attempt to do research on the internet and being inundated with information and destination reviews that held no context for me, I needed to get my bearings. I decided to take a less tech savvy approach.  I went to the bookstore for a huge road atlas, an old school folding map (that I can finally fold properly)  and some good guidebooks, the kind you can highlight, dog ear and stick general within reach items into to mark a must see attraction.

Books in hand, we read everything. Anything that even remotely interested us, we highlighted on our map.  Lonely Planet Pacific Northwest's Best Trips gave us day trip ideas for the whole state and our  Moon handbook for Oregon helped to fill in the planning details. 

We decided early on that renting a house made the most sense for us. We would be there a month and a dog friendly home would gladly accommodate our furry traveling companions, but where to go?   What if we chose somewhere  far from the places we wanted to visit?  We wanted to be remote but what if that meant we were 20 miles from a grocery store?  We were about to be rewarded for our efforts though, our abundantly highlighted map would tell us tell us clearly where we needed to be. There at the epicenter of the neon pink ink, would be our answer.  There was only one problem.  We had two answers.  It was very clear that we had a number of attractions on our wish list to see along the coast and an even great number in central Oregon.  

So we did both, allocating three weeks to Central Oregon where we found a great house on the river in La Pine (near Bend) and a week in Florence on Mercer Lake.  Our drive to our first destination in La Pine was a long one, so we found a third house in Jenner just north of San Francisco, to help break up the drive.

Houses booked, bags packed, bikes, paddle boards and animals loaded, with our now well work guidebooks and maps and Oregon playlist set to go, our adventure was ready to begin...

Oregon or bust

It all began about five months ago.  My husband had mentioned, yet again, how much he'd like to explore the city of Bend in Oregon.  Why? I'd asked him. "I'd like to check it out" he'd answered.  That was it, his attempt to persuade me to join him on his Bend Bandwagon.  Compelling as his sales pitch was, I began to consider the many reasons why visiting Oregon would be fun for us after all.  Great food, lots of hiking trails, lakes and streams for fishing, and getting out of the city, all sounded great and Bend was nowhere on my list.  So I said let's do it.  Let's pack up our two dogs, the cat and our daughter and really experience somewhere new, while she is still small.  Let's go on a month long road trip and get to know the locals.  So we did.

If you have been following me on Twitter and Instagram #oregonorbust, for the past month then you know the rest of the story and how it all worked out for us.  You've seen the photos of the beautiful waterfalls, mossy forest floors and the endless trails we explored.  I plan to share more details with you in upcoming posts, our planning process, the guidebooks that you really need to buy and the ones you don't, which towns we fell in love with (yes, Bend is in there), delicious places to eat and a few to skip.  It is my hope that you will enjoy the photos, stories and perhaps be inspired to plan your own adventure with your family this summer.

I also found some inspiration for Amuse Me and hope to have new items in the store for the summer.

To be continued...