Oregon Coast Trip 2011 – Day 1

 

Day 1:

 

Mostly boring driving. Northern Utah, during this extremely wet season anyway, is rather pretty. A few pics from the drive-by photography album:

 

barn

 

 

I have a new found enjoyment of wildflowers and photographing them. A few favs from one of the rest stops we stopped at.

I have long wanted to visit Twin Falls and see the so named falls. Somehow every time we were in the area we just never made it. We finally did this trip.

 

 

 

First view of the Snake River Valley just after the eastern Hansen Bridge I had no idea this gorge was so deep! side thought: i84 roughly follows the Oregon Trail route.. apparently the emigrants had to cross this bad boy 3 times!!! Can you even imagine? Now west of this is the Twin Falls waterfall.

 

Twin Falls. Anybody else see anything wrong with this image?

They severed the twin!!! I always wondered why I could not find any images of Twin Falls (the waterfall) and instead always got results of Shoshone Falls. I guess they built a hydroelectric plant over the falls and in doing so killed the falls the town was named after. Sigh. As if that was not bad enough, they also "turn off" the other falls during off season in order to generate more power. I get it, people need power, but this is what you named the city after!

 

 

 

Faint Waterfall Bows. (can it still be called a rainbow when it is due to a waterfall?)

  

Shoshone Falls on the other hand, which also has a power plant, and also "turns off" during the off season is pretty spectacular. I just read that it's claim is: "The Niagara falls of The West!" even though it is actually taller. I would have to agree (even though I have yet to be to Niagara Falls). This waterfall is amazing,

 

 

The mist was so intense one of the lookouts we were basically in a heavy downpour during clear blue skies! I really enjoyed this location.

 

 

 

Got a more prominent Waterfall Bow here.

 

 

And another

 

 

Found this cute marmot (no really that is what it is) chilling on a cliff next to the falls, munchin some grass. He’s cute!

 

 

View Downstream.
 

 

 

And an interesting archway, plus a bit of the dam.

 

 

Snake River - Cool Lighting on Mountain (DBP Album)

 

We arrived to our "bit more than halfway" point in Baker City, OR. While Landis was checking in to our Hotel, I saw a building I wanted to photograph. This resulted in a late evening stroll around Baker City. We actually walked quite a bit further than I originally anticipated. i just kept seeing cool buildings peaking out over the tops of others and decided to go for it. Now normally, I would feel weird about wondering around a strange city, at night, with my camera, but something about this city made me feel comfortable enough to do it.

 

  

 

These 2 buildings look very similar to 2 of my favorite buildings in Salt Lake Also the best results with the lighting I had, without a tri-pod. I actually kind of like the soft lighting and think I might try to do some more architecture shots during dusk.

 

After settling in to our hotel I started researching some things we could do with a 4 hour block of time we needed to waste. While trying to locate a particular area I wanted to go to, I randomly discovered the most amazing hidden gem of an area I have ever seen. And then, unfortunately discovered that the BLM, while wanting people to see this gem, also wants to keep it very pristine, and therefore only provides instructions, by mail, to those willing to go through the effort of calling and requesting the information. Sigh. I am already here so... gonna have to rule that out. Another time. Sigh. And no, I am not sharing until I get to explore it first. :-p

 

PS: We stayed at the Bridge Street Inn and not only was it inexpensive, but it was comfortable, the staff was amazing, and the continental breakfast, was actually really good, home made food. Not that stupid here’s an ego and a banana that other places do. I would highly recommend it if you are looking for a place in the area.

 

I had originally combined day 1 and 2, but that ended up being an extremely long post, so Here is the short teaser I suppose. :) Stay tuned, shouldn’t be long as day 2 is already written.

Parleys Trail - (Lower Loop Around Suicide Rock)

 

I met up with my friend Monica and her son Didi to do some hiking. She recently moved into the area around Parleys Canyon and suggested we try out the trail here.

To get to the trailhead take i215 to the 3300 south exit, head east on 3300 then turn left on Wasatch BLVD. Take that about .03 miles to the end where there is a little parking lot. Park and take the paved trail down. There is another trail that goes up, Grandeur Peak I believe.

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View from the trail head.

Parleys canyon is were i80 goes from Salt Lake east, and connects to i215. As you can see there is a lot of freeway in the area. Honestly I thought that would make this hike non enjoyable, however I was wrong.

View up the canyon after crossing the bridge over i80.

said bridge.

This bridge across i215 leads to Parleys Historic Park which is also nice, but a little bit more crowded. You want to keep to the left of this for this trail. Tip: about 30 feet past this there is a section of fence that has been curled up and you can climb under it. The trail is a bit steeper, but you can skip a lot of the bike path and get a more direct route to Suicide Rock. We had a young child with us so we opted not to do that this time.

I really enjoyed some of the flowers this hike. Particularly these pretty purple ones.

This is Suicide Rock. One of the ‘as long as I have known of its existence, has been a popular spray painting place.’ More on this through the post.

Info Plaque – Cant read the full text anymore but I can read the relevant bit: “For hundreds of years it stood as a watch tower for the Indians until, as the story goes, an Indian maiden upon learning of the death of her brave, leapt from the top to her death on the rocks below, giving it the name of Suicide Rock. Now it is a billboard for the youth who dare to climb its heights with a paint brush or spray can.”

Here it is from the north end, when the trail goes from paved to non paved.

A little ways down the trail we found this pile of spray paint cans and other garbage. I don’t know if this is a pile gathered by a group working on cleaning up the park, or if it has become the dump off. I am thinking the former though. Dear teenagers: I don’t so much mind you tagging THIS particular piece of nature, but please, please, take your garbage with you!!

Here is where the stream goes under i215. Monica tells me people tube down it, but the thought of that fills me with more terror than anything I can think of.

Some more flowers.

I like the monkeys.

Here is a side trail that goes off the main loop around Suicide Rock. We decided to go up a little ways and see what was up here.

We came upon this cute little pond.

We decided not to go too far up today, and maybe return again when we didn’t have a little one en-tow. Upon returning home and looking at Google maps, I don’t think it goes very far in, but still would be worth going all the way to see what is up there. We returned to the loop to this bridge across the stream.

 

Look at how much the water is raging! This is normally a very calm stream.

Nice little valley. This is where the aforementioned shortcut lets out that you can cut a lot of the hike and bike trail out by going this way, but it is a little more steep. Shortly after I took this, while helping Monica look for lizards I looked up to see a coyote or fox halfway up the trail looking right at me. By the time I got my camera up it was gone. I tried to follow it up to see if I could get him, but he was gone. :(

 

A group had climbed to the top of Suicide Rock. We also wanted to do this but had a little one with us. Next time.

Unknown structure with interesting graffiti.

The stream split off and had a slower moving section here. Forgot my ND Filter. That would have been a cool shot.

And now we are back to where the stream goes under i215.

I think this is my favorite wildflower image I have ever taken. Everything is just perfect from the pretty flower in the foreground, to the out of focus ones in the background.

I still just cannot get over how green the mountains are this late in the year. And I love the contrasting red sand.

While tracking a hawk and trying to get its picture guess what I should suddenly spot down the trail?

 

The fox/coyote (still unsure but now am leaning toward coyote because of the size) returned. Monica thought it was following us, I however thought it was returning to its den when we came across his path and then he was just waiting for us to finally get out of the way so he could continue with where he was going. Sorry for the terrible zoom jobs, didn’t have my telephoto and he wasn’t coming any closer to us.

Dove

Another flower.

Almost back to the parking lot we spot this gopher snake making its way across the bike path. (I love how it happened to be right on the “slow” sign.)

Monica decided to catch it.

After playing with it for a minute we let it go on the side he was going for, across the barrier. Just in time I might add, as a few seconds later a herd of teenagers started heading down. I’d like to say we saved the poor guy. Although Didi was very sad that we let “my snake” go.

All in all I was surprisingly very thrilled with this trail. Saw tons of wildlife, great flowers, and it was super easy. We had a 2 year old with us who walked the whole thing by himself (very limited carrying) so I would rate it as easy. The first part is paved as a bike trail, and we did come across quite a few bikers, but they all seemed to follow the general rule. Like traffic, you stay to the right. People passing from the opposite direction do so from your left. Bikers going faster than you, pass on the left. If all people could remember this simple rule, we can all enjoy the multi-purpose trail happily.

Google map of the area:

General path we took in purple. Shortcut I mentioned in blue.

Final rating: 8 out of 10 squirrels. Even with the close proximity to the freeways!