Customer Reviews

Best Easy Day Hikes Portland, Oregon (Best Easy Day Hikes Series)

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As we begin our seventh decade, my wife has discovered hiking trips as an adjunct to workouts at the gym. Woe is me; I'd rather just sit in a café patio under the trees and read a book. Is this the worse part of "for better or worse"?

Lizann Dunegan's BEST EASY DAY HIKES: PORTLAND, OREGON (a.k.a. BEDH below) accompanied us on a long weekend getaway to Portland last August. It's a nifty little volume, and its relatively small format makes it amenable to inclusion in either the airplane carry-on or trail backpack, although that same diminutive size renders the maps somewhat problematic to those with failing eyesight. Perhaps one of those magnifying bookmarkers might prove useful (UltraOptix Handi-Lens Magnifier Bookmark).

The volume describes twenty-eight hikes in and around Portland and off to the east along the south bank of the Columbia River Gorge. The longest is that looping around Hagg Lake (14.1 miles) and the shortest the roundtrip to and from Sherrard Point on Larch Mountain (0.5 mile).

The book begins with an Introduction, which includes Weather, Clothing, Shoes and Socks, Backpacks, Day Hiking Checklist, Trail Regulations/Restrictions, Trail Contacts, and Zero Impact. The last item simply means not stripping the environment of interesting artifacts and not discarding your energy bar wrappers and plastic water bottles along the path.

Each of "The Hikes" is comprised of Highlights, Distance, Approximate Hiking Time, Elevation Gain, Permits and Fees, Restrictions, Canine Compatibility, Maps (sources), Finding the Trailhead, The Hike (summary description), and Miles and Directions. The section for each hike is 3 to 5 pages long including map. There's no mention of "feline compatibility" if you want to take Fluffy.

So, you may ask, how was the guide when it came to crunch time, i.e. putting boots on the ground?

The hike we chose to trudge was the 6-mile roundtrip to the Warrior Rock Lighthouse (Hike #8) at the north end of Sauvie Island in the Columbia River. (Of course, this was after spending 90 minutes working out at the YMCA in Vancouver, WA. See what I have to put up with?!)

The trailhead is about 25 road miles northwest of the Portland city center. The directions in BEDH proved to be clear, concise, and right on. After crossing over to the island and purchasing the day permit at Sam's Cracker Barrel Store, we drove the last 15.5 miles to the trailhead through pleasant rural countryside. It being the season, there were several farms displaying a "Pick Your Own Blueberries!" sign. As the BEDH indicates, the last two miles of the road and the parking lot at the trailhead are gravel surfaced. The only untoward incident occurred when we almost lost the permit down the crack between the front windshield and the dashboard. Lucky for us my wife has fingers smaller and nails longer than mine.

Arriving at the trailhead, we studied the first Mile and Directions entry:

"0.0 Start hiking north on the singletrack trail located next to a wood trail sign adjacent to the parking area. (Note: this section of the route can be wild and overgrown.)"

Wild and overgrown? Gee, no kidding! What the book doesn't mention is that the overgrowth is almost all prickly blackberry bushes. If you insist on forcing your way through the vegetation, you'll likely come out the other side with clothes and exposed skin shredded as if attacked by a pride of Fluffies. So, since the parking lot also serves a beach, we elected almost immediately to forsake the trail and walk the sand the three miles to the lighthouse. This alternative route wouldn't have been possible in some places had the Columbia not been affected by the low tide condition in the Pacific Ocean miles away. (The receded waters also exposed many small clams to death from desiccation or predatory birds, so my wife spent an unreasonable amount of time rescuing them by tossing them back into the river. This perhaps doubled the time spent on the outward bound leg.) The low tide route along the beach is eminently serviceable except for the last few hundred feet when one must either adroitly pick a way over an ankle-twisting pile of rocks constructed as a breakwater to buttress the island's pointy end and lighthouse, or find a way up an overgrown embankment and into the woods to that interior path forsaken by us back at the parking lot.

Along the way on the beach, we passed a cheery beach bum ensconced in a lawn chair and keeping an eye on two kites he'd launched into the breeze. Further on, the wreck of an old wooden vessel embedded in the shore provided a photo op. I'm not sure which was more derelict, the bum or the boat.

Finally arriving at Warrior Rock Lighthouse (est. 1889), the local population of freshwater clams saved from extinction, we stopped long enough to eat a picnic lunch topped off with handfuls of ripe blackberries, which were also in-season. We elected to try and return as far as possible on the inland path, but had to abandon it yet again for the beach about a third of the way back because of the rampant undergrowth. Perhaps this was just as well as it was less breezy in the woods making biting insects peskier.

The bum was still tending his kites. Perhaps he should be made a permanent part of the BEDH narrative.

Back at the car park, my wife collected several cups of blackberries from the bushes bordering the lot, and which she enjoyed with yogurt over the remainder of our stay. For her, this was, I suspect, the highlight of the weekend. She loves fruit, especially when it's free versus $3 a basket back home.

I should further mention that, during the time we were in Portland, the weather was the hottest it'd been all summer - over 100 degrees. So, even if you're walking along the river on level ground, take plenty of drinking water!

Because of our inability to stay on the trail and therefore verify the particulars of the route described in BEDH, I cannot award 5 stars. However, Hike #8 seems otherwise accurately presented.

(Note 1: If you walk south two miles along the sand from the trailhead parking lot instead of north to Warrior Rock, you'll pass through a clothing-optional beach. Just in case you're interested.)

(Note 2: I emailed the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, which is responsible for maintaining the trail through the Sauvie Island Wildlife Area to Warrior Rock, to casually mention the overgrown condition of the trail and wonder how my $3.50 permit fee was being spent. Of course, I didn't receive the courtesy of a reply.)

This book had the best and easiest to understand directions that I have seen so far. Great book.

We have several of these best day hike guides...They are excellent for short trips to a area...they pick out some of the best hikes that are easy to access...descriptions and directions are useful....as with anything its not one size fits all...some of the hikes will be too short for us... but often it brings us to a place with other hikes that are just what we wanted...is great for pointing you in the right direction and the book is small and light so it gets taken...