#springwater corridor

On the Springwater Corridor looking east to Mount Hood, right about where the Sycamore Station would be. 10 April 2014. One of my “quirks” is listening to the Weather Band Radio. For those of you outside of North America, this is a band seen on special radios, usually sold for emergency or outdoor use. The seven “channels” of the band sit between 162.400-162.550 MHz on the VHF band (above normal…

Brian at Coffee Outside, Westmoreland Park, 30 Nov 2024. Olympus OM-1n, OM Zuiko 50mm f/1.8 lens, Ilford XP2 A couple months ago the “control” (read: who determines where we go) of PDX Coffee Outside switched from Brett to Brian. With that came a shift of locations. While the old favorites (read: Laurelhurst Park) are still in the mix, since Brian lives in deeper SE (vs. Brett’s deeper NE),…

Foster Floodplain, 8 Dec 2023. Canonet QL17 G-III/Ilford HP5 As I’ve mentioned previously, there’s something special about winter riding in Cascadia. Here in the lowlands, our big weather is rain, snow is a very occasional experience. Things stay relatively temperate, with highs from 40F to 55F. So all-season riding is possible, as long as you’re prepared. But despite the area’s damp nature,…

Of course, I woke up to sun on Tuesday morning. Despite a prediction of rain, it was clouds and sun with a high of 53F. Nice out. I did manage to get a short ride in after house chores and before the sun went down. In fact, I caught a very lovely sorta-sunset from my favorite spot to do, The Dog Bowl.

Wednesday? It was grey and the high only got up to 48F. So much for relying on the weather report for which day would be the better one for a ride! But it remained dry, so no complaint there.

I decided to head south first, just like on Sunday, but then take the Springwater Corridor east, maybe as far as Powell Butte. While the Springwater is probably the most obvious easy “long ride” destination in town as it’s our longest MUP/rail trail, I don’t go there as much as I used to, especially during the winter. It’s about 10 miles from my house. On my off days in winter, I’m more inclined to hit up the lands of the Slough as they are close at hand. But I wanted some variety and I wanted a long ride.

I wandered southbound through the neighborhoods east of the Willamette to get to Sellwood where I’d pick up the Springwater. I made a point of hitting up Westmoreland Park, since Crystal Springs Creek flows through it. There are very few free-flowing and “daylighted” brooks on the east side of the city, so its mere existence is a big deal to me. The course of the creek through the park used to be a very manicured thing in a mid-20th Century kind of way (read: channelized and walled), but a few years ago the parks department did a beautiful full restoration, returning its meander and making wetlands around its banks. This had the benefit of making water colder and more inviting for the fish, and less inviting for Canada Geese since they loved all the lawn-like areas around the creek. (Ducks do like the creek, however.)

The creek runs about another mile south to its confluence with Johnson Creek. Here it meanders through Sellwood, the only place on the eastside where a brook runs through the city grid. (The rest of its course is pretty much parkland.) Johnson Creek Park is a nice hidden gem between the two streams. I love going down here when I can. It reminds me of my childhood when I’d explore the brooks that were close to my home.

I rode east on the Springwater. It was a bit too late in the day to tackle Powell Butte (unless if I wanted to do it in the dark), so I rode as far as I could, stopping by the WPA era “waterfall” on Johnson Creek and Cartlandia for a bit of late lunch. (Banh Mi!) I also hit up the Foster Floodplain and detoured south of the path for a mile, where I crossed back over Johnson Creek via the closed bridge on SE 122th. (Closed to cars, that is!) I headed north on 122nd then west on the Springwater until 111th, then meandered northward through Lents to hook up with the I-205 path. I met up with Emee at East Glisan Pizza in Montavilla where we had a lovely pizza.

The days are getting longer and nicer. I know I’ll be heading further east on the Springwater soon, hitting up the awesomeness known as Powell Butte. And hey, a lot of the campgrounds will be opening in March…

I had to work on Monday, but I knew I wanted to do a ride afterwards to Powell Butte. While Powell Butte isn’t bad on a cloudy day, the best way to appreciate it is in full sun, when you can see all the snow-covered volcanic mountains. And if it’s raining, you aren’t supposed to ride (or even hike) the trails, which makes Powell Butte even less fun. So off to Powell Butte!

From work I headed south to catch the Springwater Corridor multi-use rail-trail (with a pause for beer at Gigantic). While it may have been a bit more interesting to cobble together a route through the neighborhoods that incorporated some dirt, Powell Butte is the goal, and obvious as it is, it is fun to ride the Springwater every once in a while. Plus, it’s always fun to see other folks enjoy the trail on such a nice day. There were definitely people out, but not as much as Sunday (and at 77F, I’m sure Sunday was quite jammed on the trail.) And a surprisingly low number of “I just got out of work” Cat Sixers, even. I took a quick pause at Cartlandia for dinner food to bring up to the butte (burrito, yes, but I wanted a veggie steak sandwich and that cart was closed.) The sign at Cartlandia welcomed the riders of La Doyenne, the infamous hill climbing race that happened on Sunday. Nice touch!

A few more miles and the Springwater skirts the southern part of Powell Butte Park. Ah, Powell Butte, one of my favorite spots in town. It’s yet another one of the volcanic cinder cone that peppers the east side of the city. But each volcano has their own special flavor. Mount Tabor, the classic Olmsteadian city park with the reservoirs and the view of downtown. Rocky Butte, a castle like top with a near 360 degree view of the city and environs. Kelly Butte…well, there are trees up there, right? Powell Butte is the most “natural” feeling of the four within city limits, mostly forest, meadow, and trails, plus a handful of small creeks too.

I normally enter the park via the Old Holgate Trail, which is accessible via SE Holgate Blvd east of 136th. I like Old Holgate because it’s an old road that has an even (but steepish) grade of maybe 6% all the way to the plateau atop the butte. But this time I opted to go up via Cedar Grove Trail. This trail goes through the nice coniferous forest on the west side of the butte, with a feeling that Coconut Bill described on his first encounter as the “Ewok forest.” It also crosses a small nameless creek. I’ve thought a few times about filtering the water from here and drinking it, just because. As far as I know, there shouldn’t be anything atop Powell Butte that would chemically contaminate the water, as its past life was an orchard and cow pasture, but you never know…Anyways, Cedar Grove is fairly steep in sections, much more mountain-bikey than I usually do (or that my basketed early-80s MTB can handle), but I did okay, walking a couple short sections.

The deep forest transitioned to lighter, meadow-edge forest and then full fledged meadow with one of the greatest views around. It was a bit hazy, but I could still see Mount Saint Helens and Hood pretty clearly. (Adams and Jefferson were a bit more difficult.) And even though it was a warm spring afternoon, I saw maybe about three dozen other users at any time in the park. This park is never crowded! I got up to the summit of Powell Butte, basically a flattish grassy plateau with a remnant old orchard and the highlight: the mountain finder! The original one was made of wood and embedded into the ground. By the time it got removed a couple years back it was in sorry shape. I’ve seen the newer concrete oval mountain finder take shape over that time, and this is the first time I’ve been up here since its completion. The information for the mountains are on placards atop the concrete oval, giving much more information than the old one did (but has less mountains on it.) They reinstalled a picnic table next to the viewfinder, so I ate my burrito there while watching the landscape around me.

The sun was ready to set, so I knew it was time to go. I decided to descend the butte by a way I haven’t been in awhile, Pipeline Road to the Elderberry Trail. Pipeline is a gravelled service road that isn’t really that thrilling (especially since the gravel was fairly loose) but Elderberry was much better, and I exited the park at SE Raymond which featured a very steep (but paved) descent! I rambled on city streets back home, catching the last bit of sunset while crossing Powell Blvd on the I-205 bike path. A beautiful end to a beautiful day.

I know that true summer weather won’t be here for real until July, but I love these little teases. It really gets me excited for adventures to come. It’s hard not to feel good on a day like this. And I’m glad that I live in a place where we have enough seasonal variation to appreciate it.

Another resolution is to “ride more”. Yeah, I do my share of riding, and commute about 12 miles round-trip on the days I work. But I want to do more fun rides. I’m trying my damndest to use one of my two days off a week for a ride (or a walk! Or a hike!) and the other for art stuff, personal projects, and the like. (This is if I don’t have other obligations/plans on those days.)

Wednesday January 7th was a day off, a day without other obligations, and a real nice day in these parts, a high of 52F/11C and sunny once the fog burned off. (If I was one of those people, I’d point out that the weather in Portland was nicer than most of the US and Canada that day, even warmer than most places in the Deep South or Texas, but I’m not one of those people.) So I had already planned on riding, but didn’t have a start time, nor any real destination. (The Gorge? Up to Vancouver Lake or Kelley Point? Powell Butte? Leif Erickson? etc etc) Then a day before Chris declares a Sunrise Coffee Club to happen on the morning of the 7th at Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden in SE. I’ve been wanting to do more sunrise coffee clubs in 2015, and doing this would not only give me the impetus to start a ride early, it wouldn’t be lame!

Of course, this would mean waking up early, as sunrise was 7:50 am, and the rhody garden about an hour ride away. And it was pretty tough waking up that morning, with the warm bed inside and fog outside. But I decided to not be lame, and got my ass in gear. The ride went by pretty smooth, the fog burned off once I got south of the Burnside Bridge, and I got to use the new bike path paralleling the new light rail line from the Eastbank Esplanade to Holgate Blvd.

I got to the garden about 7:30 am. Andy was already there, and eventually Chris, Zack, William, Patrick and his kids, and The Two Kell(e)ys arrived. The garden was beautiful in the early morning hour, the soon-to-be setting moon to the east over the golf course and lake, a mist rising from the water, ducks and rodents in the water. And it was good to see some folks I haven’t seen in awhile!

Soon coffee was made and consumed, and most people scurried home or two work. The Two Kell(e)ys went off to breakfast, but Andy and myself had already eaten and had the morn free. So we rode.

Since I hadn’t been southbound in a long time, we decided to hit up the Trolley Trail, a bike/ped path following the old interurban line towards Oregon City (about 20 miles south of downtown Portland.) We picked up the trail just south of Milwaukie. The fog had rolled back in with a vengeance, whitening out the distant landscape. I hadn’t been on the trail in a few years (surprising!) so it was fun heading down it. The trail peters out in Gladstone, the town just north of, and on the other side of the Clackamas River from Oregon City. We decided to stop in Happy Rock Coffee Roasters, which was a good choice, as the coffee was good, the atmosphere cozy, and we got to hear a bit about the local politics of this small city on the perhiphery of Portland.

From there, we headed north on the I-205 path, cut through the Clackamas area* and then onto the Springwater Corridor westward and towards where we started. Along the way we talked a bit about life stuff. Andy helped put into perspective some of my worries about how my life is going. And perspective was definitely appreciated! We found ourselves in the Eastmoreland neighborhood and Andy needed to get back home, so I was left to my own devices.

It was just around noon. I could head back home and do more stuff there, which would mean about 30 miles of riding. But I was in the riding mood, and the day too beautiful to just go back home. So more riding! I started to head east and thought about hitting up Mount Tabor or Rocky Butte. Then I caught a glimpse of Mount Hood in all its snowy glory. Hood’s magnetic grip pulled me further east. After a quick stop at the Lents Goats (who were happier this time than the last) I rambled over I-205 in Lents and rambled down the back streets until I reached the Holgate entrance to Powell Butte Nature Park.

I rarely ride up to Powell Butte during the winter, mostly because trails are off-limits to bikes if the trails are muddy. (There is one paved access to the park at SE 162nd and Powell, but man, it is steep.) Thankfully the Holgate Lane trail was in pretty good shape, no muddier than it is in summer. I usually use the Holgate Lane trail to enter as its the most gentle grade to the top of the butte, but it is still a climb.

Immediately upon entering the park I noticed the improvements that have happened since I had last been up there in summer. There were new wooden fences in spots and new trails atop the butte. Also, new yellow-painted metal wayfinding signs, much better than the old wood ones that disappeared or fell apart. And when I got to the top I had one of the best views in all of Portland, one featuring four snow-capped volcanoes: Jefferson, Adams, St Helens, and of course Hood!

I decided to make more coffee atop Powell Butte since I still had coffee beans and water, and hell, why not? When the rest of the country is suffering from the grips of Arctic cold, I can have a leisurely cup o’ joe in plein air. The only problem was I was out of coffee filters. So I improvised by using a clean bandanna I had in my bag. It totally worked, of course.

I hung out atop the butte for an hour then descended when the sun started to go down. Rather than take a more tried and true path through far east Portland, I decided to ramble north first through unfamiliar territory. I mostly stuck to 151st Ave, which was not a bad ride, though some of the crossings of major streets like Stark were tricky. It was also interesting to see how the economics of neighborhoods change, from the worn-down looking houses and random businesses south of NE Glisan to the much more well-kept middle-class post-war suburban ranches north. Eventually I found my way to NE San Rafael, headed west through Gateway, then northwesterly towards home with a stop for dinner at Vita Cafe.

I didn’t expect to ride as much as I did on Wednesday, but when I got home the odometer read 58 miles! When I mapped it on Ride With GPS it appeared closer to 54. Oh well, still a good long ride on a real nice day. A good day to be outside. A good day to be alive.

Ride With GPS route.

*Clackamas is an unincorporated neighborhood in Clackamas County, hosting the Clackamas Town Center shopping mall.

The riding itself presented nothing new, a meander through the neighborhoods of Northeast Portland to Montavilla where I hooked up with the I-205 bike path southward. (While I could have caught the 205 path before Montavilla, starting just south of SE Washington avoids the less-than-optimal routing through Gateway.) While I could have gone a different way south, the reason why I wanted to go down the 205 is to get to Lents, the new home of the former Belmont Goats.

I hadn’t seen the goats since before the move a few months ago. I was excited to see the goats! But unfortunately it was a bit of a downer. While the space the goats occupy is no better or worse than the lot off Belmont, Lents is a different neighborhood than inner SE. The lot was just a block away from the heart of Lents, SE 92/Foster/Woodstock. And while I saw folks around, no one else was paying attention to the goats but myself. And this spot was noisy: Foster is a very busy road, I-205 is just a couple blocks away, and everyone seemed to have loud cars. I tried to pet the goat closest to me (none of the other goats came near me) who I believe is Chester, but he wasn’t interested. Have they lost interest? I realize that Lents has been a down-on-its-luck neighborhood in search of a comeback for many a decade, and some folks hoped that the goat herd could provide some sort of spark, some sort of neighborhood pride. But I wasn’t feeling it, and maybe the goats aren’t. I could be making too much out of this, and caught it all on an “off” day, so we’ll see. And I’ll be back.

I headed south and then west on the Sprigwater Corridor, towards the powdercoater. First I paused at the new developments at the Luther Road Habitat Restoration Project. This spot off the current path/former railway alignment used to be an empty lot with hills of dirt and garbage. The city has stripped down the hills and attempted to restore the Johnson Creek channel back to what it was before it was “improved” during the 30’s, when the WPA spent a lot of energy in flood protection. The hills are gone, a big wide area that will (probably) get planted with native plants in the spring. The creek has been stripped of any dams and a new meandering channel has been created. There are a few stone overlooks, too. I’m excited to see what it will look like in a few years when everything’s “grown in.”

The powdercoater stop was quick and perfunctory. It didn’t take me too long to decide on the color.

I kept on heading west on the Springwater in the fading daylight, turned north in Sellwood to keep on following the OMSI-Springwater segment along the lowlands of the Willamette River. Just about a 1/3 mile south of the Ross Island Bridge, I spotted a large white-headed, white-tailed bird in the trees on the bluff side. A bald eagle! This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a bald eagle in town, but the last time was on the bluffs in North Portland, not down here. I spent a few minutes watching it. It mostly hung out in a tree. Unfortunately I didn’t bring my “good” camera, and my cameraphone shot is beyond crappy, so you’ll just have to believe me when I say it was a majestic sighting!

The light was pretty much gone, and I made a few other stops before heading home. Even though I didn’t intend the ride to be longish, it ended up being a 30 mile loop, not bad for an eramblee!

*Of course it turned out to be better than predicted, but I feel if I did try to go, it would have poured, Murphy’s Law and all that.