Angel's Rest

Last weekend I had a visitor at home and took him on a hike on Saturday with a group of local friends (while M. was slaving away working on our escort and table cards in Seattle with K.). I picked Angel's rest because it was one of the few short hikes I had not done in the gorges and the view from atop was supposed to be beautiful. I wasn't disappointed, the weather was amazingly sunny and warm, the trail up nice and steep and the view... amazing. Only downside: it was a bit too popular.


Great trail in the forest.


Great view.


Great Company.

The rest of the pictures can be found here.

Beaverton Bakery

While waiting for my oil to get changed, I had a walk around the neighborhood. Ok I actually went in and bought something, can't hide it. That reminded me how I missed Orsay and Bures bakeries...

Crabbing on the Coast

This weekend we joined a few friends for a "Crabbing and Clamming" time on the coast. Anna found a great deal on this nice little beach house on her work's classifieds. It was very comfortable, and we probably could have fitted 4 more there(we were 7). We drove there Friday night after work.


The house is just 2 minutes walking of Twin Rocks beach (a few miles north of Garibaldi and South of the Nehalem bay). Unfortunately for us the wheather decided to not cooperate and was quite stormy. We had originally planned to eventually rent a small boat for our fishing activities but as you can see here, it was a tiny bit overoptimistic...


All the places that traditionally rent you some gear and accesses to their docks were desperately closed. We tried the 3 available in the area...

Before deciding we would do it anyway on a public dock in Garibaldi during high tide, which happens to be in a protected area of the Tillamook bay. We couldn't rent our gear, so we headed to Tillamook's Fred Meyer and bought 2 crab rings (des balances pour les Francais), our fishing licences, and some chicken to bait them. It was still raining heavily which explains a certain lack of pictures of the crabbing activity (there are a few here still). We caught tons of little crabs to be sent back to the water and 2 large ones (the shell has to be wider than 15cm) that we were going to eat. We caught the 2 in the first 40min and didn't catch anything else big enough for the next 2 hours, even though it was clear crabs were making a feast of our chicken legs... You can get more details on Ian's blog.


We were soaked and cold, but it was a lot of fun as you can see !


Once back home we dried, rested and played games until dinner time. It was my first time cooking crabs and it went well, they were delicious ! After dinner, at low tide, Danny and Allen went clamming (yes by night) on the beach near our place but without success.

This morning the weather was a lot nicer (ok, still Oregon coast-ish). As you can see the waves were not raging anymore around the Twin Rocks


We went for a small walk before leaving but rain chased us away (we didn't want to spend the trip back in the car soaked). We still enjoyed a nice view towards Nehalem bay.


We had tons of fun and would do that again anytime. I thought it would be a great place to bring Fifille, Tom and the Parents when they visit.

Silver Falls State Park

We spent last Saturday mostly doing chores at home and baking a pumpkin pie from scratch (ie not buying a can of pumpkin and a can of condensed milk but making them from the raw products). It was quite laborious and the result wasn't bad but not great either, probably not worth the 2 hours of work. After that we joined friends at their place and played games until late.
We woke up a bit late on Sunday but still decided to go to Silver Falls State Park. It is the largest park in Oregon and I had seen a few pretty pictures while looking for a place to go to. It is located east of Salem and it took us about 75 min to drive there. The weather was strangely cooperating and once we reached the small roads leading to the park we were enchanted with the rural landscape.
Once in the Park we headed for the mid-sized loop of 5.5 miles that goes around 8 of the 10 waterfalls that the canyon has to show.


We were welcomed by bright colored maple trees everywhere. It was gorgeous.


The first half of the hike was pretty slow as I was stopping every 2 minutes to take pictures in awe, M had planned for it and brought gloves and jacket to not get cold while waiting for me :).


One of the interesting things is that like many other Oregon Falls we have seen until now these have a very similar shape: the top layer is made of very solid basalt, often crystallized in hexagonal shape, then in the middle of the fall there is a soft layer that has been carved and looks like a pathway to go behind the falls (and most of them ended up hosting a trail), and the bottom is made of another layer of basalt. These falls are a good example of it:


The only one not following this pattern was the Drake Falls.


As you can see, we couldn't stop enjoying the pretty maple leaves. The rest of the pictures is available here and you can click the pictures for a larger version :).

Hillsboro Flower Farm

Everyday, on our way to and back from work we take Jackson School road. This is a pretty rural area. During the spring I stopped on the right side of the road to take some pictures: Here on my blog - Spring fields. I regret not stopping on the way back to take pictures of the flower farm with its fields all colorful. I guess I'll do it next year.

Today on the back from work, I stopped on the right side of the road and finally took a few pictures of the flower farm. It is quite cute with its little windmill, the colors were vibrant under the sunset. Here it is (stitch of 3 images and cropped, but this would be my standard field of view the day I upgrade to a M9).

Ecola Park

We have a visitor from the east coast this week and we spent the last Saturday on the Oregonian coast. We stopped in the morning for a short hike at Ecola park, just north of Cannon beach. The park has some of the nicest views on Oregon coast you can find, and after last week's heat wave, we welcomed the cool coastal weather. We were actually very lucky and even got some blue skies. This was the perfect day for panoramas, so here they are (click on them for larger versions):

Looking north towards Cannon Beach.


Cannon Beach rocks and some clouds (it's as far as Oregon coast gets in term of blue skies!)


Looking South, towards Indian Beach.


Indian Beach


Ecola Park

Eagle Creek

I know my blog posts are getting totally out of order, that's the result of me posting when I have pictures ready, and as I rotate between film and digital, whatever got taken on film ends up being super delayed... So a few weekends ago, we went to help Amy move to La Center, then went strawberry picking with Ian and Janel (Melvin and Anne were late enough to arrive when we were leaving), cooked a few kilos of Jam, and the next day Ian took us for a hike to Eagle Creek in the Gorges.



It was our first long hike since Ethiopia, but despite the fast pace I survived :). Our target was Cave Falls, some 6.5 miles away from the start:

The path is actually passing in a cave behind the waterfall around the middle of the cliff, that is quite impressive. There was another nice fall right after it:


The rest of the pictures of the hike and from our Sauvie Island harvest can be found here.

First Hike

Last Sunday we went for our first hike since my surgery. Ian had organized 2 small hikes in the Columbia gorges so Janel and I, both recovering could restart slowly. It was a very nice sunny morning and we enjoyed the shade of the Oregon forest. I also took advantage of the hike to try out my new 56 years old film camera (a Zeiss Super Ikonta III). I didn't have a meter with me as my stuff still had not arrived from Israel so I had to trust my eyes. The camera is 6x6 so most of the square shots you'll be seeing here come from it, the color ones are made on the new ISO100 Kodak Ektar.

The Wahclella Falls:



After the hike, we took the scenic highway back and stopped to enjoy a view on the Gorges:


We realized we were near the Viewpoint Inn, a very nice Inn that had been used in the vampire movie Twilight for the prom party, it's also a place we had been considering eventually for a future event so we decided to find it and have a brunch there. This place has been opened and serving good food at a fantastic vista point since the 30's.

The Viewpoint Inn:


See how Happy, M is ?


And Yes, I know, it took me a week to put these online, but film doesn't develop as fast as digital :).

Astoria Forts

Monday was Memorial Day so we had some more weekend time. We decided to go on a small road trip to visit the old forts near Astoria. Astoria is located at the mouth of the Columbia river, in the northwesternmost tip of Oregon. The forts are both on the peninsula at the exit of the river.

View of the Columbia river, looking towards Mount St Helens, miles before reaching Astoria.


Fort Stevens has mostly remains from a WWII era fortification which was aimed at defending the coast against invaders (in 1942 they even got bombed by a Japanese submarine).


An earlier fort was built there in the 1860s near a Clatsop Indian village (a Chinook tribe), but nothing remains. It was meant to protect the area that could have been disrupted easily with just one boat prior to the fort's construction. The fort was not so interesting to me as it was just another set of bunkers like we have in Normandy... However I really liked the rebuilt Clatsop longhouse. I was expecting Indians to live in tepees but apparently the Northwest Indians lived in nice wooden houses. This kind of breaks yet another Hollywood induced myth.


Later on we visited fort Clatsop, which was the first settlement in Oregon by Lewis and Clark. The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1803–1806), was the first American overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back. The building is a modern rebuilt but it was still very interesting.


Lewis and Clark's room


And more pictures in this gallery.