Seabury Blair - The Creaky Knees Guide Oregon: The 85 Best Easy Hikes

Copyright 2010, 2016 by Seabury Blair Jr.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by Sasquatch Books
Cover photograph: Pat Rose
Cover design: Joyce Hwang
Interior photos: Seabury Blair Jr. (except , CC BY 2.0)
Interior maps: Erin Stuart / maps created using TOPO! software 2010 National Geographic Maps / Topo maps produced by the U.S Geological Survey.
Maps on by Marlene Blair

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 978-1-63217-007-1
eBook ISBN: 978-1-63217-008-8

Sasquatch Books
1904 Third Avenue, Suite 710
Seattle, WA 98101
(206) 467-4300
www.sasquatchbooks.com

IMPORTANT NOTE: Please use common sense. No guidebook can act as a substitute for experience, careful planning, the right equipment, and appropriate training. There is inherent danger in all the activities described in this book, and readers must assume full responsibility for their own actions and safety. Changing or unfavorable conditions in weather, roads, trails, snow, waterways, and so forth cannot be anticipated by the author or publisher, but should be considered by any outdoor participants. The author and publisher will not be responsible for the safety of users of this guide.

Given the potential for changes to hiking rules and regulations post-publication, please check ahead for updates on contact information, parking passes, and camping permits.

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The Umpqua Dunes make for unique hiking in Oregon.

My wife, Marlene (a.k.a. B. B. Hardbody), deserves much more than thanks for her patience, encouragement, and help in completing this guide. The trails wouldnt be there were it not for the hard work of National Park and US Forest Service staff and the many volunteers who keep them in such good condition. We all owe them our gratitude.

Im also grateful to the many good people I met while hiking in Oregon, particularly Linda Starr of the Multnomah Athletic Club, who suggested a number of the Central Oregon hikes in this book. Thanks also to The Ladies and Two Guys, who joined me on regular hikes that kept me in good enough condition to walk the trails outlined here. The Ladies and Two Guys are nearly as oldolder in some casesas I am. The Ladies: Jean Cornwell, Karen Johnson, Tamae Johnson, Joyce Kimmel, Gayla Perini, Ann Richey, and Linda Weinacher. The Two Guys: Gary Larson and Jim Drannan, the Gnarly Dude.

Finally, I thank Christy Cox, Gary Luke, Haley Stocking, and all the good people at Sasquatch Books for the opportunity to show you some of my favorite joint-friendly hikes.

I bumped into a fellow wilderness pedestrian while hiking above Timberline Lodge a couple of years ago, and while I panted like an ancient steam donkey and tried to catch my breath, he chatted along as if he didnt notice I was sweating a new tributary to the Sandy River. He was talking about how great it was to get outdoors in Oregon, and how few places in America served up such a tasty variety of things to do. Why, the other day I did an S and S, he said.

Whats that? I wanted to know.

I went skiing in the morning up here, then drove down to Hood River and went sailing.

Indeed, Oregon is a place where you can hike on a glacier in the morning and catch a salmon in the afternoon. You can walk through forests that were saplings hundreds of years before Columbus landed on Americas shores and the next day wander through a trackless desert. You can climb sand dunes where it rains more than seventy-five inches a year or walk sandscapes where it rains less than seven inches. You can look into a clear lake that was once a steaming volcano and miles away trek beside the lava fields that spit from Mount Mazama.

The wildlife is just as diverse as the climate and geology. Whales swim off the coast, coyotes and foxes cry in the dry canyons of the east, elk herds cruise the high meadows and ridges of the Blue Mountains, and now, the cry of the wolf can be heard in Oregon again.

One thing is common throughout this state: the pedestrians who ply the wild pathways from west to east and north to south are pretty much the same. They all know and love the country at their back doorbe it forest or flatland, mountain or meadow, desert or river. In checking the trails for this guide, I met a guy with two artificial knees headed up Tom, Dick, and Harry Mountain, and the Wednesday Women Hikers, a group of fiftyish ladies, practically running up the Mirror Lake Trail. They told me about their favorite hikes and where I might find one of my own.

From the Mazama climber on the Twin Lakes Trail to the backpacker on the Pacific Crest Trail, the people who hike the wild pathways of Oregon will tell you the same thing: walking is the best thing you can do for your soul and your body. Being surrounded by the beauty around this neck of the woods certainly helps, and age and physical condition are simply not as important as getting outside to see what surprises Mother Nature plans for us. It is in that spirit that I offer this guide to all of you.

Sooner or later, we all realize that easy hike is a relative term. What might be an easy hike when you are twenty-two years old, so full of vim and vigor, is not likely to merit that same adjective when you are fifty-two and the vigor has morphed to varicose veins. So while the eighty-five hikes outlined in this guide are all labeled easy, you are likely to find yourself at least once wondering if I am already senile. If you feelas I often do when trying to keep up with my wife, B. B. Hardbodylike a leaking hydration pack, Ill be happy. In fact, if you dont curse me at least once while sweating up a hill or limping back to the trailhead, I have failed in my mission. Dont be fooled by the title. Unless you are a retired Olympic athlete or can still jog a dozen miles in under an hour, youll find a hike or two in this guide to keep your heart rate up and your lungs sucking harder than a Dyson.

Ive been lucky in my more than seven decades on this planet to stay healthy enough to keep walking, and in those years, I have met hundreds of people on the trail who arent as fortunate as me. My recent hiking partners include a woman who speeds through the forest on an artificial hip and a seventy-four-year-old man with a steel joint where his knee used to be. They leave me a quivering mass of flab and sweat on the trail. I have also walked with younger folk who wonder why they cant keep up with that old bald man with the bouncing belly he calls Stummick. The important thing, it seems to me (and Stummick), is that regardless of age or physical condition, you try one of the trails outlined here. Youll be accompanied by beauty and solitude found in few other places on earth.