Iron Mountain

Here's a slideshow from Lake Oswego's Iron Mountain Park. It's been on my list for a while but I'm not often down there with free time on my hands. Then one day, not so long ago really, a reason to go there appeared out of the blue: The Lake Grove CVS was the first one in the Portland area, possibly the whole state, that had the latest Covid boosters right when they became available, and for good measure I also got a flu shot in the other arm to keep things interesting, and afterward I figured I needed something to do to get the ol' blood flow circulating and maybe head off some arm soreness later. Definitely mixed results on that part, but the park was a success at least.

Most of the park is a steep south-facing hillside, just short of being a sheer cliff. This oddly rugged terrain was largely created by the city's brief 19th Century cameo as the Pittsburgh of the West. The raw iron-rich volcanic rock was mined here, then turned into iron ingots down by the Willamette in present-day George Rogers Park, which is why there's a big industrial smokestack in the middle of the park.

I think Lake Oswego has technically owned it for quite a while, but the park's current form is quite recent, opening in early 2021 after several years of design work and then construction.

Because this is Lake Oswego, the park has some unusual neigbhors. For one thing, there is -- improbably -- an actual working winery on the slope up above the park. As in, actually growing grapes on your oversized view lot. It's even named "Iron Mountain" in Italian. I think. Though I don't actually speak the language, and never got around to signing up for Duolingo, and Google Translate gives different results depending on whether you spell it as one word or two and whether it's capitalized or not, so who knows. In any case I don't think you can actually see it from anywhere in the park, so if you came here expecting sun-dappled Tuscan vistas you'll have to look elsewhere, I'm afraid.

Other neighbors include: The LO Hunt Club, a country club (one of several archrival country clubs scattered throughout the city), and the municipal tennis center. Because I am not a rich person, I saw "hunt club" and immediately worried about stray bullets, before realizing it's an equestrian club, for when your kid is crazy about horses and wants to learn show jumping and maybe be in the Olympics someday. Or at least not resent you forever for failing to invest in their dreams. The fun part is that you might also encounter horses along the trails, due to some sort of understanding with the city. It's not the first time I've encountered horses on trail, but the other times have all been way out in the Gorge or up in the Cascades. And just like these other times, it was fine; at least the couple of horses I encountered seemed pretty mellow. It sort of stands to reason that a skittish racing thoroughbred is not the sort of horse you want for jumping over things, even if their their spindly legs could handle the landings, which I doubt.

The view from the trail is primarily of Cook's Butte, the city's own mini-volcano (and a close cousin to Mt. Tabor, Mt. Sylvania, Kelly Butte, Highland Butte, and all the others). Which, seen from this angle (and maybe no other angle) seems to loom over Lake Oswego like the big scary volcano in Dante's Peak

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Weirdly, however, at no point along any of the trails do you catch a glimpse of semi-fabulous, semi-forbidden Oswego Lake itself, not even a glimpse, even though it's literally just a few blocks south of Iron Mountain Boulevard and the park's own parking lot. It could just be due to the topography; if you have a lakefront house due south of the park, you'll have a commanding view of the lake from atop a high cliff. But it also seems possible that the trail layout deliberately avoids views of the lake, and local homeowners may honestly believe their special magic lake could be spoiled somehow by too many peasants simply gazing at it from afar. Either way, you can't see it from here, and you'll have to go somewhere else to sneak a peek at it. And I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but if you came from afar to see it based on seeing it in that one episode of 24, that version of the lake is completely fictional. For one thing, the real lake looks nothing like that. And furthermore, the real city would never tolerate a black person fishing on their lake, especially if he's the President. Also don't eat the fish; the city's primary sewer main runs right down the the length of the lake, above the lakebed, just deep enough so you can't see it, but it's there. They replaced it a few years ago and the new one is said to be much less leaky than its predecessor, but yeah. Also the lake stagnates and fills up with stinky algae in the summer. But I'm told it's fancy European а̀lgæ, and it's what makes the lake the blue cheese of lakes, a thing only a true conoisseur of lakes can appreciate, which is why the peasants mustn't look at it.

Ok, so I snark and snark about LO, but the park really is quite nice. It was a warm September day and parts of the park reminded me a lot of the eastern Gorge around Hood River or so. Dry rocky terrain with garry oak trees and such. And yes, I get that it's a weird microclimate caused largely by the old mining industry here, probably drier due to groundwater draining out thru the many tunnels.

Yes, I said tunnels. Signs explain that the seemingly-solid hillside contains a swiss cheese labyrinth of tunnels, though we're told they're all blocked up and concealed so nobody can get in and get hurt, or maybe crash thru a tunnel wall and end up in someone's wine cellar or art vault or Y2K doom bunker or luxury bondage dungeon or whatever. Still, it's important that you know about all this, just in case. Suppose (for example) that a weird mustache-twirling Lake Oswegan acquaintance of yours invites you over to sample some of the oldest and finest amontillados in existence, and long story short, you somehow end up behind a brick wall in an old mine tunnel deep underground. Your ungracious host might not be aware of all of these old secret entrances to the catacombs, leaving you free to dig your way out in peace, then make your way down to Iron Mountain Blvd. and hail an Uber or something. I mean, it might work, assuming you can find one of these hidden entrances. At least your odds are better than just sitting there yelling for help like an idiot.

As usual, here are a few selected news items from over the years, this time largely chosen for snark value:

• A September 1932 article on scenic hikes close to the city includes a 7 mile loop hike from downtown Lake Oswego out to Lake Grove and back, which (like most of the listed hikes) is accomplished largely by walking along the shoulder of various busy streets that lack sidewalks. The description of this one is kind of confusing due to changed street names, rerouted roads, and neighborhood names that have fallen out of use, but it describes a trail portion of the route that sounds a lot like the main trail thru the park, as it heads east and ends near the country club. In most places I would put in a little caution here that people are driving much larger vehicles than they did when the article came out, and walking along the road is probably not safe anymore, but in 1932 Lake Oswego you risked being squashed by a variety of classic luxury cars. Cadillacs, Duesenbergs, Packards, Pierce-Arrows, Hispano-Suizas, etc., undoubtedly driven by a prominent businessman, or the spouse or mistress thereof, on the way home from a favorite speakeasy, and a twisty film noir plot ensues. Not that it does you any good, having been squished during the first reel of the film and all.

  Anyway, other suggested hikes in the article include a romantic moonlight hike up and over Kelly Butte (!), and a casual stroll from Linnton (way out in far NW Portland, out past the St. Johns Bridge) out to Orenco (now a trendy part of Hillsboro), which back then involved a 10 mile stroll along rural backroads bracketed by scenic rides on the Linnton and Orenco streetcars.

• A 1958 article recapping a little LO history up to that point, as a local historian had a new book out on the subject. The article includes a couple of then-contemporary photos, and sketches of yesteryear, and it notes briefly that the tunnels extended well beyond the present-day park, including under the adjacent country club.
• The earliest mention of the place as an actual city park in the Oregonian was in 1984, when the city was looking at adding sports fields to existing parks and decided Iron Mountain wasn't a good candidate for one due to poor drainage. So they were probably talking about the small flat area around the parking lot. Either that, or these fields would be set up on the hillside for special LO versions of various sports, where the home team kids play with the field overwhelmingly tilted in their favor, and everyone is supposed to pretend not to notice.
• A 1987 article about the Hunt Club fighting with the Lake Corporation over manure and water quality. ODOT was hauling it away as free compost but learned that a Tualatin company wanted to haul it away for their yard debris recycling program (I am not clear on how that would work, I'm just repeating what the article says). The recycling firm did this exactly once and had second thoughts, saying it was too much work and impractical, which in context might mean it was more disgusting than expected and they couldn't imagine repeating the process every week from here on out. Meanwhile, ODOT found a couple of other equestrian clubs in the area who were quite happy to take over as the state's official manure vendors. And thanks to this misunderstanding, the Hunt Club accumulated a large pile of the stuff -- said to be the size of a barn -- over the next couple of years, and runoff began to get into a nearby creek and then into the lake, at which point lawyers got involved and many billable hours were generated. And in the end it someone finally checked in with ODOT again and it turned out that the state government had a near-infinite demand for the stuff -- even when the legislature wasn't in session -- and they were quite happy to swing by and haul the whole barnload away. Seems the whole debacle could have been avoided with a phone call or a fax or two, but as far as I know everyone lived happily ever after. It would have been a much bigger debacle, but a better story, if the ODOT work crew had arrived with unclear instructions and assumed they were supposed to remove the manure mountain by dynamiting it, like they did with that whale back in 1970.