Next up we're checking out Metro's Kingfisher Natural Area, another of their cluster of little-known properties along the Sandy River. The part we're visiting has only been owned by Metro since late 2020, though it was added onto an existing natural area along the river that was only accessible by boat until that point. You can also see the main gate on Street View here, so that's what to look for if you read this post and still want to go check the place out for yourself.
The added area was a commercial tree farm, with a house or some sort of building on the property. Like Metro always does, any buildings on the property were demolished right away (to avoid squatters) but beyond that they don't seem to be in a big hurry to change anything else here. One particular thing they generally don't do is is remove the previous owner's "Private Property! No Trespassing! Keep Out!" signs, so a sign here informs you -- the visiting taxpayer and theoretical co-owner of the place -- that you are under 24/7 video surveillance. However if you ignore all the leftover security theater and keep going into the park, there's one obvious trail or service road that goes downhill past where the house used to be. The trail curves a little and goes behinds some trees, and only then do you encounter the standard Metro Natural Area sign, seemingly positioned so it's not visible from the street. I kid you not, I burst out laughing when I saw this. Like they were trying to say "Ok, fiiiine, you got us, welcome to the Natural Area".
The other half of the joke, o Brave Adventurer, is that once you've passed this test and proven yourself worthy, there's really not much to see or do here. Depending on how much tree thinning they end up doing here, someday, there could potentially be a cool scenic viewpoint here someday, just going by what I could see through the trees when I was there. But that's about all there is. In particular, there does not seem to be any way down to the river from here, unless you have a plan how to get your river raft down a pair of 150-200' cliffs with a low bench between them. I know what you're thinking: A few of you doubters out there are about to object because you've seen Indiana Jones pull this off before:
But Mythbusters did a segment about that scene and your odds of pulling it off without the benefit of plot armor are actually quite low:
And if I haven't made this really superabundantly clear yet, Legal is telling me to tell you NOT to jump off the cliff here in a rubber raft. Or really any cliff, frankly, in any sort of raft, or without a raft, for that matter. On the off chance that you were considering it. Your actual best bet, if you want to see the other half of the park that badly, is probably to go to the Chinquapin West Natural Area upriver of here and float down the river from there, and then continue floating down the river until you get to a good pullout spot, maybe somewhere around Gordon Creek, or keep going til you get to Oxbow or Dabney State Park, since you aren't going to have better luck getting up the cliff than you would going down.
Anyway, since we're already off on a wild tangent anyway, here's the bonkers opening scene from Temple of Doom, which also involves a bit of movie magic. Legal doesn't have any really specific guidance about this part, but they suspect bending space and time and causality to pull off the tap dance bit may have unintended consequences, and things would be better, generally, if you didn't, but if you do they'd like to learn your secrets, thanks.
If you're curious about the name of the place, it's named after the Belted Kingfisher, the local member of the kingfisher bird family. The halcyon birds of Greek mythology were apparently people who were turned into kingfishers for their hubris, per Wikipedia, although the gods granted them a few "halcyon days" of nice weather right around the winter solstice. Which basically describes today, a sunny though not especially warm day at the end of December. Which makes it kind of appropriate to finally finish and post this today.
As kingfishers are found all over the world, there are lots of places and things named after them. I started putting a list together when I realized I might have to pad this post out a bit:
- Kingfisher, Oklahoma, seat of Kingfisher County, and former home of Kingfisher College. The college disbanded over a century ago, and is largely remembered today for being the losing side of the second-worst rout in college football history, losing to the Oklahoma Sooners by a whopping 179-0 back in 1917.
- Since you asked, the most lopsided game of all happened the year before that, in a game where the losing school had ended its football program the preceding year but was somehow legally obligated to play Georgia Tech anyway, and had to scrounge together a team of alumni and fraternity bros on short notice.
- Kingfisher Point on way out toward the far end of the Aleutian Islands
- one part of a larger natural area in Seattle
- Kingfisher Point in Ft. Collins CO
- A major brewery in India
- A defunct airline, also in India, and connected to the brewery somehow.
- A Mississippi blues guitarist nicknamed 'Kingfish'
- also a Vietnamese restaurant in San Diego
- and a European home improvement chain
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