HCRH Milepost 69

Next up we've got another installment in our weird little project visiting Historic Columbia River Highway mileposts. Which started out as just visiting the old stone milestones along Portland's Stark St., and sort of got out of control over time. But I figured that I at least had a pretty good handle on the scope of the new project: One stretch of mileposts numbered 17 thru 36, in the Gorge waterfall corridor, then a couple of odd outliers: A maybe-unofficial Milepost 43 on the east side of Cascade Locks, and a solitary Milepost 68 just east of Hood River, which we just visited. East of number 68 is a four-mile stretch of old highway reserved for bikes and pedestrians and no (or almost no) motor vehicles, and I was pretty sure there weren't any mileposts along that stretch of road. ODOT's milepost GIS map didn't show any, and I hadn't seen any along other car-free stretches of the highway further west.

But then I noticed a photo of Milepost 69 on a Recreating the HCRH page about this stretch of the road and figured I'd stop by on my way to the Mosier Twin Tunnels, around the other end of the car-free segment. Only to find out there's also a Milepost 72, literally inside one of the Twin Tunnels, a bit before the driveable segment of road picks back up. Which kind of suggests numbers 70 and 71 also exist, though I didn't feel like doing a nine mile out-and-back hike that day and I don't have photos of them, if they exist. I will just have to come back with a better plan next time, I guess.

There's not all that much to see along this mile-or-so of the road, unfortunately. The page I linked to above says there's an abandoned car from the 1930s or 1940s off in the forest somewhere, and an old non-working drinking fountain, but I didn't notice any of those curiosities at the time and have no photos of them.

In case you're wondering, the old highway is mostly on US Forest Service land for this stretch of the old road, interspersed with bits of Warm Springs tribal land here and there. But that wasn't always the case; the Hood River County survey office has a 1975 survey map showing that at least some of the land around here was county forest land at that point, which might explain why none of the trees look very old. As in, the original trees were probably all cut down sometime in the 70s and made into groovy wood paneling for your rumpus room, or pulped and turned into disco album covers. And before that, way back when the old highway was the only highway, the present-day Forest Service parts belonged to the state as part of the long-defunct Hood River-Mosier Forest Wayside (vintage map here), one of those long and skinny roadside state parks that are meant to be enjoyed from a moving vehicle from that era, like this:

Apparently Hood River's big museum of vintage stuff puts one of these events together every summer -- I had no idea this event was happening until I showed up and saw the sign -- and I gather there are other car clubs that organize similar events here from time to time. I don't know how strict they are about only allowing vintage cars to do this, but it's a narrow road with narrow and low tunnels, and vehicles are sharing the road with bikes and pedestrians who don't expect vehicles, and allowing modern Canyoneros and Cybertrucks and whatnot to drive around here would probably result in the SUV version of that one ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal back during the pandemic.

Just as I was leaving the trailhead parking lot, a couple of maintenance guys were doing weed whacker and leaf blower stuff near the gate, which was still open after the convoy shown above went through it. I must have looked at it for a fraction of a second too long, because one of the guys hurried over and closed the gate to make sure I couldn't drive through and go for a forbidden joyride on the old road. I actually wasn't thinking that, for the record. I think I probably could have made it through the gate before he closed it, if I had really wanted to, but that would be an exceptionally dumb idea: At the east end of this stretch of highway is another locked gate, so you'd have to turn around at some point, and in the meantime they can just lock the gate on this end once you're gone through, and now you're trapped, and Officer Friendly can just sit around gobbling donuts and collecting overtime while you drive back and forth looking for a secret back way out of this jam and eventually give up.

I mean, you probably could get a few semi-precious photos of the distant mileposts 70 and 71 before the long arm of the law has its way with you, but it's probably not worth the arrest record. On the other hand, they'd probably just fine you (*note: not a legally binding promise), and the fine is probably less than it would cost to buy, restore, and then maintain the sort of car you could drive here legally now and then, so crime might actually pay in this one specific case (*note: also not a legally binding promise). Or you could just go mainstream and get a bike like some kind of normie and use the trail the way The Man and The Powers That Be intended, which is what everyone else you'll encounter here is doing. That might cost less than the hypothetical fine would be, or it might cost more, mostly depending on how persuasive the bike salesman is, and a bit on whether you're willing to shell out for an all-new spandex outfit every time your favorite UCI pro team changes sponsors.

Anyway, I think we've established that the gate blocking this stretch of road makes it mildly inconvenient to track down the two mileposts in the middle, but it does have a few advantages. For one thing, we all know the subject of the post you're reading right now would be stolen constantly if randos could just drive right up to it, because, well...

I think everybody misremembers this scene; Bill and Ted just say "whoa" in response, and replying with "nice" is a sorta-recent internet thing. Or at least that's what the Know Your Meme page says. I didn't even have the movie or actor(s) right. For some reason I was thinking this bit came from Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), so what do I know.

People stealing Milepost 69 seems like a minor nuisance, and it is, but think of all the other downstream problems that just don't happen because stealing it is too hard. First, all college campuses with real fraternities are several hours' drive from here, and any would-be thieves would naturally be driving blackout drunk the whole way, both directions, so the gate prevents that, at least assuming word gets out that there's a gate. Then, if they made it as far as Milestone 69 without crashing, a group of bros drunkenly trying to break it off at the base are likely to take some injuries in the process, seeing as it's a fairly large hunk of reinforced concrete, so the gate prevents these theft-related injuries too. As well as any future injuries and property damage the milepost would otherwise cause at subsequent frat parties, or while being endlessly stolen and stolen back and re-stolen all the way down fraternity row and back. Eventually it would end up forgotten in someone's garage, and it will be embarrassing for everyone when their kids find it, and there might be further hypothetical injuries while quickly hauling it to the dump or the nearest Goodwill.

And suppose that one of the original thieves, now a successful real estate developer, often blames his middle-aged back problems on that fateful heist, and after a few drinks likes to refer to it as "an old 69 injury". He overuses this joke because it's the only halfway-clever joke he's ever thought of. Lately, though, he's noticed it doesn't get the same laughs it did back in the 90s, especially in professional settings, but he has no idea why. Sooner or later he'll be perma-cancelled over it after using it in front of the wrong audience and video of the event hits social media.

So by putting the gate and trailhead a bit past Milepost 68 and not another mile down the road, the state prevents an entire chain of cringey future events. Although the sort of person who would get into this hypothetical mess in the first place will probably just get himself perma-cancelled over something else equally cringey instead.