portlandia, 8mm

As in, Portlandia the statue (not the TV show), and 8mm the focal length (not the videotape format).

mill ends park, 8mm

Here you go: An ultra-wide-angle shot of the (supposedly) world's tiniest city park. For the sheer absurdity value. I'm not actually sure whether wide angle shots are more or less absurd than macro shots of flowers in the park, which is another thing I've considered occasionally.

Macro would involve squatting in the crosswalk right in the median of a very busy street, which I'm not a fan of. Plus on the rare occasions when they do have flowers in the park, it's always something uninteresting like marigolds. In short, I haven't gotten around to that macro business yet, and I may never do it at all.

hawthorne bridge, 8mm

Urban Hydrology

Today's adventure in transit mall art takes us to SW 6th Avenue between Harrison & Hall, home to Urban Hydrology, which is one my favorites among the new pieces that arrived along with the MAX Green Line. TriMet's Green Line public art tour describes thusly:

Urban Hydrology, 2009

ARTIST

Fernanda D'Agostino

LOCATION

On 6th Avenue, between Mill and Hall streets

DESCRIPTION

With Urban Hydrology, Fernanda D'Agostino reflects some of the environmental science taking place at PSU in an attempt to thread the needle of beauty, abstraction and content while appealing to both academic and casual viewers. Twelve oversized diatoms carved in granite are sited in the biofiltration strips unique to the the southern portion of the Portland Mall.

An RACC page about the piece describes it in more detail:

Twelve carved granite sculptures based on Scanning Electron Microscopy images of diatoms used to determine water quality in urban waterways. The sculptures are sited along a three block long bio filtration landscape strip in downtown Portland, Oregon, adjacent to Portland State University.

So these shapes are pleasant to look at -- particularly in close up -- and they're based on electron microscope images of diatoms. I already liked them as abstract forms before I learned what they were modeled on, and the diatom angle makes it just that much cooler. Call me a science dork if you like. I really won't be offended.

Bridge of the Gods

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Today's fun adventure (yes, another one) takes us out to the gorge again, but this time we aren't going to a waterfall. No, this is an installment in the ongoing bridge project, which somehow still isn't done. This time we're visiting the grandly-named Bridge of the Gods. The name refers to a Native American legend about the spot: As the story goes, the original Bridge of the Gods apparently was a pile of debris from a huge landslide on the Washington side of the river, temporarily damming the river and making it possible to cross here without a boat. Eventually the debris eroded away until only the Cascades rapids remained, and the land bridge passed into the realm of myth and legend. And now even the rapids are gone, submerged by Bonneville Dam.

When I heard the legend as a kid I had a mental image of it as an enormous natural arch bridge that collapsed into the river. Which would have been even cooler than debris from a titanic landslide, if somewhat improbable under the rules of real life geology.



If you'll permit me, I'm going to go on a tangent here about "Indian legends". The name "Bridge of the Gods" is almost certainly a Euro-American coinage. At some point in the late 19th Century, some sensitive poetic soul wandered through the gorge assigning melodramatic Victorian names to everything that resembled a geological feature. Some of them stuck around to the present day, like "Angels' Rest", "St. Peter's Dome", "Pool of the Winds", and, well, "Bridge of the Gods". When people of that era said a story was an Indian legend, I suspect they allowed themselves certain artistic liberties, up to and including making stuff up out of whole cloth. There are just a few too many stories about the gods warring over fair maidens, doomed lovers leaping to their deaths together hand in hand, and so forth, all things that also just so happen to be cliches in schlock Victorian poetry. It doesn't really help that one of the main sources for the legend's Wikipedia article presents the tale in genuine Comic Sans. Oh, and doesn't cite any sources of its own either. And here's an even more stilted version, starring "Coyote", "Thunderbird", and the "Spirit Chief", among others. Again, no sources are cited. So until I can find either a tribal source saying yes, this is the story as it's always been handed down, or an academic source supporting the idea, all I can really say is that it's a story that's widely claimed to be an Indian legend.


So enough about legends. The current bridge has a Structurae page with details on the bridge's unexciting cantilever truss construction, and the Port of Cascade Locks (which owns and operates the bridge) has an info page about it, including current toll info.



You can't really tell from these photos, but there's no sidewalk on the Bridge of the Gods. However it's also the official way to cross the Columbia if you're hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Apparently you just hike on the roadway and hope vehicles on the bridge notice you. Did I mention that the bridge deck is an open metal grate, so you can look down and see the river far below? And it's really, really windy in this part of the gorge? And that you have to pay a fifty cent toll for this privilege? It's true. It's not hard to imagine what the obligatory "not dying on the bridge" angle is this time



Another key part of the bridge project involves me walking across and taking photos from the bridge and of it. But that only applies when a bridge has a sidewalk on it. If it's technically legal but I'd have to walk in the road on on the shoulder to do it, I'm generally going to pass on the idea. I realize Pacific Crest through hikers do it all the time, and may even schlep a pair of quarters all the way from the trailhead on the Mexican border in order to do so. But Pacific Crest Trail hikers do a lot of other things I don't do, and I'm not all that broken up about it. The only person I know who's tried hiking the whole thing ended up breaking an ankle a couple of weeks in and had to be rescued. In contrast, in the 5-some years this blog's been around, I have a clean record of zero broken ankles and zero wilderness rescues, and I kind of like it that way.

Fern Rock Falls

Today's adventure takes us out to Fern Rock Falls in the Oregon Coast Range along Highway 6. The name may be unfamiliar, but if you've ever driven Highway 6 to the coast you've probably glimpsed the falls for a split second. Twenty-nine miles east of Tillamook there's a large gravel parking lot on the westbound side of the road, and the falls are right at the far end of the parking lot. Yes, this is that waterfall. I was always kind of curious about it and wanted a better look, but it was only recently that I figured out exactly where it was. And more importantly, how to stop there without becoming a statistic.

There are small, unobtrusive road signs right at the parking lot that simply say "FALLS". There aren't any of the usual helpful "Fern Rock Falls, 1/4 Mile" signs letting you know you're almost there, so you have to be on your toes if you don't want to miss the place. GPS helps, of course, but it's still kind of tricky.


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If you're coming from the west you'd have to turn across oncoming traffic, which you probably don't want to do. Highway 6 has enough trouble with people crossing the center line accidentally, and that rarely ends well, so doing it on purpose is probably a bad idea too. Needless to say there isn't a turn lane, so traffic behind you could also be an issue. So instead of rolling that particular pair of dice, I hit the falls on the way back from Tillamook, a day trip that also included a visit to Munson Creek Falls. Going eastbound, it's shortly after milepost 29. The road bends to the right and suddenly it's right there. I knew I was almost there, thanks to GPS and what I hoped were accurate coordinates I'd found on the internet somewhere. But I still had to brake quickly to make the parking lot entrance. It helps to have nobody tailgating you while you're looking for the falls parking lot; nobody's expecting you to hit the brakes and turn off the road in the middle of the Coast Range, and they may not necessarily be ready to brake as quickly as you are. There are a couple of slow vehicle turnouts between Tillamook and the falls, which is a good opportunity to let any impatient drivers behind you pass and go on their merry way.

One thing I haven't been able to figure out is who owns the place -- and by extension, who's responsible for the poor signage and so forth. There aren't any signs at the falls that give any clue, and Tillamook County doesn't have a lot of freely available GIS data on the net so I can't figure it out that way either. It's not within the Tillamook State Forest boundary, and there aren't any state or park signs to be seen. I've come across the occasional unsigned state park so I can't rule out that possibility, but if I had to guess I'd say it's probably either part of ODOT's Highway 6 right of way (but not an official highway rest area, since it's not on the list), or it's on private land.

One other fun detail is the name "Idiotville" on the map just west of the falls. Wikipedia insists there was once a town around here, or more precisely a logging camp, said to be so remote at the time that only an idiot would work there. Hence the name. I haven't checked extensively, but as far as I know there's absolutely nothing there anymore. Despite not actually, y'know, existing outside of the USGS official list of geographic names, Idiotville has its own Facebook page, a semi-official Chief Idiot (currently Charlie Sheen), and a Yelp page (not an actual review, but still). And the aforementioned Wikipedia page obviously. Plus now it's even got an entire paragraph about it on an Important Local Blog Of Note. So there's that.

Sunset Falls

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The fourth and final stop on the Lewis River waterfall excursion is Sunset Falls, several more miles upstream from Moulton & Yacolt Falls, just inside the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. The Forest Service's Sunset Campground is located right next to the falls, so parking is still pretty convenient even though we're way out in the middle of nowhere at this point. However since it's National Forest land you're going to need to buy a day pass in order to park legally. I seem to remember it was about $5. Because of that I stayed and watched the falls longer than I otherwise would have, in order to feel like I'd gotten my money's worth.



There's also one more twist to getting to the falls: Shortly after Moulton Falls, Lucia Falls Road veers away from the river and becomes Railroad Avenue, the road to the town of Yacolt. If you want to continue upriver, you need to turn right onto Sunset Falls Road, which will take you the rest of the way.

After Sunset Falls the road continues on into the forest as National Forest Road 42, but I don't know what condition the road's in or whether there's anything interesting up that way. Besides more forest, obviously.

Yacolt Falls

The third stop on our East Fork, Lewis River waterfalls tour is Yacolt Falls. It's on a tributary of the main river, a short hike from Moulton Falls. Tributary or not, this is far more photogenic than Moulton Falls if you ask me. A post about Yacolt Falls at Wild About the Northwest expresses much the same sentiment.



While I was here, an older gentleman who was visiting the falls saw my camera and decided he really needed to convince me to start taking photos of trains. There were railroad tracks somewhere nearby, apparently, and trains occasionally rolled by carrying stuff, and apparently the process was so fascinating and needed to be documented meticulously, and I ought to drop everything I was doing and go wait an open-ended amount of time for the next train to rattle past.

Needless to say, I passed on his proposal and hit the road for the next waterfall.

Moulton Falls

The next stop on our tour of Lewis River waterfalls is Moulton Falls, about 4.5 miles upstream of Lucia Falls. Moulton Falls is in Clark County's Moulton Falls Park, and like Lucia Falls, it's a short, easy walk from the parking lot right off of Lucia Falls Road. Rather than include another Google map this time, here's a photo of the official park map:



Moulton Falls is the one on the left on this map. The map shows another waterfall just upstream (to the right), but it was more of a ripple, a rapid at most, and I didn't bother taking any photos of it. The waterfall on Big Tree Creek is Yacolt Falls, which is really the park's main event if you ask me. We'll get to that one in a subsequent post.



The "no touching the river" rules apply here too, just so you know. I don't find these rules particularly onerous, I have to say; when I go somewhere like this, generally I'm lugging a camera around. So going in the river and getting wet is pretty much the very last thing I want to do. Ok, meeting up with a cougar would be worse, as would a Deliverance-style run in with hostile locals (which could be a serious possibility, if the belligerent Tea Party-type political signs I kept seeing along the road are any indication). But getting the camera wet would be right up there behind those.