Oregon: Off the Beaten Path

Part of my family recently spent a weekend in the Wallowa Mountains, in the northeastern corner of the state. Stuck in Boston, I can only contemplate how I have never been to the Wallowas. Indeed, a proud native Oregonian, I have never been to many parts of the great state. Behold the richness of the American West: more majesty than we can experience in a lifetime.

In 2009, when we still lived in D.C., I dragged Jeff on a big tour of Oregon: the Columbia Gorge, Mt. Hood, Bend, the Willamette Valley wineries, and my favorite stretch of the Oregon Coast around Newport. These are like the state's golden oldies. But things got most interesting when we traveled (way) off the beaten path, down to a part of Oregon as new to me as it was to Jeff: Steens Mountain.

Steens Mountain and the Alvord Desert

"The Steens" sits in the southeastern corner of Oregon, a full day’s drive from anything resembling a town. There’s not much out there, once you pass Frenchglen (population: 12). The mountain is a long, jagged gash of rock in an otherwise flat landscape of sage brush and emptiness. To its east stretches the Alvord “Desert,” a bright white playa that is home to the mineral-rich Alvord Hot Springs. The hot springs are more surreal than substantive: a tiny tin shack in the middle of the flat playa, where campers come to bathe in the steaming water while watching the sun set over the Steens.

What does one do in "the Steens"? Hike (but beware the heat, and bring gallons of water). Contemplate existentialism. Camp on Bureau of Land Management territory (just about everything here is owned by the government). For those without camping equipment, the historic Frenchglen Hotel on the other side of the mountain provides quaint lodging and home-cooked meals. But you lose something of the extreme solitude and vastness of the landscape if you don't spend the night alone under the stars, surrounded by nothing in all directions.

Oregon is full of extreme and surreal beauty once you get away from the evergreens and rolling farmland. I can't vouch for all of these - like I said, there's still much of the state that I have never seen - but here's a partial list of Oregon's greatest natural treasures:

God Is in the Barren Places

Maui's famous road to Hana was everything I thought Hawaii would be: verdant rainforest, waterfalls, vistas of undulating coastline and azure ocean, bright tropical flowers and hidden swimming holes. 

Yes, that was nice. But it was the road that stretched beyond Hana that swept me off my feet. 

Here was the inverse of everything that had come before, a barren and empty land of rocky soil, the occasional windswept tree, and very little evidence of human presence other than the rutted road. There was almost no living thing out there - just gold, grey, brown, and sun-bleached stones. It was like I had eternity all to myself. 

Portland Sidetrips: To the Coast

Don't get your hopes up: The Oregon Coast will never be
this sunny for you. 

The first thing you should know about Oregon's western edge (and this is true even in the height of summer) is that it is the “coast” – not the “beach,” the “shore,” or the “sea.” You do not lay on a beach blanket or play in the surf. Instead, you admire the raw beauty of the coastline before heading indoors for some clam chowder.

The second thing you should know is that the entire shoreline is public - there is no such thing as a private beach in Oregon. You are entitled to wander wherever, whenever, you want. This also means that there are state parks up and down the coast where you can rent a yurt or cabin right next to the beach for $30 a night (b.y.o.bedding). 

The third thing you should know is that the coast is easy-peasy - just a day trip away from Portland (though I recommend a full weekend). If you head due west from Portland on Highway 26, you dead end into the coastal highway, Highway 101, in just under 1.5 hours. But where to go from there? Here are the highlights, from north to south.

Armchair-travel-plus: Finding Japan in Portland

I was laying in bed last night contemplating my mortality. If yesterday had been my last day, it was singularly unremarkable. Death is inevitable, and as they say - you can't take it with you. That leaves me with today. This is why I travel: to gather experiences to make today something different, something new. And in between trips, I try to see home through the eyes of a traveler.

Cherry blossoms at Waterfront Park

Which brings me to cherry blossoms, that symbol of the fleeting beauty of life. The Japanese cherry trees along the northern end of Waterfront Park bloomed in full glory this year, in a rare week of spring sunshine in Portland. There was actual hanami, festive picnicking under the trees by young people and families. It was a tiny sliver of Japan in Portland.

When we came back from Japan last fall, I went through withdrawal and started seeking out bits and pieces of Japan in our immediate surroundings. Some was pure armchair travel - like my marathon of Japanese movies. Some was already well-known to us - like our favorite izakaya and conveyor-belt sushi (see list below). Others were more subtle, like the cherry blossoms.

Embracing the Obvious

Driving east on our way to Boston, we detoured briefly to Yellowstone - that quintessential national park teeming with families and RVs, where campsites are packed in tent-to-tent and the lodges are booked up a year in advance. We entered the park through the popular northern gate, making our first experience in Yellowstone the hordes of families at Mammoth Hot Springs - like Disneyland, but with steam vents.

Like many of our generation and temperament, I disdain the obvious. I do not follow well-trod paths; I like to feel original, to have "real" experiences when I travel (by which I mean, experiences not clogged up with other tourists). In an ideal world, I like my trips to be just un-mainstream enough to provide me with decent anecdotes for yuppie dinner parties. Yellowstone is as mainstream as it gets. 

But here's the rub: places are usually popular for a reason. Sometimes the collective does know best - consider, for example, crowd sourcing and (more often than not) juries. What Yellowstone lacks in obscurity, it makes up for with super-amazingness.