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Thread: I've got business in Astoria, Oregon

  1. #1

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    I've got business in Astoria, Oregon

    It'll be a short trip but I'd like to do some photography, maybe with the 5x7 Speeder since I wont have much room available in the trunk, then down to Crescent City.
    Any suggestions? Any recommendations for scenic routes? Seafood?
    "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White

  2. #2
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: I've got business in Astoria, Oregon

    The city of Astoria by itself is a gem. Lots of Victorians, purple glass bricks embedded in the streets. A waterproof dark cloth is a must. The whole coast is scenic, the whole way. But I prefer the less developed northern half of the Oregon Coast to the southern half, and then again, around Pt Arago State Park closer to Calif. Seafood wasn't what it once was, but locals would know best. I spent certain summers with my Grandmother in the rainforest of Tillamook, and explored all the beaches there, which were far quieter than now. My Great-Grandfather pioneered that area after losing an arm in the Civil War; and my Step-Grandfather engineered much of the equipment in the cheese factory. That's a must tour if you like sampling cheese and ice cream. No doubt Cape Kiwanda and Canon Beach will be recommended too; but there are just so many darn good opportunities it's impossible to list them all. The northernmost Calif coast is also exceptional.

  3. #3

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    Re: I've got business in Astoria, Oregon

    Thanks, Drew.
    "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White

  4. #4
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: I've got business in Astoria, Oregon

    Yeah. I got spoiled. My Grand Uncle would take me halibut fishing. There were so many salmon in the adjacent creek (the Kilchis River) one could almost walk on them; and the rest of the season, all it took was a willow stick with a bit of line and a caddis fly larva on the hook to pull out a trout every single time. There was a big set of deep tides pools protected from the surf by granite outcroppings near Cape Meares where my cousin and I would dive, and catch huge dungenness crabs. We'd handcuff them with kelp strands and bring back about eight at a time to Grandma's kitchen with its big boiling pot. And the clams around there! Plus twelve varieties of wild berries in the woods in summer. We daily picked basket-fulls of them.

    A lot has changed because a golf course went in downstream and they resorted to high-phosphate artificial fertilizers for the green, ironically in an area where mere rainfall greened things enough to feed up to 60 dairy cows per acre! That deprived the river of its oxygen due to algae growth, and also ruined much of the previous splendid fishery of Tillamook Bay, shellfish included. Sheer stupidity. To this very day I can remember what a local clamburger tasted like, using clams harvested that very morning. And other than the steelhead run, the local trout were somewhat small, and a peculiar variety or subspecies they called Bluebelly, almost cuthroat-like from the Rockies, and perhaps descended from trout which originally came down the Salmon and Columbia Rivers. Dunno. I was too busy frying and eating them to submit one for DNA testing. But my cousin and his dairy farmer crossed the line and bagged out of season elk meat, always in his freezer. They were habitually on the game warden's hit list; but he never did catch them in the act. My cousin was killed during the Vietnam War era, but in a car wreck on leave. A different cousin, a lady, now owns that huge plot of old growth rainforest down the road from the cheese factory, along with the old cabins.

  5. #5

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    Re: I've got business in Astoria, Oregon

    Drew you're making me feel nostalgic for places I've never even visited!

    But I am planning a trip to Ridgefield, Washington (just north of Portland) to visit my daughter and her husband who recently relocated there from San Jose - and I'm taking notes!

  6. #6
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: I've got business in Astoria, Oregon

    That's more inland, and has been quite hot lately. My wife is from Portland, and I still have relatives there myself. Haven't been there for awhile, due to needing to babysit the pets while she takes care of her mother's needs periodically. We try to reserve the chore of asking others to take care of our cats just for official vacations, like to Maui. But there was a time I'd slip out for a day at a time to hike the backside of Mt Hood with the 8x10, or spend the day exploring the side canyons of the Columbia River Gorge; or even spend several days on Rainier, or a more serious backpacking trek up into the Enchantments of the N. Cascades.

    As per notes: two of my secret defenses anywhere on the wet side of Oregon or Washington : a black Goretex darkcloth or other waterproof equivalent, and a Tupperware lens desiccation container with baked-out silica gel in it. Much of the year, it's futile to try to avoid rain; ya just gotta live with it, and shoot in it.

  7. #7

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    Re: I've got business in Astoria, Oregon

    LightBox Gallery is a really cool place to visit

  8. #8

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    Re: I've got business in Astoria, Oregon

    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    or a more serious backpacking trek up into the Enchantments of the N. Cascades.
    You ain't getting a permit for the Enchantments on short notice.

  9. #9
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: I've got business in Astoria, Oregon

    No permit was needed when I went in. Very few people around, in fact. But that was over the back door, the long scramble up Aasgard Pass, more of a goat path than real trail, with an ice axe necessary on Dragontail glacier itself. That glacier has since nearly or entirely disappeared. But neighbors of mine camped this summer at Colchuck Lake below, and noticed people coming down from Aasgard using crampons and ice axes - not due to a glacier, but simply due to an exceptionally heavy snowfall earlier, iced-over. It's like a tiny section of the high Sierra up there, but with different colored rocks and fauna. I eventually came upon a camp below Prusik Peak (near the picture in the link in the previous post) where one fellow was hopping around on one foot just outside his tent, yelling, while a young mountain goat ran off with his other boot, and no doubt chewed it apart for the sweat salt. Pretty amusing if you weren't that guy wondering how he was going to hike back out. He had companions who probably had to hike clear out and return with suitable footwear.

    And it really is a comparatively small area. Beautiful. But I can't imagine even the limited quota number of people being allowed in per day and it still having the same aura which I remember. That has happened to so many places! Prefer the way I remember such places before. I'm simply not capable of hauling 85 lbs of gear, including my Sinar system, up that steep 6000 ft grade again at my age anyway. But I sure got some nice shots.
    Last edited by Drew Wiley; 23-Sep-2022 at 11:56.

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