Flowers
This year the fairy slippers arrived until March 22 which was a bit later than previous years. We had a lot of cold clear days in January and February, so while daytime temps were often in the 50s (at least above the fog), it was still freezing each night.
The warm spell that brought out the fairy slippers, also led to the arrival of glacier lilies and one iris just a few days later! While this weather slowed down the fairy slippers, the glacier lilies and iris were out earlier than usual. The trillium came out in early March which was on par with previous years. Here's some pictures:
Gorge Waterfalls:
This April, the Gorge Waterfalls 100K and 50K happened for the first time since 2017! The Gorge Waterfalls course, and the entire Columbia Gorge trail system, were severely damage by the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire so it was exciting to see the race finally happen again.
However, there is still a long way to go in reopening all the trails in the Columbia Gorge. Even after massive efforts to clear trees, rebuild trails, and clean up landslides, many of the trails in the Gorge are still closed. All the trail in red on the map below are still closed.
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| https://www.fs.usda.gov/alerts/crgnsa/alerts-notices |
The Columbia Gorge trail system has a good chance to make a full comeback from the Eagle Creek fire for a couple reasons. First the fire was close to Portland so there's a big population center nearby to help clear and rebuild the trails. Second, most of the trails are easily accessible from Interstate 84.
While the Columbia Gorge trail system is likely to make a full comeback in a few more years (hopefully), a lot of the trail systems that burned in Oregon's 2020 fires will probably be lost forever as many of the 2020 fires were much larger than the Eagle Creek fire and in far more remote places.
Snow
This April we had snow in the local hills around Corvallis. On the 11th and 12th, there was a little snow on McCulloch Peak, half an inch to an inch. On the 13th, I ran up Vineyard Mountain (about 700 feet lower than McCulloch) and was in 3-5 inches of snow for most of the run. The next day I went up McCulloch Peak and ran in 4-6 inches of snow. Crazy! In McDonald Forest (hills above Corvallis), 4-6 inches is a lot of snow for December or January!
In Corvallis, there was never snow in town, but just outside of town there was lots. At the Portland Airport, there was snow in April for the first time since 1940 when the records started being kept!
Trailwork
The new Daves-510 connector trail got started on April 16! About 1/4 mile of trail corridor was cleared (including weedwacking through big blackberry patch) and some sections were benched leaving those sections of trail completely finished!
There's still quite a ways to go, but it's exciting to see more new trails being built in McDonald Forest. Hopefully the trail will be finished up by this fall so it can be used in the Condor 25K course!
