August – Just Another Beautiful Month

August – Just Another Beautiful Month

The calendar page was turned and a fine weather for August showed up.  There is much to do on the mountain at these times.  And we get plenty of visitors and/or cabin owners who also find this is a good time.  We call cabin owners visitors whether they hail from Portland, or east coast, or even from foreign countries.  So our roads are congested by our standards, we avoid local restaurants on busy nights, and don’t see our friends out and about much (and they don’t see us).  Locals tell us that during their morning hikes they are seeing more families with little kids (up to rug rat age) camping near the rivers.  This is a good sign, I think.

But not all is sunshine, camping, and hiking.  We actually have real cultural events up here.

For instance on Monday night, Garth Stein (from Seattle) and author of The Art of Racing in the Rain stopped by for a reading and book signing at the Wy’east Book Shoppe.  Mr. Stein’s visit was scheduled on short notice but a whole litany of literary locals heard about it through the grapevine.  He also came up here to experience climbing a tall tree – as an experience which will help him write his next book.  He told it better than I’m doing.  It was a wonderful event and I even bought two signed books. 

Monday was the 1^st of the month and that is significant because it’s when our local, monthly newspaper is published.  And advance notice of our local events are usually printed in there.  For this month I counted over 50 events.  Just to give you a flavor of the variety of cultural events we enjoy here:

Aug 13 – the annual Steiner cabin tour.  Henry Steiner was a craftsman known for building rustic cabins nearly 100 years ago around Mount Hood.  I don’t know anyone local who goes on this tour, but I’m sure it could be interesting as I have designed floor plans on paper with little squares using pencil and rulers. 

Aug 16-21 – Government Camp Blacksmith Week.  According to the Mt. Times the Western States Blacksmith Conference is being held in Government Camp this year.  There will be some events for the public as well.  I’m not sure why I mentioned this.  I rarely go to Government Camp at all, and especially not this time of the year.  And you’ll notice they were smart enough to avoid the big relay event the following week.

Aug 20 – Great Annual Brightwood Tavern Slug Races.  The games begin at 2pm and proceeds go to the Hoodland Women’s Club.  I understand the event will not be televised this year.  We’ll have to wait for the videos.

Aug 26 – the annual Hood to Coast relay race, which is accurately billed as the “Mother of All Relays”.  This is really a big deal.  The 200 mile race starts at Timberline Lodge (Mt. Hood) and ends at Seaside (on the Oregon Coast).  Last year they raised $500,000 for the American Cancer Society.  I told you it was a big deal.  One of the improvements for this year is an increase of honey buckets to 502.  This event is so huge that the only time I end up seeing it is when I forget it’s happening and go out to Hwy 26 by mistake. 

Just another beautiful month with lots of stuff for visitors to do and me to be wary of.

Naming Names

Naming Names

I’m doing a bit of historical research for some future blog postings and found a reference to all of the prior names for first paved road we come to.  Now all of these names are white man names.  However, I imagine the Clackamas Indians had a name for their path between the Sandy River and the foothills to the north.  Probably something like “Ancestors to the North Keep Me From this Crazy River Path”.  And their name more than likely stayed the same for 1000 years or more.

Come 1840’s and Sam Barlow pioneered this part of the Oregon Trail.  He went to the Oregon Territory Governor and sought permission to charge tolls.  So the name of the road became Barlow Road.   The revenue he collected helped to clear and maintain the road.  According to a pamphlet titled Barlow Road (issued jointly by the Clackamas County Historical Society and Wasco County Historical Society in 1974) the part of the Barlow Road that starts from E. Lolo Pass going west to Rock Corral, had the following names:

The name in the early 1900’s was known as Hackett Road, later North Brightwood Road.  Recently it was designated Truman Road at the time the road from Lolo Pass to Zigzag was designated the Lolo Pass Road.

Now the road is known as E. Barlow Trail Road.  So sometime after 1974 the County renamed this stretch of the road again.  And got it wrong.  The historical purists point out that the Road was never called a “Trail”.  The Barlow Road was part of the Oregon Trail but never called a trail … until recently.  The footprints of the indigenous peoples are long gone, the wagon wheel ruts can be seen in some spots, and, when we are lucky, we have yellow and white painted lines on long strips of asphalt.  I wonder what the name will be changed to when this stretch of road is renamed next time.