#7 - Willamette River at Wallace Marine Park

 Today happened to be our anniversary, but we wanted something close to home, so we tried the boat ramp that we see when we go to Salem, at Wallace Marine Park. The website doesn't mention a boat ramp, but the signs make it easy to find. The parking lot is plenty big, and there was an outhouse in use. 

Part of the fun for this spot is that Riverfront park is right across the river, so we headed over to check out the new bridge from below, and get a different perspective on the Willamette Queen. 






You can get almost under the bridge before you run out of depth. 

Plenty of wildlife and scenery. There is a heron in this picture.










We decided to head upriver. The river is a bit low, but the only place that was a problem was the island (sandbar) about a mile upstream. We decided to go to the left, but there was not enough water to get by. We could have portaged across to the other channel, but opted not to. We did go to the other side, and pedaled upriver until we were not gaining against the current. Then we just floated back down to our truck.

This was nice enough, but you do get constant road noise from the highway, which kind of spoils the ambiance. The scenery is nice, with the exception of the trash from the highway and homeless camps. 

It is very close to where we live, so we might do this again, but head downriver? We'll see.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

S2.7 - Trillium Lake.

Image
  Trillium Lake is just past Government Camp, on the foothills of Mount Hood. The boat ramp area is decent, with a small loading and unloading area, and a pit toilet. There is a decent amount of parking, and we got there around 9am, so no trouble finding a spot. However, it got a lot busier as the day went on. There is a day use area on past the boat ramp, and that's where most people go who are just coming to swim. It's always nice to get that first glimpse of the water you will be floating for the day, but the view you get when you get to the bottom of the boat ramp is breathtaking. Everyone who comes down always stops to enjoy the view, and usually to take some pictures. During our time on the lake, I took quite a few breaks to just enjoy the view. And take lots of pictures. There is a day use area on one end of the lake, and a campground on another. A 2 mile trail goes around the lake, although part of it was closed when we were there. The campsites are spaced quite a ways
Read more

#6 - Ermie Walters - Alsea River

Image
  We went camping at Beachside, just south of Waldport. Our intent was to try the Alsea water trail, which starts at the mouth of the Alsea, heads upriver, and into Drift Creek. Leanna's sister was with us, and so we called around to rent a kayak for her to join us. The advice of the renter was to skip the water trail due to wind and waves, and head upriver about 19 miles to the Ermie Walters Boat Ramp . So we did. Ermie Walters is a nice boat ramp with decent parking lot for this far upriver. No bathrooms. There were 2 other cars in the parking lot. One waiting to rent kayaks, like us, and another belonging to a couple who had set up shop at the bottom of the boat ramp, and were cooking up some crawfish they had caught. Once our other kayak arrived, we put in. I got all the way in, unintentionally, as I was trying to get in my kayak. The water level was pretty low, and I had to pull my kayak into a deeper channel from the ramp. Just slipped on slippery rocks. Good news is the wat
Read more

S3.5 Larison Cove

Image
  We seem to be going back to places we've been before lately. This week was Larison Cove, in Oakridge, which we kayaked last year . However, the water level was much lower this time. Significantly lower.  This was also a fun practice at backing up the trailer down a long dirt road with lots of potholes, maneuvering around cars. Good times. 5 of us kayaked today, including Dody and her Drippy Plum kayak. No big adventures today, with calm, flat water. Also, very few other people here on a Saturday. I took this photo to help show how far the water level has fallen recently. And I also thought the texture looked cool.  There were a few places we couldn't get to this year because of the water level, smaller coves or inlets that we could navigate last year just didn't have water in them this year. We did see some turtles and a mama duck with 9 very small ducklings. The highlight of the float was getting out of the kayaks, and swimming. It wasn't super hot out, but there was
Read more