2009-06-04 45 -122
| Thu 4 Jun 2009 in Portland, Oregon: 45.9745098, -122.9838037 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox |
Participants
Plans
Aperfectring noticed that the point was in what appeared to be a good exploring area, so he decided to go to it. Preparations were gathering old shoes, and programming the GPS unit(s).
Expedition
After another night of jet-lag quality sleep (which consisted of sleeping until 5am, and waking every half an hour for the next two hours), I saw that the hashpoint was in the far northwest part of the graticule. I had not yet explored this part of the graticule, so I was interested in going, if for nothing other than to see what that area is like. The morning was taken up by a city tour of Portland (unpictured), which lasted until about 12:30. I got back to the hotel room around 1pm (pictured below).
The drive was about 1 hour long, on a mixture of dual carriageway, and winding mountain roads, both paved and gravel. During the trip, I received a call from the office, seeing if I wanted to go to dinner. I agreed, even though that would cut the time for expedition a bit on the short side. After the drive, I found a logging road which headed back into the woods towards the hash point. The sign on the gate (pictured below) didn't prohibit adventurous hikers, or even a crazy guy from Florida playing at being a hiker, so I decided to continue on.
The entrance to the logging road was approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) from the hashpoint, as the crow flies. I began the trek inward shortly after 2:30. Most of the journey was along gravel/stone logging roads (pictured below), weaving back and forth, up and down the whole way. There were many forks, and as I was venturing back in I was hoping that I remembered the way out.
With about 750 ft (250m) left to go, the logging road changed from gravel to completely unused for quite some time. After hoping over a couple of fallen trees (pictured below), the road was overgrown with many weeds, some of them thorny (pictured below). In my, completely insane, wisdom, I chose to wear long pants to the hashpoint, so the thorns weren't too much of a bother, so long as I weaved, like a drunken sailor, down the "road". 350ft (100m) away from the hashpoint was the closest I could get on said "road", and since I was running low on time, and decided dying a lonely death in a secluded part of the woods was not a fun thing to do, I gave up (pictured below). At this point it was around 3:00, so I headed back to the car, which I reached around 3:30. The trip back was mostly uneventful, primarily comprised of me sweating profusely from the brisk hiking I had been participating in.
Achievements
Gallery
Pictures forthcoming.
