1859 Oregon's Magazine + Special Insert: Best Places to Retire | January/February 2023

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BEST PLACES TO RETIRE IN THE PNW

Level Up Your Home Office

A Steens Mountain Road Trip

How Crowds + Climate Are Impacting Mount Hood

Get Outside WHERE TO GO SNOW TUBING, DOG SLEDDING, CROSS-COUNTRY SKIING + MORE

THIS WINTER

OREGON ’S BEST ALBUMS OF 2022 DELECTABLE DUNGENESS CRAB RECIPES

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Discover yourself here.

Close to everything but away from it all, Discovery West is conveniently located in the heart of Bend’s west side. New custom homes are intermingled with nature, trails and bike paths-and close to schools, parks, shops and restaurants. Coming soon, a vibrant community plaza, specialty retail and even more amenities will continue to set this neighborhood apart from the rest.

Ready to start your custom home build journey? Discover more about our custom home builders and the process at discoverywestbend.com/custom or visit our Discovery Pod at the Corner of Skyline Ranch Road and Celilo Lane.

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Mt. Hood Territory Tap Trail Great craft beverages, more prizes

Join us on the revamped Mt. Hood Territory Tap Trail now and accumulate entries for a grand prize drawing in February 2024. As you sip and taste your way through some of Oregon’s best craft breweries, cideries and distilleries, you’ll be picking up points for prizes and entries for a deluxe two-night stay, dining and engaging activities in the Mt. Hood Territory region.

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Beginning in February, Mt. Hood Territory will relaunch its Tap Trail to include more prizes in a new points-based mobile passport. Simply check in along the Trail at participating breweries and begin your quest for the grand prize, not to mention creating new experiences in the craft beer culture and beyond. Think double IPA at Bent Shovel Brewing in Estacada, or a Japanese-style lager— Gaijin Dream—at Stickmen Brewing Company in Lake Oswego, even a refreshing fruity cider from Portland Cider Co. in Clackamas or locally crafted spirits at Trail Distilling in Oregon City.

With the mobile pass’s geotargeting feature, Tap Trail pass users can simply check themselves in at breweries, cideries and distilleries. No purchase is necessary to earn points from checking in, but many locations offer discounts on beverages for Tap Trail users to sweeten the deal with more points toward prizes.

Turn those points you’ve earned from over a dozen Tap Trail venues into prizes from the in-pass marketplace. To get the free

mobile pass or for more information, go to mthoodterritory.com/ taptrail.

Ultimately, the Tap Trail invites you to explore more of our beautiful area while introducing you to your new favorite craft beverages in waiting, creating memories of taste and place. Here are some of those places on the Trail where your new experiences begin: 12 Bridge Ciderworks · Bent Shovel Brewing · Boring Brewing Co. · Coin Toss Brewing Company · Little Beast Brewing · Oregon City Brewing Co. · Portland Cider Company · Shattered Oak Brewing · Stickmen Brewing Co. · Stone Circle Cider · TMK Creamery & Distillery · Trail Distilling · Vanguard Brewing

SEE YOU ON THE MT. HOOD TERRITORY TAP TRAIL! mthoodterritory.com/taptrail

4 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023

A Life’s Maritime Work photography by Corey Arnold PHOTOGRAPHER and commercial fisherman Corey Arnold documents the life, struggle and beauty behind the fishing industry. (pg. 68)

Portland-based photographer Corey Arnold grew up sport fishing with his father and first noticed commercial fishing fleets on one of their trips to Alaska. “That made me want to explore the world more, and once I became an adult I traveled to Alaska with a friend and we found jobs as deckhands by walking the docks.”

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023

1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE

5

From Mount Hood to Lake of the Woods, Oregon offers winter recreation for every type of adventurer.

FEATURES JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023 • volume 78

54 Winter’s Other Pursuits Seven adventures in the snow— from ice fishing to dogsledding. written by Jean Chen Smith

60 Changes at Elevation Climate and people are the two biggest problems at Mount Hood.

The popularity of summiting the glacier brings fools and danger together in a dangerous dalliance. written by Daniel O’Neil

68 Portraits From a Commercial Fisherman A longtime fisherman and photographer documents moments in hearty lives on the sea. photography by Corey Arnold 6

1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023

TRUFFLE MONTH

#trufflemonthfebruary, #trufflehunting, #trufflegoodness #NewFlavors

TasteNewberg.com/TruffleMonth

DEPARTMENTS JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023 • volume 78

LIVE 16 NOTEBOOK

Cupcakes on a mission; beneath the snow at High Desert Museum; an Oregon Country Fair coming of age.

22 FOOD + DRINK

Embracing dark beer; the Oregon Truffle Festival; McMinnville’s Ōkta takes cuisine into the realm of art.

26 FARM TO TABLE

Oregon Dungeness crab takes the top spot among the state’s fisheries, as an accessible catch and a sumptuous meal.

Thomas Boyd

34 HOME + DESIGN

50

A couple finds a lot in Seal Rock and makes magic happen with design and vistas.

42 ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

Jody Miller sheds light on decades of interesting photography experience.

THINK 48 MY WORKSPACE

50 GAME CHANGER

Steve Dimock/Oregon Coast Visitors Association

Emily Katz

The accidental macramé artist, Emily Katz, brings modernity to a traditional art.

48

12 13 94 96

How the donation of a couple used guitars turned into Rockafairy, a model nonprofit.

EXPLORE 76 TRAVEL SPOTLIGHT

Steens Mountain in winter is a breath of fresh air.

78 ADVENTURE

26 Editor’s Letter 1859 Online Map of Oregon Until Next Time

COVER

photo by Ben Coffman/TandemStock.com Mount Hood National Forest (see “7 Spots for Winter Sports,” pg. 54)

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1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023

Oregon’s devilish places—from the Devil’s Churn to the Devils Kitchen.

82 LODGING

McMinnville’s Tributary Hotel.

84 TRIP PLANNER

Corvallis is more than one of America’s best college towns.

90 NW DESTINATION Phoenix, Arizona.

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CONTRIBUTORS

TAMBI LANE Photographer Homegrown Chef

MANDY ARROYO Illustrator 7 Spots for Winter Sports

THOMAS BOYD Photographer Game Changer

JEREMY STORTON Writer Beerlandia

“Food feeds and comforts.

Food is family and friendship.

It is an adventure and the unknown. Food photography has taken me places I never knew I could go. I’ve experienced art in ways I never knew possible, and I am learning to embrace it all.

When I said yes to my first food photography project, I was not prepared for where the path would lead. The biggest lesson for me was to just say yes and embrace the road ahead.” (pg. 32)

“Spending time outside is a crucial part of my creative process—it is where I get inspired to make new work, and it is also how I take care of my mental health. But while it is easy to spend lots of summer weekends camping or hiking, it can be a bit more difficult to get outside in the colder winter months. I had so much fun illustrating the winter outdoor activities highlighted in this article and am inspired to try a few new snow sports this winter!” (pg. 54)

“It’s a rare day when one is greeted with a private concert when they show up for work. But it happened when I walked through the doors at Rockafairy in Medford for a photoshoot. Rockafairy provides a place for musicians to practice, learn, jam, borrow and repair their instruments. I wonder if this happens every day or if I just got lucky, but I heard some great sounds. They could have walked into any bar and put on a great show! What a treat!” (pg. 50)

“It all began with Oregon beer. At first, it was just what I drank because I lived here.

Now I look at beer as a global culture and work to push our understanding and appreciation of beer forward. But no matter how I view it, the Northwest and Oregon beer always end up in the center of the known universe. There must be something special in the water.” (pg. 22)

Tambi Lane has lived in Bend since 2003 with her two daughters. She now enjoys time with her partner and two French bulldogs.

Mandy Arroyo is a freelance designer and illustrator creating vibrant artwork inspired by travel, food and the outdoors.

Her creative studio is based in Beaverton, where she lives with her two favorite adventure partners: her husband and their dog.

Thomas Boyd has been a photojournalist in Oregon since the early ’90s and worked at The Register-Guard in Eugene and The Oregonian in Portland.

Boyd grew up in North Bend, Oregon, and now lives in Eugene, where he’s a director of photography at AHM Brands, an advertising agency.

10 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023

Jeremy Storton is an Advanced Cicerone®, beer educator, awardwinning podcaster and freediving instructor. He reprises his role as the Beerlandia columnist after a pandemic-inspired hiatus.

EDITOR

Kevin Max

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Allison Bye

WEB MANAGER

Aaron Opsahl

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER

Joni Kabana

OFFICE MANAGER

Cindy Miskowiec

DIRECTOR OF SALES

Jenny Kamprath

HOMEGROWN CHEF

Thor Erickson

BEERLANDIA COLUMNIST

Jeremy Storton

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Cathy Carroll, Jean Chen Smith, Melissa Dalton, Joni Kabana, Julie Lee, Kerry Newberry, Daniel O’Neil, Ben Salmon, James Sinks, Jen Sotolongo

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Corey Arnold, Thomas Boyd, David N. Braun, Tambi Lane, Daniel O’Neil, David Papazian

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS

Colin Andersen, Mandy Arroyo

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JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023

1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE 11

FROM THE

EDITOR

HAPPY NEW YEAR! In this year, we’ll look at some things in new ways and others square in the face.

Winter in Oregon has long been dominated by thoughts of and the actual pursuit of downhill skiing. But it’s not for everyone. In our feature on page 54, we look to the many other recreational opportunities that winter in Oregon offers. Do people ice fish in Oregon?

Is camping a serious proposal in winter? Isn’t summer camping already a challenge? Not if you rethink winter, as we do in this piece.

Another thing that we put in a new light is Dungeness crab. Most accounts of the crustacean implore us to do nothing more than to boil and add butter. Our Home Grown Chef thinks otherwise. Put on some Coltrane, turn to page 32 and make Thor’s Perfect Dungeness Crab Melt with its nuanced notes and improvisation on an original score.

Once upon a time, a fairy came to town and brought the gift of music to many children, with instruments and instruction, and you didn’t have to be rich to learn to play. Such is the case with Rockafairy, a Medford-based nonprofit that began with giving away two guitars and lessons through a giving tree at a Lowe’s hardware store. That notion expanded into a concept and, now, an icon for kids who want to learn to play instruments in Medford.

12 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023

Turn to page 50 to read about this inspiring story.

On the theme of looking at things squarely in the face this year, one of those things is Mount Hood and the climate and human pressure it’s under. The proximity of Mount Hood to Portland has made it popular for novice mountaineers hoping to summit a glacier. But climate change, social media and rank foolishness contribute to a dangerous scenario that increasingly ends with intervention by a search and rescue team that is stretched thin in personnel. Turn to page 60 as writer Daniel O’Neil explains the issue.

Something else we must confront is the idea of retirement. What will that look like? Where will it take place? Will it be one of continued adventure, a dive into the arts or daily walks along the coast? In our Best Places to Retire insert, we sifted taxes and hospitals and then applied a lens of our active and cultured reader to divine our top three places to retire in each, Oregon and Washington. This process took us to the Washington coast, the Columbia Gorge and into an upcoming wine region, among others.

Finally, this time of year, we must not turn away from the perennial question—which dark beer am I going to try? In Beerlandia on page 22, cicerone Jeremy Storton re-embraces the darkness and teaches us where we might find our own dark dream. Cheers!

1859 ONLINE More ways to connect with your favorite Oregon content www.1859oregonmagazine.com | #1859oregon | @1859oregon

have a photo that shows off your oregon experience?

Share it with us by filling out the Oregon Postcard form on our website. If chosen, you’ll be published here. www.1859oregon magazine.com/postcard photo by Masamichi Kishiku Mount McLoughlin in Southern Oregon.

ER ENT IN! W TO

EN TO TER WIN !

oregon coastal getaway

fivepine wanderlust snowshoe & bonfire package

Stay and play on the Oregon Coast! Enter for a chance to win an Oregon Coast travel package from Eugene, Cascades & Coast. One winner will receive two nights at Driftwood Shores Resort in Florence, two sandboard rentals at Sand Master Park in Florence and a family pass to Sea Lion Caves.

Enter for a chance to win a getaway to FivePine Lodge in Sisters! One winner will receive a relaxing two-night stay in FivePine’s Serenity Cabin, a Wanderlust Snowshoe & Bonfire Tour for two guided by Wanderlust Tours, two insulated FivePine tumblers and more.

Enter at www.1859oregonmagazine.com/ contests/oregoncoastgetaway Sweepstakes runs February 1-28.

Enter at www.1859oregonmagazine.com/ contests/fivepine Sweepstakes runs through January 31.

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023

1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE 13

NOTEBOOK 16 FOOD + DRINK 22 FARM TO TABLE 26 HOME + DESIGN 34

pg. 32 Our Homegrown Chef shares his recipe for a delicious Oregon Dungeness crab melt.

Tambi Lane

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 42

PELICAN BREWING AT SILETZ BAY

your new place to experience it all.

Cozy up fireside or kick back in the salty air with crisp brews and classic coastal cuisine—straight from the source. From expansive views to strolls on the boardwalk, find your new PNW tradition.

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Tidbits + To-dos written by Cathy Carroll

Healthy and Sweet

The clear-as-glass packaging reveals artful, unusual, gorgeous, ingredients strewn over rich, 70 percent dark chocolate: delicate, floral candied yuzu with nutty, crunchy roasted brown rice; subtly minty fennel pollen; gem-like chunks of roasted pistachio and spicy candied ginger. Portland’s Wildwood Chocolate draws from the local Wildwood Trail, with designs incorporating imagery of sword fern, Douglas fir cone and the iconic trillium flower, creating a handsculpted look honoring the place that inspired them.

From its intense dark cocoa powder and stevia-sweetened syrups to nutritional yeast and granola, NuNaturals of Eugene has been offering healthy food alternatives since it began in 1989. The newest products include energy-boosting MCT oil powder and collagen peptides protein powder. Warren Sablosky founded the family business, and favors the pumpkin spice syrup for his coffee.

A close runner up is the vanilla syrup made from vanilla bean, not flavoring.

www.wildwoodchocolate.com

www.nunaturals.com

Wildly Delicious

CA mar LE k yo ND ur AR

Explore a Snowbound Jewel Discover America’s deepest lake, renowned for its mesmerizing, jewel-like blue—Crater Lake—on snowshoes. Wanderlust Tours’ naturalist guides offer insight into this treasure’s natural history, created by the eruption of Mount Mazama 7,700 years ago. The company provides gear, lunch and knowledge about how to responsibly enjoy the vast landscape surrounding the pure, snow-melt water of our state’s sole national park. Typically a private tour offering, the Febraury 4 excursion offers this exploration to smaller groups. www.wanderlusttours.com/special-events

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Get Crafty, Not Thirsty

Oregon’s Mt. Hood Territory

Any day is a good day for Oregon craft beer, but February makes it official. Oregon Craft Beer Month, a frothy brew of fun, includes Zwickelmania, with meet-the-brewers, tastings, tours and food and beer pairings, February 19 in Portland and February 26 statewide. It’s also when the relaunched Mt. Hood Territory Tap Trail will be in full swing.

The free app, an expanded guide to breweries, cideries and distilleries, carries more prizes, including a getaway in Mt. Hood Territory worth more than $500. www.oregoncraftbeer.org/ oregon-craft-beer-month www.mthoodterritory.com/taptrail

High Desert Museum

ca mark le yo nd ur ar

Cupcakes on a Mission

The snow that blankets Oregon every winter is beautiful and fun, and that’s just the surface. The secret world that lies beneath is the subject of a new, original exhibit from Bend’s High Desert Museum. It dives down to where voles, shrews, insects and porcupines build a matrix of tunnels to survive the winter and hide from the predators that lurk above. Interactive graphics delve into the “subnivium” environment which protects plants and animals from frigid temperatures. www.highdesertmuseum.org

ca mar le k yo nd ur ar

Explore a Sub-Snow World

Supporting adults who’ve suffered brain injuries is no cake walk, but one doctorbaker does it beautifully. The hand-crafted cupcakes at Sarah Bellum’s Bakery & Workshop in Multnomah Village is the brainchild of Dr. Rik Lemoncello, a clinician, researcher and self-taught baker. He opened the shop in 2016, staffed by adults with brain injury as a way to help them in returning to work, play, and life. The bakery, which has rebounded post-pandemic, uses organic ingredients, offering a monthly rotation of flavors and seasonal favorites. www.sarahbellumsbakery.org

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023

1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE 17

Oregon’s

22 BEST ALBUMS of 2022

written by Ben Salmon illustration by Colin Andersen

FROM ASTORIA to Enterprise and from Ashland to Portland’s vaunted music scene, musicians across Oregon created some incredible sounds in 2022. Here are the 22 best albums released by artists across the state this year.

18 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE

Abronia Map of Dawn The second album from this Portland-based psychedelic band is like a portal to a particularly mind-bending desert landscape, where Southwestern twang-noir wraps around rust-colored pinnacles and tribal drum beats echo through meandering canyons.

On Map of Dawn, Abronia traipses along the freaky fringes of music, incorporating rumbling blues, cinematic country, dusty drones, free-range folk-rock, weird jazz, classic psych and more into its outthere sound.

JANUARY | FEBRUARY NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2023 2022

Desolation Horse Is Land In early June, the Astoria indie-folk-rock band Desolation

Horse surprise-released its second album, Is Land, with no monthslong buildup, no major marketing push, no carefully calculated promotional rollout. It was refreshing!

In a way, that approach feels perfectly in alignment with the music here, which is easygoing and unassuming, but endlessly tuneful. The engine that powers this mellow machine is a songwriter named Cooper Trail, an impressive talent just waiting to be discovered by a wider audience.

Zyah Belle Yam Grier Portland’s music scene is best known for its countless indie-folk and -rock bands, and there are plenty of those around. But the best album to come out of the city this year might just be Zyah Belle’s Yam Grier, a set of glittery,

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ultra-modern R&B tracks that are versatile enough to soundtrack a wild night out with friends, an evening on the dance floor or a deeply chilled after-party that stretches till sunrise. Belle is from California but now based in the Rose City, so we’re claiming her before she blows up big.

Long Knife Curb Stomp Earth It’s hard to imagine an album more appropriately named than this one, the third full-length from Portland punk lifers Long Knife. Curb Stomp Earth is a runaway train barrelling through the valley between the twin peaks of punk and rock, where breakneck tempos and gravel-throated vocals bounce off undeniable guitar heroics and irrepressible melodies. Whether they’re engaged in classic hardcore or they’re breakin’ out the keyboards and horns, Long Knife is hell-bent on delivering heavy tunes for heavy times.

Idit Shner & Mhondoro Heat Wave Here’s a project that embodies the diverse possibilities of making music in Oregon: Idit Shner is a celebrated Israeli saxophonist who lives in Eugene, where she heard intoxicating music coming from her neighbor’s house. Upon investigation, she met Zimbabwean vocalist and percussionist John Mambira. The two connected with three Oregonians on piano, bass and drums, and Mhondoro was born. Heat Wave is the first document of this musical melting pot, which spills over with classic jazz grooves, African rhythms and melodies, and a global perspective that feels more vital now than ever.

Lindsay Clark Carpe Noctem To get a sense for Lindsay Clark’s focus as a songwriter, take a look at the titles on her 2022 album Carpe Noctem: “Evening Star,” “Roses in the Sky,” “Tropical Birds, “Waves.” The Portlandbased folk singer excels at creating warm and vibrant mini-worlds using her shimmering voice, six expertly plucked acoustic guitar strings and imagery from the natural world as building blocks. If it’s escape you seek—and these days, who could blame you?—find your way to Clark’s music, close your eyes and let yourself be transported.

Mosley Wotta It’s Not The Year, It’s You Bend’s most prominent rapper-poet-educator-visual artist-and-all-around-nice-guy Jason Graham returned in 2022 with yet another chapter in the ever-evolving and always compelling Mosley Wotta story. This time, the message revolves not just around race, identity, inequality, immortality, love and trust, but also individual freedom and accountability for the choices we make and their effect on our community. As always, Graham delivers his rhymes with uncommon power and precision, backed by gritty, industrial beats created by his longtime producer Colten Tyler Williams.

Patricia Wolf See-Through Ambient music is everywhere these days, and Portland musician Patricia Wolf is one of the rising stars of the genre after releasing two excellent albums in 2022. The first, I’ll Look For You in Others, was a melancholy chronicle of loss that works perfectly as a precursor to the second, See-Through, a gentle pilgrimage through pulsing tones and pastoral zones. It’s always moving to hear an artist so skilled at telling stories without using words; Wolf is a master at making machines sound like life itself.

outside Ashland, which feels instructive when you consider the music they make together as Fellow Pynins. Lady Mondegreen is their second album, and it features traditional songs they learned as they toured through Europe in recent years, jamming with musicians on porches and in pubs along the way.

The songs are old, but the couple infuses them with modernity by stripping them down and letting their most basic elements shine.

Ural Thomas & The Pain Dancing Dimensions Ural Thomas is the king of North Portland, a living legend of soul music and, in many ways, the long-beating heart of Portland’s music scene. And at eightysomething years old, he sounds as vibrant as ever on Dancing Dimensions, a 14-track collection of patient, psychedelic soul and funk that showcases not only Thomas’ velvety voice, but also the skills of his tightly knit backing band, The Pain. It’s not easy to sound both vintage cool and forward-looking at the same time, but Ural and his crew make it sound like it is.

11 MORE ALBUMS WORTH HEARING

Cassandra Lewis Always, All Ways For a moment, you think you’ve got Cassandra Lewis figured out: She’s a Portlander with an affinity for soulful country music and a big voice. And then, about four minutes into the song “Darlin’” she unleashes an eye-popping, stair-stepping vocal run that revises your assessment in an instant. In fact, Lewis possesses a world-class voice, which she uses to great effect all over Always, All Ways, belting here, yodeling there, employing tender vibrato when appropriate, climbing to great melodic heights with apparent ease and generally delivering a show-stopping performance.

Bryson the Alien | The Great Adventures Of …

George Colligan | King’s Dream The Color Study | Future Past Present Tense The Dumpies | Greatest Hits So Far Daemones | Petrichords Hoaxed | Two Shadows Michael Hurley | The Time Of The Foxgloves Last Year’s Man | Time Is A Sparrow Daniel Sherrill | From A Heritage Tree

Fellow Pynins Lady Mondegreen

Anna Tivel | Outsiders

Ian George and Dani Aubert live off the grid in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument

The Weather Machine | Applecore

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023

1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE 19

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Bibliophile

Camille Cole’s coming of age in the Vaudville culture of the Oregon Country Fair.

Bohemian Byways and Beyond Memoir details a life shaped by ’60s and ’70s counterculture interview by Cathy Carroll

IN HER NEW MEMOIR, The Midnight Show: bohemians, byways & bonfires, Portland’s Camille Cole takes us along on her life-altering journey, after migrating to Oregon from upstate New York and discovering her place among the mavericks of the early days of the Oregon Country Fair and back-to-the-land communes such as the Bus Farm, where her trip around the country on a house-bus began. The fair’s midnight show was a conduit for pranksters and a new age of vaudevillians—sword swallowers, jugglers and fire-eaters—and where she was married. It’s one of many adventures Cole shares about comingof-age during the counterculture movement and going on to become a leader in education reform.

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1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023

What insights do you think readers might take away from your memoir?

The Baby Boom generation lived through some notable times that shook the nation, and though each one of us maneuvered through these times in our own way, many of our stories intersect in surprising and similar ways. I’ve had so many readers tell me that my story evoked memories, both painful and joyful. One reader referred to the similarities as universal truths.

Another reader mused that the story “… captures the spirit of a never-to-comeagain era.”

I was able to look back and laugh at some of my foibles, forgive myself for some of my questionable choices, and even feel a certain empathy for the young woman who, at the time, just didn’t know enough about life to make better decisions.

Readers have and will be inspired to look back at their own journey with a gentler perspective. The mistakes we made, or the adventures we had, inform who we are today and are to be relished.

Baby Boom readers will take away the knowledge that they weren’t and aren’t alone.

Millennial and GenX readers may gain knowledge and understanding of what their parents and grandparents lived through, and may also come to understand that in their own way and through their own experiences, they are much the same.

How much is the Country Fair still a part of your life?

We have the kind of relationships when we’re younger, when we experience the birth of something such as the Oregon Country Fair, that somehow binds us for years to come. While I haven’t seen some of those people for many years, we can take up as though it was only yesterday, and we were shuffling down the dusty paths that weave through the fair. When I do see these old friends, and I just had lunch yesterday with an old friend who played a leadership role from the very first fair, we share memories and stories and laugh and cluck our tongues. I am amazed that we remember some of these stories in so much detail. It was an important and significant time.

How did writing about this time affect you?

People ask me how I can remember some of the stories from so long ago. I say I took notes but no prisoners.

I also realized that the tactile act of writing, of putting fingers to keys or pen to paper, brings memories back that you may have thought were gone forever. Some of the stories I wrote about may have been painful at the time, but today they can make me laugh ‘til I cry, or even speak to that young girl or young woman and tell her she was brave. She did the best she could at the time. I was also impressed at how far I had managed to come and turned out to be a nationally recognized education innovator and author.

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food + drink

Cocktail Card recipe courtesy of Patrick Lee Warner, Bistro Alder / PORTLAND

“Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker. This Pomme Flambe Sidecar delivers both in a balanced and fun Northwest twist on the classic Sidecar cocktail,” says Warner.

• 2 ounces Courvoisier Cognac VS • 1/2 ounce roasted apple syrup (see recipe below) • 1/4 lemon • 3 dashes Angostura bitters • 2 slices roasted apple • 1 spritz 151 Rum FOR POACHED APPLES AND APPLE SYRUP • 1 apple • 1/2 cup brown sugar • 1 cup apple cider FOR POACHED APPLES AND APPLE SYRUP Peel one apple, quarter, core and place in sauce pan with ½ cup brown sugar and 1 cup apple cider. Bring to a boil and take off heat. Allow apples to stew in the liquid and cool slowly, storing your apples in the syrup.

Place in a food safe food storage container for up to 7 days.

FOR COCKTAIL In a cocktail shaker, add large-format ice, Cognac, reserved Roasted Apple Syrup, fresh squeezed lemon juice and 3 dashes of Angostura Bitters. Cap and shake slowly for 2 minutes.

Thin slice a quarter apple and fan across one side of the coupe glass. Spray the coupe with 2 spritzes of 151 into the glass.

When the drink is well shaken and ready to strain, ignite the 151 with a bar torch (a long barbequestyle lighter works as well) and allow it to burn for 30 seconds. Pour strained drink over the sliced apple and extinguish the flambe.

22 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE

Cj Juan/Porter Brewing Co.

Northwest Pomme Flambe Sidecar

One way to satiate your dark beer craving in Central Oregon is Porter Brewing Co. in Redmond.

Beerlandia

Embracing the Darkness written by Jeremy Storton IT’S COLD OUTSIDE, and I’m hunkering down in an old speakeasy where, instead of illicit spirits, there are a lot of taps. Despite the dim lighting, my beer is quite cheery. I’m drinking an oatmeal stout. First time in years. I normally gravitate toward other styles, but today it’s just what I needed. Roasty flavors, faint notes of coffee, subtle bitterness, and a slick body delight my senses and serve as a fleece jacket for my soul. I had forgotten how cathartic it feels to brood with a dark beer in winter.

From German influence, we find flavors of dark bread, chocolate, nuts and toast in beers like a dunkel, a schwartz, or an elegant doppelgänger bock from breweries like Heater Allen or Chuckanut. If you’re into banana bread with a side of booze, then a dark weizenbock will improve your chill factor in more ways than one.

A Belgian dubbel and a quad share warmth, not through roastiness, but through a dry body, clean alcohol and flavors reminiscent of raisins, nuts, and a nod toward clove and all-spice. Breweries like Monkless and Pfriem are knocking these out of the park.

Home of porters and stouts, the U.K. is well adapted for brooding in cold weather. Wee heavies, imperial stouts, or my oatmeal stout sitting in front of me, are sweet, smooth and delightful. Breweries like Santiam, Fort George, Porter Brewing and Pelican usually have these lined up for winter.

Many people find dark beers intimidating. The truth is, while some are intense, most are comforting, especially in winter. With Craft Beer Month coming in February, we have a chance to sink deeply into our glasses and embrace the darkness. Just add a fire, and hopefully a little snuggle.

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HERE’S TO WHATEVER OPENS YOUR DOOR Timberline Vodka is created by and for the “Outer Class” in a little part of the world called Hood River where there’s a lot more outside than inside. We distill our enthusiasm with Pacific Northwest apples, grain, and glacier-fed spring water from Mt. Hood. Outwards!

D O U B L E G O L D W I N N E R 2021 San Francisco World Spirits Competition

A proud partner of The Freshwater Trust, a nonprofit with a mission to preserve and restore freshwater ecosystems, including rivers, streams and creeks across the West. Distilled and bottled by Hood River Distillers, Inc., Hood River, Oregon. © 2023 Timberline® Vodka, 40% Alc/Vol, Gluten Free. www.timberlinevodkas.com. Stay in Control®.

Kathryn Elsesser

food + drink

CRAVINGS:

APRÈS-SKI SNACKS RAM’S HEAD BAR AND RESTAURANT After a day of schussing down the slopes of Mount Hood, the tallest mountain in the state, head to this casual spot located on the second-floor balcony of Timberline Lodge.

From the windows of this woodsy tavern, you can watch snowflakes flurry while sipping a local pinot noir paired with hearty plates like elk bratwurst with huckleberries or baked brie and potatoes.

27500 E. TIMBERLINE RD. GOVERNMENT CAMP www.timberlinelodge.com

The Oregon Truffle Festival, going on twenty years, brings pungency to savory and sweet dishes to great delight.

Gastronomy

Oregon Truffle Festival written by Kerry Newberry ONE OF THE bright spots of a Northwest winter is the Oregon Truffle Festival.

Where else can you romp through misty forests on a guided truffle foray, partake in lectures with renowned mycologists and indulge in exceptional wine and truffle dinners?

For almost twenty years, fungi and foraging enthusiasts have flocked to this winter fête to celebrate the state’s native black and white truffles. The luxurious ingredient grows wild in Oregon and is prized around the world for the umami flavor it adds to dishes.

Most often found flourishing beneath the roots of Douglas fir trees, the fragrant fungi play an exceptional game of hide and seek. One of the best ways to root out the heady mushrooms is with a truffle dog and the festival includes a popular two-day training for dog owners along with The Joriad North American Truffle Dog Competition, the only event of its kind in North America.

In 2023, extended programming offers many ways to up your truffle knowledge from cooking classes and a truffle marketplace to a truffle growers forum and a truffle-inspired film festival—serving Participants at the Truffle truffle popcorn, of course. For a complete list of Festival’s truffle dog competition. events visit www.oregontrufflefestival.org. (photo: Kathryn Elsesser) 24 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE

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THE COMMONS CAFÉ & TAPROOM Get your groove on at the Après Ski Bash Concert Series in downtown Bend. During peak winter, you can catch local performers at The Commons rocking the night away once a month. Bundle up around the outdoor fire pits with a local brew and some tacos for a starlit serenade overlooking Drake Park.

875 NW BROOKS ST. BEND www.thecommonsbend.com

THE BARN IN SISTERS Whether you are nordic or night skiing or attending the Winter Carnival at Hoodoo, the nearby town of Sisters is a great spot to get snowed in. Find the post-ski crowd in pom pom beanies lining up at The Barn, pairing local wines and creative cocktails with bites from the partner food trucks ranging from wood-fired pizza and classic barbecue to vegan eats.

171 E. MAIN ST. SISTERS www.thebarninsisters.com

Modoc Stories; food photos: Evan Sung

BEST PLACES FOR

THE ULTIMATE CHEESE PLATE THE OREGON CHEESE CAVE Don’t miss this specialty cheese shop in the tiny town of Phoenix. You’ll want to chat with owner Melodié Picard, originally from Normandie, as you select from an array of local and European cheeses. She’s also got the scoop on Southern Oregon wines and perfectly pairs popular producers with artisan cheeses in her lounge area. Follow the shop’s Instagram account for events with nearby wineries, cideries and breweries.

312 N. MAIN ST., UNIT A PHOENIX www.oregoncheesecave.com

ABOVE Ōkta, a new star in McMinnville’s dining scene, has its own farm nearby. AT RIGHT Each dish is a farm-to-table work of art at Ōkta.

Dining

Ōkta

written by Kerry Newberry

Every town needs a one-stop culinary shop like Good Company Cheese.

The cheery space is packed to the brim with small-production olive oil, charcuterie, tinned fish, condiments and crackers. And of course, a world of cheese. You’ll find everything you need for an impromptu dinner party or wine country weekend. Bonus: there’s a charming cafe tucked into the back where you can order hearty snacks like burrata bruschetta and fondue for two.

IS THE MOST beautiful dish the luminous ceramic orb cradling Oregon Dungeness crab with silky mushroom custard and stone-ground grits? The whisper thin slices of turnips checkered across rockfish with huckleberry puree and earthy shitake mushrooms—or the sunny meringue snug in a scooped-out lemon sprinkled with lemon thyme leaves?

These are but a few of the wonderful and wildly inventive dishes dreamed up by chef Matthew Lightner at Ōkta, the Willamette Valley’s latest epicurean destination. You might know Lightner MORE INSIDE from Portland’s Castagana, where he built a devoted followRead more about ing with his farm and forage-inspired menu. He then alighted to Ōkta’s location New York City for a stint at Atera, earning the acclaimed Tribeat McMinnville’s Tributary Hotel in ca restaurant two Michelin stars.

Lodging on pg. 82 His return to Oregon brings this immersive fine-dining experience that taps into all the senses. Each dish resembles a mini work of art—exquisite in presentation with a depth of flavor that verges on symphonic. The ingredients hail from the restaurant’s nearby one-acre farm and kitchen lab, where a team grows heirloom fruit and vegetables, bakes bread from an outdoor woodfired oven and has a dedicated fermentation chef.

Recently, the restaurant expanded the ways you can partake in its enchanting dinners. In addition to its signature tasting menu (fifteen to twenty courses on weekends), you can head to the subterranean lounge, a softly lit space that offers a respite from the world with exceptional service and an à la carte menu.

Bar snacks might include an umami-laden tart with slivers of fragrant truffles or blue curry squash topped with grilled caviar. For the ultimate match, tap into sommelier Ron Acierto’s deep wine list that’s packed with rare bottles both global and local (yes, that is a 1990 Eyrie Vineyards pinot noir).

As he jets in and out of the glowing walk-in wine cellar and pours wine tableside, the stories Acierto shares only add to the wondrous feast.

602 E. 1ST ST., SUITE A NEWBERG www.goodcheesecompany.com

618 NE 3RD ST. MCMINNVILLE www.oktaoregon.com

COWBELL Imagine if you had a BFF who was also a cheese monger. Meet Cowbell. Sure, you can shop the tiny but mighty brickframed shop stocked with seventy-five different traditionally-made cheeses from Europe and across the U.S. But what sets this spot apart is their creative platters. From the All Bell, No Cow with soft-ripened Loire Valley goat cheeses and Basque Tommes to a selection of cheeses with crunchy crystals, the cheesemongers here are expert matchmakers.

231 SE ALDER ST. PORTLAND www.cowbellpdx.com

GOOD COMPANY CHEESE

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farm to table

With a shellfish license, anyone can take to crabbing off of docks, such as this one in Bandon.

The belle of Oregon’s maritime ball, Dungeness crab is the state’s most valuable single species fishery.

Farm to Table

Catching Crustaceans ’Tis the season for Dungeness delicacy INTERNATIONALLY SOUGHT for its sweet flavor, Oregon Dungeness crab appeals to all, from foodies to newbies who want to wade a toe into eating seafood.

Commercially harvested since the 1800s, Oregon is well known for Dungeness. The Dungeness crab fishery is Oregon’s most valuable “single species” fishery, and Oregon named the Dungeness crab the official state crustacean in 2009.

The Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission, fully funded by commercial crab fishermen, was established in 1977 to research, educate and promote the image of crab. Tim Novotny was recently named executive director of the commission. “We try to be good industry partners wherever we can,” said Novotny, “supporting our fishermen by inspiring ongoing dialogue with the academic community, keeping abreast of the issues facing our ocean resource, and driving research to help maintain a sustainable fishery. Our fishermen depend on us to keep up to date on challenges they’re facing and help explain to the public how they’re being impacted by those challenges.”

With minimal gear and patience, even a novice can catch Dungeness, found up and down 363 miles of Oregon coastline. Easily identified by white-tipped claws and as Novotny points out “the ‘little coyote,’ or devil horn sheep,” on their back, Dungeness crabs reside in both shallow estuaries and deep ocean waters.

Fascinating creatures by nature, they walk sideways to avoid tripping and immediately grow new legs to replace any lost in a fight.

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Photos: Steve Dimock/Oregon Coast Visitors Association

written by Julie Lee

farm to table

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Oregon Coast Visitors Association

Dave Schaerer

farm to table

ABOVE, FROM TOP Recreational crabber Dave Schaerer poses with his bounty.

Crab fishermen prepare the boat for a crabbing trip at Port of Brookings Harbor.

Crabs hatch as tiny larvae, settling on the ocean’s bottom floor once they become dime-size. During the first two years of life, they shed their shells multiple times, a process called molting, getting bigger each time.

Dungeness crab season runs December to August, with sweet spot seasonality sometime in the first six to eight weeks of opening. There are many ways to catch crab, and while it’s conceivable to crab from a dock with rings or even a fishing rod, taking out a boat with traps or pots gives greater access.

Crabbing faces new challenges due to climate change and other factors. The cancellation of the Alaska snow crab season last year shocked the industry, following the cancellation of the king crab season in 2021 and 2022. Kelly Laviolette worries this will put pressure on Oregon Dungeness, a “small business that gives everyone a taste.”

Laviolette owned Kelly’s Brighton Marina for over a decade, crabbing commercially and recently retired, selling the business to a young family. He said the commercial crabbing business is hard but rewarding work, and he and his wife enjoyed Kelly’s Marina being a micro-destination for people to gather. “Crabbing is always this simple connecting rod,” he said. “It’s a great experience for kids to work in the business—as close to being an Alaskan experience as you can get. You can tell how successful people are at crabbing by how wet they get. Myself—I like to be the puller.”

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Laviolette feels crabbing should be a top five list of things to do for any Oregon visitors. “It’s like therapy,” said Laviolette. “It’s a simple activity that doesn’t change through the years. When crabbing is good, it’s so rewarding.”

Recreational crabber Dave Schaerer agrees. Schaerer grew up fishing the Umpqua River “from the time I could walk.” Now 75 years old, he “is addicted to crabbing. It’s in my DNA—a wonderful source of friendships, memories and beautiful photography.”

Schaerer loves the idea of food to table after living off the land as a young man and feels it’s critical for a younger generation to get involved in crabbing and fishing. “I spend a lot of time in Tillamook Bay—I see older people like me, retirees, but not nearly as many young people,” he said. “It concerns me. I don’t think young people realize how critical it is to treasure these fisheries and enhance them. This is part of our heritage.”

Peter Kirk, whose son Fischer worked for Kelly’s Marina and himself starting fishing as a toddler, agrees. “I like to spawn interest in the younger generation to explore, recreate the outdoors,” Kirk said. “The extra benefit of crabbing is the bounty of the sea, the saltwater, the sound of the ocean waves, the sea life!

It all feels good—very positive ions. Good energy!”

Schaerer claims the past few years have been some of the best crabbing in memory. “We see an abundance of bait fish in the ocean,” he said. “The crabs are doing well. Sometimes we get skunked fishing, but we never get skunked crabbing.” His advice for getting into the industry? “Find a friend who has a boat and go out. You’ll become addicted like me.”

Darci Hansen of Berkshire Hathaway Garibaldi has followed that advice, going out whenever she can. She first went crabbing as a 7-year-old and like Laviolette, “always liked to do the pulling” as soon as she was old enough to carry the heavy pots. Her favorite way to eat crab is slightly warm, right from the shell, a recipe you can find here from chef Leif Benson of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission.

Fisherman’s Market in Eugene is one of the best places to find fresh seafood inland, and owner Ryan Rogers shares his favorite crab recipe, Fisherman’s Market Jalapeño Dungeness Crab Dip. And if you are in the mood for savory comfort food, McMinnville’s Humble Spirit contributes their delicious Dungeness Crab Pot Pie recipe.

“It’s like therapy. It’s a simple activity that doesn’t change through the years.

When crabbing is good, it’s so rewarding.”

— Kelly Laviolette, former Kelly’s Brighton Marina owner

LOOKING FOR YOUR NEXT ADVENTURE? THERE’S SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE IN NEWPORT!

Your adventure starts here:

D I S C O V E R N E W P O R T. C O M 1-800-COAST-44

FOODIE

ADVENTURER

FAMILY

FISHING

BEACHES AND LANDMARKS

HIKING

farm to table

Oregon Recipes

Get Cozy and Crabby Oregon Dungeness Crab Roasted with Garlic and Lemon Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission / COOS BAY Chef Leif Benson SERVES 2-4 • • • • • • • • • • •

2 whole Dungeness crabs, cleaned ¼ cup unsalted butter 8 garlic cloves, chopped ½ cup scallions, cut into 1 inch sections ½ cup red bell peppers, julienned 1/3 cup dry white wine 1 lemon, squeezed into juice 1 teaspoon chili flakes, optional 1 teaspoon black pepper Salt to taste 2 tablespoons parsley, chopped

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine all ingredients except crab and scallions in sauce pot (or glass bowl if microwaved) to heat until garlic is cooked.

Crack crab legs and cut body into desired portions. Place into cast iron pan and toss crab with butter mixture to coat and add scallions. Place into oven and roast for 15 minutes or until the desired warm temperature is reached.

Serve with fresh lemon.

Ryan Rogers cooks up fresh Dungeness crab outside of Fisherman’s Market in Eugene.

Fisherman’s Market Jalapeño Dungeness Crab Dip

MAKES 1 PINT

• ½ teaspoon Frank’s RedHot sauce or sriracha sauce • ¼ cup mayonnaise • ¼ cup sour cream • 1/3 lb. cream cheese, softened • 1 jalapeño

• • • • •

Process jalapeño in food processor. In a bowl, mix mayonnaise, sour cream and softened cream cheese. Add processed jalapeño to the mix. Add the remaining ingredients to the mix. Stir until mixed well.

Fisherman’s Market / EUGENE Ryan Rogers, Owner

Chef Leif Benson’s Oregon Dungeness Crab Roasted with Garlic and Lemon.

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¼ lb. Oregon Dungeness crab meat ¼ tablespoon minced garlic ¼ cup grated cheddar cheese ½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce ½ teaspoon salt

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Dungeness Crab Pot Pie from Humble Spirit.

Humble Spirit Dungeness Crab Pot Pie

Humble Spirit / MCMINNVILLE Brett Uniss SERVES 4 FOR THE CRAB FILLING • ½ pound lump Dungeness crab meat • 4 pieces Source Farms smoked bacon, diced • 2 ounces butter • 1 tablespoon shallot, minced • 1 each medium yellow onion, diced • ¾ cup celery, diced • 1 each leek bottom, washed and diced • ½ cup Yukon Gold potatoes, diced • 2 ounces flour • 1 cup white wine • 4 ounces heavy cream • 3 cups whole milk • 1 each bay leaf • 2 tablespoons parsley, chopped • Kosher salt to taste • Black pepper, ground to taste FOR THE BISCUIT TOP • 2 cups flour • 1 tablespoon baking powder • 1 teaspoon kosher salt • 1 teaspoon sugar • 5 ounces butter, diced • ¾ cups whole milk FOR THE CRAB FILLING In a medium-size sauce pot on medium heat, render the diced bacon until it begins to brown.

Reduce heat to low and add butter and minced shallot and sweat the shallots until they are clear and soft.

Add diced onion, celery, leek and diced potato, and cook until almost tender.

Sprinkle the vegetable mixture with the flour and stir until the flour thickens and is combined with the fat, creating a light roux. Add the white wine to the mixture and stir to incorporate and allow alcohol to evaporate, add the heavy cream and stir until mixture comes back to a simmer.

Finally, add the milk and bay leaf and bring to a simmer.

Let simmer while stirring for about 20 minutes until the potatoes are fully tender and the flour flavor cooks out.

Season the filling with salt, pepper, chopped parsley and your favorite hot sauce (optional), and adjust thickness with milk if needed. Remove the bay leaf and pour the mixture into an oven-safe casserole dish.

FOR THE BISCUIT TOP In a mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients and add the diced butter. With your fingers, work the butter into the dry mixture until it is fully incorporated and the mixture resembles almond meal.

With a wood spoon or rubber spatula, stir in the milk until the mixture just become homogenous.

TO ASSEMBLE Pre-heat a convection oven to 400 degrees.

Scoop the biscuit top on top of the crab filling with a spoon or small ice cream scoop. Leave space between scoops for the filling to bubble and the topping to expand.

Bake at 400 degrees for 1215 minutes until the topping is brown and cooked through and the filling is bubbling hot.

Remove the pot pie from the oven and allow to cool for 1520 minutes before enjoying.

farm to table

The Oregon Dungeness crab melt. Just add Coltrane for spice.

Homegrown Chef

The Best Things in Life written by Thor Erickson | photography by Tambi Lane I BECAME enamored with crab as a child. About once a year, my dad would arrive home carrying a bucket overflowing with fresh Dungeness crabs and a baguette tucked under his arm. On these occasions, everyone would stop what they were doing and get busy performing their assigned tasks. Dad steamed the crabs. Mom made a salad and warmed the baguette.

My sisters cut lemons, lined the dinner table with newspapers and found the crab crackers. I got to put on the record album. Dad would shout from our tiny bustling kitchen, “Anything by Cal Tjader or … Coltrane!”

“Coltrane it is,” I would shout back. We would spend hours sitting around the table, picking and eating steamed crab from the shell, dipping it in hot butter and talking and laughing. Everyone’s smiling faces glistening with butter and

satisfaction. It was at these dinners that I fell in love with crab.

As I grew older, I became obsessed with crab and sought to find the best kind. Alaskan king crab, Chesapeake blue crab, Florida stone crab, Norwegian brown crab, Mexican spider crab. While these varieties of the crustacean are all delicious in their own ways, none of them come close to Dungeness crab. Aside from having the best flesh-to-shell ratio, the crab meat is a perfect balance of meaty, salty and sweet. Dungeness crab is the best. There, I said it.

So, go and get some fresh Dungeness crabs and a crusty loaf of bread, melt some butter, open a bottle of Oregon pinot gris, throw some newspaper on the dinner table and jazz on the turntable. Call up family and friends and enjoy the best things in life. Make sure to have plenty of crab for leftovers to make this Perfect Crab Melt.

The Perfect Crab Melt SERVES 2

• 1/4 cup grated Muenster cheese • ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard • One dash of Worcestershire sauce

• 8 ounces fresh Dungeness crab meat • 3 tablespoons mayonnaise • 1/2 celery stalk, finely diced • 3 scallions (green onions), sliced thin, divided equally; save some for garnish • 1 clove fresh garlic, minced • Zest from 1 lemon • 2 teaspoons lemon juice • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper • 2 slices of crusty sourdough bread • 1 large tomato, cut into 4 thin slices • 1/4 cup grated cheddar cheese

Combine the mayonnaise, celery, scallions, garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce and cayenne in a bowl. Gently fold in the crab meat.

Lightly toast the bread and place on a baking sheet. Spread the crab mixture over the toasted bread. Top each piece with a slice of tomato and mixed grated cheeses.

Place the baking sheet under the broiler and broil until the cheese melts and gets slightly bubbly (about 2 to 3 minutes). Garnish with sliced scallion.

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farm to table

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home + design

Coastal Connection

A couple builds their dream home suspended over a bluff on the Oregon Coast written by Melissa Dalton

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home + design

Photos: © 2022 David Papazian: David Papazian Photography

SEAL ROCK is a small community between Newport and Waldport on the Oregon Coast, with a cluster of commercial buildings along one side of the Pacific Coast Highway and the houses tucked into the coastal pines.

What the small town—population: 1,600—might lack in defined street presence, it more than makes up for in natural beauty: that being 2.5 miles of craggy rocks partially immersed in the ocean along the shore, named the Seal Rocks for the seals and sea lions that call them home.

Rob Haverty and David Olsen’s lot in Seal Rock sits on the bluff looking directly down into the rocks, and a more picturesque coastal spot is hard to imagine. Even their realtor was incredulous that it was still available when the couple first visited in 2019. “We saw this property, and fell in love with it,” said Haverty. “Everyone fell in love with it. Our realtor was like, ‘If I’d known this was available, I would’ve bought it.’”

Haverty, a senior product manager at Adobe, and Olsen, a nature photographer, were frequent visitors to the area over the years, often staying in Otter Rock north of Newport, or in David’s case, visiting for shoots. They long had plans to retire to the Central coast from their previous home in Woodinville, Washington. Upon finding and falling for their Seal Rock site, they did their due diligence before purchasing. “It was a long process because we weren’t going to buy it until we knew that we could get septic,” said Haverty. “We had to have a geo survey, and get ODOT’s permission to have a driveway. So, it took us five

AT LEFT A couple’s dream house in Seal Rock is anchored by 40-foot pilings. ABOVE The architects created private views from windows.

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home + design

ABOVE The Seal Rock bluff house has angled windows and wells for privacy and views. AT LEFT The bluff house’s kitchen island hung with blown-glass pendants.

The living room is the coastal show room, with a gas-burning fireplace and gorgeous views for storm watching.

months to close.” Along the way, the couple teamed up with Newport firm, Capri Architecture, and contractor, Cunningham Built.

“We learned that designing and building a house on the coast is entirely different from building one inland,” said Haverty.

For the architects, Amanda and Dustin Capri, the first challenge is coping with coastal erosion, a natural process wherein the land is worn away by rising sea levels, storms, and flooding, but which is hastened by climate change. That means the best part of the couple’s site, the view into the rocks, was also the hardest to build upon. “There’s a pretty significant setback from the bluff in order to create a foundation that’s going to endure for the longevity of the home and remain in a safe location,” said Amanda.

“Once you’re that far back from the bluff to be safe, you’re disconnected from that view.”

The solution was to anchor the home’s foundation past the setback, with the contractor driving in piles forty feet down to hold the home into the hillside, then place the main living spaces and bedrooms on the second floor, which is then cantilevered out fifteen feet. The living room occupies the cantilever, wrapped on three sides in large windows that reach up to a sixteen-foot-tall ceiling, with the dining room and kitchen stepped behind it, so all rooms can partake of the view.

That central core is flanked on either side by the bedroom wings, with the main suite on one side, and a guest bedroom, bathroom, and utility room on the other. Cleverly, the architects positioned a covered outdoor porch fronting either bedroom, and made each porch accessible to the living room via large sliding glass doors.

“It’s funny because people come to the coast to storm watch, but we actually have a fairly temperate climate, and it’s not really that cold,” said Dustin. “So, if you can provide a place that’s protected from the wind and rain, people can use it year-round.”

The architects also shielded the couple from sightlines into the neighbor’s houses by carving out ten angled splayed window wells, five on each side of the home, and covered in contrasting cedar for definition. “Rob and David can look out through these window wells and feel as though they’re getting their panoramic view out to those gorgeous rocks,” said Amanda. “But when you look directly at the wall from outside, you can’t see into the rooms at all.”

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Photos: © 2022 David Papazian: David Papazian Photography

home + design

The porch is accessible by large sliding doors and makes a peaceful summer retreat.

After a build process complicated by the pandemic, the couple moved in spring of 2022, unpacking, and slowly getting to know their new home. There are the little things to enjoy, like spreading out the meal-making on the large kitchen island, illuminated above by pendants made by the glassblower down the road. Or much bigger discoveries, like falling asleep listening to the waves churn in the rocks below, and tracking storms and the local wildlife, like eagles, whales, and seals, sometimes with a camera, as David snaps pictures from one of the porches. “It really is our dream home,” said Olsen.

“It’s a really special location because it’s so connected to the rocks that are unique to Seal Rock,” said Amanda. “There are a lot of coastal sites, but there are very few that get to embody that specific corner. We wanted them to feel like they’re living in those rocks, that they’re really part of this view, perched on the cliff, and experiencing it in a dynamic way.”

“It’s a really special location because it’s so connected to the rocks that are unique to Seal Rock. There’s a lot of coastal sites, but there’s very few that get to embody that specific corner.”

— Amanda Capri, architect

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home + design

DIY: Design a Healthy Home Office FROM SMALL tweaks, to “active chairs,” to well-timed recess—hey, breaks are important!— we’ve compiled the top tips for designing a healthy home office.

ADJUST YOUR CHAIR Set the chair at a height that allows your elbows to rest at a 90-degree angle. If this lifts your feet off the ground, bring in a footrest.

ADD AN “ACTIVE CHAIR” Gone are the days when a simple wood kitchen chair will cut it—active, or dynamic, sitting promotes natural movement rather than forcing the body to stay in a static position. Choosing a more active chair depends on personal preference, but there are all kinds of seats available, such as stools for standing desks, saddle chairs, kneeling chairs, and balance balls.

STAND UP Speaking of encouraging more physical movement, outfit the desk so standing during the workday is an option, albeit making sure to keep those elbows at 90 degrees. Adjustable height desks make this easier, but if you already have a desk that you want to keep in use, add a standing desk converter to the top to raise the height. Adding a cushioned mat on 38

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the floor will be easy on the joints, while a balance board underfoot will stimulate more movement.

LIFT THE MONITOR The top of the monitor should be about eye level, with the screen at arm’s length, so as to prevent eye strain. Use a stack of books, or a monitor stand, to get it in the right spot. When using two monitors equally, make it so you are looking directly where they meet, so as not to have to turn the head too much either way.

that elbows retain that 90-degree angle. Make sure the mouse is close enough so that you’re not engaging your shoulder and reaching for it, but rather swiveling out from the elbow, and there’s no weird angles or weight upon the wrists.

TAKE RECESS Follow the 20-20-20 rule. For every 20 minutes staring at the screen, turn your gaze to something 20 feet away for 20 seconds.

Every hour, get out of the chair and take a longer break, whether that’s stretching, eating, going for a walk, or a game of kickball.

RAISE UP THE LAPTOP A laptop kickstand allows the device to be placed atop angled brackets, to facilitate air circulation and prevent overheating. It’s also a great means for raising the laptop screen so the neck isn’t craning to look down too long.

Just plug in a separate keyboard and mouse to get the wrists in the correct position.

ZONE THE MOUSE + KEYBOARD Place the keyboard and mouse so

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023

The besT in AlAskA VAcATions Denali Rail Tours • Multi-Day Packages • Sightseeing Excursions

home + design

Oregon Products Inspired by the Bluff House

www.fernwehwoodworking.com

Since 1992, Oregon Metro has been recycling leftover, donated house paint and turning it into MetroPaint, a line of twelve colors available in numerous locations in Oregon and Washington. Purchasing the recycled paint has a host of environmental benefits, like saving space in landfills and reducing the pollution associated with producing latex paint. Plus, at $15 a gallon, it feels equally good at the cash register. www.oregonmetro.gov/tools-living/ healthy-home/metropaint

You can always stroll the sand looking for sea glass as a keepsake, or check out the hand-blown glass art at Ocean Beaches Glassblowing in Seal Rock. There, find locally handmade, colorful pieces by artist Bob Meyer, including floats, memorial glass, and lighting, the latter which illuminates the Bluff House. www.oceanbeachesglass.com

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Photos, clockwise from left: Fernweh Woodworking, Oregon Metro, © 2022 David Papazian: David Papazian Photography

The tagline for Fernweh Woodworking, a small-batch furniture and design studio based in Bend, is “curious woodworkers keeping the craft alive.” That craft is evident in the Tripod Table, an end table with an unexpected silhouette and a trio of deftly joined legs.

Available in three sizes, which can handily nest together, and in three different woods.

Introducing Caramel Confections For Valentine’s Day At Fine Washington Retailers and Always Online at wildwoodchocolate.com

O P E N S J A N U A RY 2 8

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artist in residence

Distilling the Mystery Photographer Jody Miller intuitively captures light on the North Coast written by Daniel O’Neil

Daniel O’Neil

JODY MILLER sees photography from distinct vantage points. She met her mentors during the film era, photographers like Arthur Ollman and Olivia Parker, and attended a workshop series given by Ansel Adams in 1982. She made prints in the darkroom, a place she never liked, and still appreciates what she calls film’s “organic softness,” which she believes cannot be duplicated in digital photography. Yet she now works entirely with digital cameras.

Jody Miller has plenty of material and light to keep her busy with a camera in Astoria.

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Photos: Jody Miller

artist in residence

“I could not get the results that I wanted until Photoshop came along and I started working in the digital darkroom,” Miller said. “I took negatives from the early ’80s and could really process them into the images that I wanted to see originally. And I said, ‘Oh my god, I can achieve my vision here in this way.’”

That revelation occurred in 2003. By 2005, Miller was living part time in Astoria, where she has recently installed herself full time. Retirement after forty years as a designer and animator in the television industry allowed Miller to concentrate entirely on photography in 2016.

Art hasn’t abandoned Miller since she took her first photo at age 8, and she hasn’t been without a camera in hand since then.

Her artist parents—a photographer and a painter—inspired her, and a fine arts degree enlightened her. But Miller attributes her real photographic education to the Ansel Adams workshop and its cast of talented instructors, and to private studies with Arthur Ollman. “They taught me to see in a way that I’d never seen before,” Miller said.

Artistic vision fills much of Miller’s approach to photography. She practices the technique of pre-visualization: seeing the final image in her mind before releasing the camera’s shutter, then manifesting it in the digital darkroom. Miller’s background in painting influences this. “I think like a painter, and I visualize a photograph very much like a painting,” Miller said.

“I paint with light.”

Astoria photographer Sam Blair meets with Miller often to share and critique each other’s recent work. Both are members of LightBox Photographic, a gallery and printer in downtown Astoria, and form part of an eight-person collective they call The Guild. Here they show their photos and enrich the local photographic community. Blair recognizes Miller’s vision and pursuit.

“I would call her a visual poet,” Blair said. “She doesn’t have a particular genre, a limitation on subject matter. Jody looks more into the depth of whatever the image is, in terms of evoking emotion and telling a story, then at what techniques she can use to bring out that feeling that drew her to the scene.”

ABOVE Rather than define her genre in photography, Jody Miller pursues whatever catches her eye.

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Daniel O’Neil

artist in residence

Jody Miller has all of her prints made at LightBox Gallery in Astoria.

Miller photographs instinctively yet always with intention. and distill the very essence of a place and at the same time “I never want to shoot anything that doesn’t put me in a little exude an air of mystery, and that’s what draws in the viewer.” bit of awe when I first see it,” she said. “And it’s always about As Miller documented the phone booths, some began to disthe light. The light has to be right. Otherwise, it’s just another appear after she had photographed them. The phone companies postcard. If the light is right, there will be a story in there, were retiring them from service. An era faded before Miller’s there will be a mystery, there will be questions asked.” eyes and lens. But the relics remained in print, both framed and Storms attract Miller’s eye. in a book. This mattered to Miller.

She has traveled with storm “Maybe I’m old-school, but a chasers in the Midwest, covering photo isn’t real unless you hold it more than 4,000 miles in a week in your hands,” Miller said. “There to catch the images that move is so much more richness to seeher. Miller also enjoys shooting ing a print in person than there at night, something she learned is to seeing it on a screen, much long ago from her mentor Ollmore emotion in it.” man. “The way the light falls, it’s Besides making new work for always more dramatic at night.” her Guild shows at LightBox, — Jody Miller, photographer Since she first moved to Aswhere Miller has all of her prints toria, Miller has had several made, she is pursuing a goal to shows, with accompanying photo books, at RiverSea Gallery. put at least 100 of her photos on paper. “Hard drives will die, but In 2012, a show of Miller’s work, titled “Phone Home,” record- a print will last 100 years or more,” she said. ed a vanishing piece of Americana. Miller had scoured the Miller’s long study and practice of photography has deep North Coast for phone booths and she photographed them roots in film, but she isn’t concerned about whether she used a at night. digital camera and Photoshop to create the photos she prints. “If For Jeannine Grafton, owner of RiverSea, “Phone Home” it conveys the message, it doesn’t matter how you got there.” encapsulated Miller’s vision. “Jody’s photos are very much an artistic interpretation of the world,” she said. “They’re atmoView images from Jody Miller’s “Phone Home” photography project MORE ONLINE on her website at www.bit.ly/jodymillerphonehome spheric, dreamlike, compelling images. She manages to capture

“I think like a painter, and I visualize a photograph very much like a painting.

I paint with light.”

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School Field Trips

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MY WORKSPACE 48

pg. 50 Rockafairy brings music and a new nonprofit model to Medford.

Thomas Boyd

GAME CHANGER 50

The Pacific Northwest’s Treasured Outpost for Winter Fun

Sunriver Resort is a 3,300-acre all-seasons wilderness retreat set in the forested foothills of the Cascade Range, overlooking a great meadow framed by the Deschutes River and the iconic peak of Mt. Bachelor. Here, spirited guests of all ages enjoy unrivaled access to heartfelt experiences deeply rooted in the land and traditions of this uncommon setting.

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my workspace

Families come in all shapes and forms with varying levels of shared problems and joys. Some of us come from steady-eddy pasts, and some of us have honed navigation skills from family angst-filled trials and tribulations. Emily Katz, owner of Modern Macramé, could write a book about how art can bridge past pains. And she has.

After a twenty-year stretch of not seeing her mother since she was 9 years old, Katz found a way to reconnect, over art, through her mother’s 1970s craft macramé lessons. Sitting side by side, their focus was on tying knots rather than untying family issues. Katz began making macramé items as gifts for her friends, but set the artform aside after a short while. When Japanese magazine editors visited her home to profile its interior design, they were struck by her macramé pieces and asked for a lesson on the spot. This spark led to teaching the art of macramé to thousands of people all over the world.

Emily Katz creates a world of zen macramé written by Joni Kabana 48

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Nicholas Wilson

Meditative Art

Emily Katz

my workspace

In 2018, Katz released a book entitled Modern Macramé and traveled on a three-month global book tour. Today, the book has a current circulation of 36,000 copies, and still counting.

While enjoying the fruits of teaching, Katz soon found that obtaining great quality materials was difficult so she directed her business toward importing and selling gorgeous rope and string, which today accounts for 90 percent of her revenue.

Emily Katz

What do you need to begin making a macramé piece? Only your hands, quality materials and a bit of instruction. Katz opened a store where you can feel the rope and string, purchase kits to get you started and hear about her love of this type of artmaking. “Macramé is a truly meditative craft. It’s relatively easy and affordable to learn. I was taught that anything is possible. That my dreams are valid, and that I can be whoever I can dream. Sometimes when the day is hard or I feel stuck, I remember this is my own making and I can change it!”

Emily Katz

Most of Katz’s current work revolves around teaching, selling materials and accepting custom assignments for interior designers such as a recent 10’X10’ panels project in the Bay Area. Having recently become a new mother, she finds herself balancing her 8-month-old daughter on her lap while making her creations. The mother-daughter symbolism is not lost on Katz, and she welcomes the day when her daughter’s dexterity is ready for her first macramé lesson.

MORE ONLINE

For more information on Modern Macramé’s available classes and supplies, head to www.modernmacrame.com

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game changer

Shane Ross, a lifelong musician who grew up playing bass guitar in California and ended up in Southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley, co-founded Rockafairy.

Rock On Rogue Valley nonprofit Rockafairy promotes musical expression through its instrument library and other resources written by James Sinks photography by Thomas Boyd 50 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE

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game changer

THE VISION began with two donated electric guitars and a giving tree at a Medford home improvement store.

Shane Ross, a lifelong musician who grew up playing bass guitar in California and ended up in Southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley, was given the guitars but didn’t have a use for them. So when he spotted the gift requests for guitars for underprivileged kids in 2020 at a Lowe’s store, it struck a chord. He and his partner wrapped the instruments— and also threw in free music lessons and amplifiers.

Afterward, he couldn’t shake the idea, like a catchy tune you can’t evict from your head. “On the way home we said, let’s keep doing this,” Ross said. “It felt so good, and we thought it would be great to see the impact an instrument might have.”

Ross, who works in the high tech industry, started scouting for used instruments on Craigslist and then approached a local music store about the idea. The folks at the shop came up with a pay-it-forward descriptor for the idea: Good “Guitarma.” Word quickly spread. “They called me into the back room, and there were so many instruments,” Ross said.

In March of 2021, Ross founded a nonprofit to hand out instruments and called it Rockafairy, a harmonization of “rockabilly” and a fairy godmother who bestows good fortune.

The mission? Provide anyone who desires the necessary means to create musical expression.

Donations covered the gamut from trumpets to drums to ukeleles to electronic equipment, which were fixed up when necessary and lent to members who pay $10 a month—or for free to kids who are clients of other Roguearea nonprofits. For many, the donations were the difference that allowed them to join the school band. As instruments continued to come in, the storage room at the guitar shop was filling up.

In 2022, the nonprofit moved into a leased 3,800-square-foot storefront in downtown Medford, which was dubbed Rockafairy Hall. The

The nonprofit moved into Rockafairy Hall in Medford in 2022.

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP Dale Gimble, left, and Gabriel Antestenis jam at Rockafairy in Medford in December. Donated sheet music at Rockafairy. Rosie Miller, director of operations, does office work at Rockafairy.

space includes an instrument lending library and also Terrana, a former touring musician with a rock band MORE ONLINE is sort of an artistic clubhouse where people can try in- To learn more about called Trial By Fire, said a shared space to explore instruRockafairy, visit struments, practice, collaborate and take group lessons. ments and perform fuels enthusiasm for music, while www.rockafairy.org Bands can rent space to rehearse, and the nonprofit also also facilitating mentoring. “Medford being a smaller connects the public to private tutors. town, there’s not always a lot to do especially in the winter, so havThe nonprofit raises money from members, via online dona- ing a place to go to express yourself musically and also the social tions, and also hosts fundraising events like a Rockafest music part of it, it is such a great idea,” he said. festival in August 2022 in Pear Blossom Park.

What’s next for Rockafairy? First, continuing to expand memTerry Terrana and his two children learned about Rockafairy bership in Southern Oregon. Then, perhaps, spreading musical at the festival, and now they regularly spend hours at Rockafairy good fortune elsewhere, Ross said.

Hall. His 7-year-old daughter, Sawyer, is learning keyboards, and The allure of the idea in the Rogue Valley has sparked interest his 11-year-old son, Rylan, plays guitar, drums and keyboards— about opening more chapters, he said. “We can plant Rockafairand he loves the camaraderie among the musicians there. Also, ies in communities everywhere that might need music resource Rylan said he likes the opportunity to play loud. “Very much,” centers,” he said. “I’m passionate about music as something that he said. can build community.”

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Spots For

( THAT ARE NOT DOWNHILL SKIING )

Sledding, tubing, winter camping & Nordic skiing are winter’s other fun written by Jean Chen Smith illustrations by Mandy Arroyo

WITH WINTER upon us and the possibility of snow, you are either clapping your hands in excitement or shaking your head in disappointment. If you are like me and have an aversion to heights but love the outdoors, there is no need to hibernate through the colder months! We have a winter place for you that does not involve downhill skiing as the only option. There is an activity for everyone, so get out there and stay active this season with the help of our guide.

Mount Bachelor is known for its skiing, but did you know you could also hitch a ride on a dog sled? (photo: TravelOregon.com)

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PORTLAND AREA

Ice Skating The recently remodeled Lloyd Center ice rink in Portland is open yearround and is the central attraction, surrounded by a shopping center that has more than 140 stores, ten cinemas and a diverse food court.

The ice rink provides lessons in addition to private rentals for birthday parties and groups. A stop here during the winter promises hours of fun along with the opportunity to explore the mall. Easily accessible by car and public transport.

There are several other options for ice skating nearby, one of them being the Sherwood Ice Arena, located a thirty-minute drive from downtown

Portland. In addition to freestyle skating, the rink also has stick time, pick-up hockey as well as lessons and group events.

The Winterhawks Skating Center is in Beaverton, a fifteen-minute drive where public skating can be found in addition to ice hockey, lessons, and the opportunity to enroll in the Winterhawks Youth Hockey League. This arena is popular because it is the practice facility for the Portland Winterhawks, an American major junior ice hockey team that plays their home games in Portland’s Moda Center and Memorial Coliseum.

TIP: Be sure to check each individual facility’s website for information on pricing and schedules. // LEARN MORE: www.lloydice.com; www. sherwoodicearena.com; www.winterhawksskatingcenter.com

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FROM TOP The Lloyd Center ice rink offers skating year-round. The Portland Winterhawks Skating Center in Beaverton. (photos: Lloyd Center, Matthew Wolfe Photography/Winterhawks Skating Center)

MOUNT HOOD

Sledding & Tubing Even though there is some incline involved, sledding and tubing do not require the skills needed for downhill skiing. What could be more fun than going down a hill on a sled, surrounded by soft white snow? Kids will love the experience and adults will find it thrilling, without having to do too much of the work. White River West Sno-Park is a popular destination for sledding, among other outdoor activities such as crosscountry skiing and snowshoeing.

The Mount Hood area offers great sledding and tubing opportunities for an inexpensive and thrilling alternative to skiing. (photo: Oregon’s Mt. Hood Territory)

With spectacular views of Mount Hood, this area can become quite crowded, so arrive early and be patient. Make sure to be aware of rocks and to stay a distance away from the river when sledding. White River West Sno-Park is located on Oregon Highway 35 approximately 4 miles north of US Highway 26. To make a weekend out of it, book a stay at the classic Timberline Lodge, which offers cozy accommodations after a day of physical activity.

Mt. Hood Skibowl is best known for “The World’s Only Cosmic Tubing,” which entails tubing down a slope at night surrounded by over 600,000 LED lights, laser light shows as well as rock music. During the day, little ones can try the Kiddie Tube Hill while adults looking for a thrill can experience the Extreme Tube Hill.

This winter wonderland includes an indoor two-story Super Play Zone, Kids Tubing Carousel, Frosty’s Playland and Mini Z snowmobiles, so plan for a full day of fun.

TIP: The resort also offers dining and lodging. Open on weekends and during the holidays. Please check the website for weather conditions. // LEARN MORE: www.skibowl.com

Cosmic tubing at Mt. Hood Skibowl. (photo: Mt. Hood Skibowl)

TIP: Always check weather and road conditions first. Do not drive down Forest Service roads that are not properly groomed. Check the Oregon 24-hour snow report by calling 511. A State of Oregon Sno-Park permit (available at www. oregon.gov/ODOT) is required November 1 through April 30. // LEARN MORE: www.fs.usda.gov

Trail of Dreams in Three Sisters gives explorers an opportunity to experience Iditarod sled dog rides which allow for breathtaking views of Broken Top, Three Sisters and Mount Bachelor while gliding over snow at a steady speed.

MOUNT BACHELOR

Sled Dog Rides

Owned by Racael Scdoris, who finished her first Iditarod in 2006, the experience includes orientation and trail time.

There is also the option to help in the watering and feeding of sled dogs after the fun ride!

TIP: Children must be at least 3 years old to ride in a sled and children ages 3 to 12 years old must ride with an adult. No more than three people per sled (two adults and one child) for a maximum weight of 450 pounds per sled. // LEARN MORE: www.mtbachelor.com

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SOUTHERN OREGON

Nordic Skiing Approximately twenty minutes from Ashland, Buck Prairie Nordic Trail system is nestled in the CascadeSiskiyou National Monument and offers more than 30 miles of trails with terrain ranging from easy to more challenging. Both Natasha’s Web and Bullwinkle’s Run are great starting points for beginners. Natasha’s Web, a 4.8-mile loop, is accessed at the Buck Prairie Sno-Park. After about a mile, the road splits and skiers should bear right and begin a slight incline. To do the entire loop takes approximately 2.5 hours where you will go through a meadow before returning to the Buck Prairie Trailhead on a lower

road. Bullwinkle’s Run follows the same route as Natasha’s Web until the meadow, where you will come to a trail map board and look for the Bullwinkle sign to the right. The trail ends at an overlook with expansive views of the Rogue Valley, where you will turn back and return to the parking lot. For a more challenging adventure, check out Peabody’s Wayback, which begins at the end of Bullwinkle’s Run and is a steep climb with several switchbacks through trees and forests.

TIP: Not all trails are dog friendly, but Buck Prairie 2, which is also known as Fido’s Trailhead, is. There are several easy and fun routes for you and your four-legged friend. Check out Homer’s Hide Away, which is an easy loop with views of forests, streams and meadows.

Daily parking permits are $5 per day, per vehicle. // LEARN MORE: www.alltrails. com/trail/us/oregon/buck-prairie-trail

Nordic skiing, from Southern Oregon to Central Oregon and Eastern Oregon, is world class in our state. (photo: Lanessa Pierce/ What to Do in Southern Oregon)

CENTRAL OREGON

Snowmobiling The Cascade Range showcases some of the best snowmobiling adventures. Managed and operated by Moon Country Snowbusters snowmobile club, the system highlights more than 250 miles of regularly groomed snowmobile trails. By far, the most popular are Dutchman Flat Sno-Park and Wanoga Sno-Park. Dutchman Flat is closed to vehicles from November through May and includes high-elevation thrills along with panoramic views. Take your snowmobile and cruise up to Todd Lake and Tumalo Mountain then ride the 10 miles over to Elk Lake Resort to grab a

ABOVE, FROM TOP Outriders Northwest offers a Winter Adventure Package with Elk Lake Resort that includes a roundtrip snowcat ride from Dutchman Flat Sno-Park to the resort, a threehour snowmobile rental and food and beverage credit. Dutchman Flat Sno-Park is a popular spot for snowmobiling in Central Oregon. (photos, from top: Outriders Northwest, TravelOregon.com)

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lunch or hot chocolate for a perfect winter day.

Wanoga Sno-Park provides access to motorized dog-friendly snowmobile trails, as well as offerings for sledding and tubing. Begin from the warming tent in the lot and be prepared to have open access to more than 180 miles of groomed snowmobile trails between Crescent Lake and Santiam Pass. Additionally, a warming shelter between Wanoga and Three Creek Sno-Park near Sisters offers respite from the cold for some warmth and rest.

TIP: Sno-Park Permit required November 1 through April 30. Parking for both locations can be a challenge, so plan to arrive early and as always check weather conditions prior to proceeding. Riders are encouraged to a “leave no trace” approach to sharing the backcountry with other winter sports enthusiasts. // LEARN MORE: www.fs.usda.gov; www.mcsnowbusters. wixsite.com/website

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SOUTHERN OREGON

Ice Fishing

Sure, ice fishing is popular in the Midwest and Alaska, but in Oregon?

Yes, there are some options when the temperatures are cold enough and lakes are frozen over sufficiently. If you decide to try the sport, proceed with caution. Refer to information from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife for details and safety precautions.

Lake of the Woods is in the Fremont-Winema National Forest in Southern Oregon and covers about 1,140 acres. Located between Medford and Klamath Falls, the lake has rainbow trout, yellow perch, brown trout, and kokanee as well as smallmouth bass. The resort offers lodging and dining as well. Check with the resort ahead of time for ice thickness.

Fish Lake, east of Medford and Grants Pass along Highway 140, is known to have trout, Chinook salmon and a hybrid species known as tiger trout for ice fishing. The lake is 4,600 feet deep and typically freezes over completely by January or February. Fish Lake resort has lodging and dining, a perfect place to stop after your ice fishing adventure.

If not staying at the hotel, there is a fee to park.

TIP: Winter temperatures can vary, so never take a chance getting on a lake that might not be frozen. No special license is required, just a valid angling license. Peruse the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s website (www.dfw.state.or.us) for more detailed information. // LEARN MORE: www.lakeofthewoodsresort. com; www.fishlakeresort.net

EASTERN OREGON & THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY

Winter Camping With the right gear and preparation, winter camping can be a lot of fun. Because most people are not camping in the middle of winter, this makes for an opportunity to have the outdoors all to yourself. Known to some as the “Little Switzerland,” of Oregon, The Wallowas and Eagle Cap Wilderness lie in the northeastern part of the state in the WallowaWhitman National Forest, originally occupied by the Nez Perce Indian Tribe dating as far back as 1400 A.D. There are options for campsites as well as yurts operated by Wallowa Huts, which give snow enthusiasts a tad more comfort and respite from the cold. The company holds four- and five-day long trips with food provided, a sauna and of course cozy yurts with several camps to choose from—McCully Basin, Wing Ridge, Big Sheep, Norway, Schneider and Cornucopia.

Elevation starts at 6,400 feet.

For an area that is less remote, Champoeg State Heritage Area in the

Willamette Valley is a unique winter camping experience throughout its forests and wetlands. The state park is open year-round, offering campsites, cabins and yurt rentals. Situated along the Willamette River, the area provides a historical context of Oregon as it is on the National Register of Historic Places with a rich history dating back to the 1800s, when the first official government was formed in the state.

Though you might not see as much wildlife in the colder seasons, there are more than 130 bird species in the ecosystem, including acorn woodpeckers, Steller’s jay, and the goldencrowned kinglet to name a few.

Champoeg has a visitor’s center with exhibits which retell the history of the Kalapuya Indians and early settlers.

Some cabins and yurts close for the season, So it is best to call ahead and make reservations in advance.

TIP: There are pet friendly yurts and cabins available at Champoeg State Heritage Area, but dogs must always be kept on a 6-foot leash, unless at the off-leash dog park. Facilities include showers, bathrooms and potable water. Firewood is available for sale. The standard camp fee applies to one vehicle only; additional vehicles are subject to fees. Drones are not permitted. Call 800.452.5687 for reservations. // LEARN MORE: www.wallowahuts.com; www. stateparks.oregon.gov

WITH THE RIGHT GEAR AND PREPARATION, WINTER CAMPING CAN BE A LOT OF FUN. BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE ARE NOT CAMPING IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER, THIS MAKES FOR AN OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE THE OUTDOORS ALL TO YOURSELF.

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C H A NG ES AT E L E VAT ION

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As more people ascend Mount Hood, what does the mountain’s climbing future look like? (photo: mthoodterritory.com)

How crowds + climate are endangering Mount Hood’s alpine zone written by Daniel O’Neil

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On a Saturday last May, the climbers’ lot at Timberline Lodge filled by 4 a.m. The first blue skies had arrived after an extended burst of winterlike storms that instantly buried a dismal, stagnated snowpack.

Such weather and crowds should have shocked longtime Mount Hood climbers. But this, after all, is the new normal on Oregon’s iconic volcano.

Official numbers don’t exist, but popular opinion calls Mount Hood the most-climbed glaciated peak in the world. An estimated 10,000 people or more clamber up the mountain each year. The commonest way, the southside route, begins at Timberline Lodge, meaning climbers can drive to 6,000 feet and gaze at the 11,240-foot summit from the warmth of their cars. Only the final few thousand feet are technical, requiring crampons and ice axe. But by then a climber stands at 10,000 feet, a precarious place to find oneself in trouble.

Not everyone who attempts Mount Hood comes ready for the challenge. With cell phones offering a new false sense of security, one that lures people deeper into the wilds, many climbers now adventure up mountains as if there were lifeguards on duty, just a 911 call away. As Mount Hood becomes more popular, it becomes more dangerous due to inexperience and to the sheer number of climbers pushing to “bag the peak.”

Christopher Van Tilburg, a rescue mountaineer with the Hood River Crag Rats and Portland Mountain Rescue, serves as medical director for all search and rescue (SAR) missions on Mount Hood. He has skied the mountain 62 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE

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since age 5 and first summited it in 1994. The last decade on the mountain has alarmed him.

“We see a lot of people completely unprepared, with not even the minimal amount of gear or skills, who have never even been on a glaciated peak before,” Van Tilburg said.

“And they’re climbing Mount Hood as their first mountain.”

To make matters worse, changes brought by a warming climate also complicate safety on Mount Hood. Strange weather, increased rockfall and more exposed hazards like volcanic vents and crevasses have already become more common. Neither climate change nor the crowds are forecast to abate. Awareness and respect for the mountain offer the only path forward.

A

decade or two ago, winter climbing on Mount Hood remained the exclusive domain of expert mountaineers. But 2022 started busy for rescuers, including Van Tilburg. April-like weather in January attracted climbers, and Mount Hood’s SAR teams responded to four alpine rescue missions in the month’s final days. On one of those days, Van Tilburg and friends were climbing for fun, despite the unseasonable crowds—“There were probably 200 people on the mountain … in January,” he said—when they received word of a distressed climber on the summit, conveniently just 15 minutes ahead.

“There have been days where we have had trouble finding a place to park, in January, February, March,” Van Tilburg said. “April, May, June,” he continued, laughing.

“There are just so many more people on the mountain.”

The Hood River Crag Rats have saved lives and recovered bodies around Mount Hood since 1926. Van Tilburg joined in 2000. Last year, the Crag Rats kept busy with fifty-nine days of rescues: forty-two total missions, twenty-eight of those at or above timberline (from January to November). “This is the most missions we’ve ever had in the alpine and the most number of days we’ve been deployed for the entire year, including missions in the Columbia River Gorge,” he said.

Although only one to two deaths occur each year, Mount Hood has repeatedly proven fatal for even veteran climbers. “That’s always been some of the allure about it,” said Greg Scott, board president of the Mazamas, a climbing and conservation nonprofit founded on Hood’s summit in 1894. “Hood has this reputation for being both accessible and dangerous, so that motivates people to climb it.”

The problem is in the numbers. Too many people try for the summit, and many of them show up without any mountaineering experience. Mazamas climb leaders and even prominent local guide services now refuse to venture up Hood on weekends. Human waste has become

Christopher Van Tilburg has been a Hood River Crag Rat since 2000, and Crag Rats have worn the black-and-white checkered shirt since the 1920s. (photo: Daniel O’Neil)

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Mazamas climb the south side of Mount Hood circa 1970. (photo: Peggy Stone/Mazamas)

an issue in the alpine zone. Worse, because of the rise in numbers, every climber’s safety lies more exposed to risk.

“Hundreds of people going up in a day creates lots of risk factors,” Scott said. “There’s no guarantee that everyone going up has had adequate training or knows exactly what they’re getting into, or is in good physical shape.”

The personal dangers of climbing Mount Hood are as varied as snow types. One slip on a high-angled, icy slope can hurtle a climber into a fumarole or a rock pile, or off a cliff. Deep blue crevasses hide under shallow snow like sharks. Large chunks of rock or ice can bombard climbers, especially when the weather warms. Storms can intensify in minutes, cutting off visibility and ending in hypothermia.

Climbers endanger others as well. A long line of slow climbers delays the ascent and descent, and good timing proves essential in mountaineering. Novices unknowingly kick rocks onto climbers below. And, like a bowling ball, a sliding climber can take out anyone in the fall line.

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four careened into two more, then three more men from unrelated groups. All nine plunged into the 20-foot-deep “Bergschrund” crevasse at 10,700 feet. Three died. The rescue required helicopter assistance. While evacuating an injured climber, an Air Force Reserve helicopter slammed into the side of the mountain and tumbled down to Crater Rock. Miraculously, no one was killed in the crash.

“Mount Hood can be a mountain that is much less dangerous than day-to-day activities, or it can be a mountain that is extremely dangerous,” Van Tilburg said.

“It depends on a lot of factors, but it mostly depends on the human factor.”

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new era in outdoor adventure arrived a decade ago: ski mountaineering, backcountry skiing and snowboarding, trail running and hiking. Portland continued to boom with new residents and visitors. In 2013, the Crag Rats’ missions suddenly doubled.

Besides an ever-expanding global population, the proliferation of mountaineering equipment has enabled

many climbers to get their hands and feet on lightweight, comfortable gear. The basics for climbing Mount Hood— climbing boots, crampons, an ice axe and helmet—can even be rented at stores in Portland.

“You can get the gear easily, but you have to know how to use it,” said Karly Osten, lead shop technician at the Mountain Shop. Osten has helped eager climbers rent equipment, but she has also professionally guided many trips to the top of Hood. All too well she knows the novices who can’t figure out crampons or have never practiced the survival technique of self-arresting with an ice axe—yet they have seen movies like Fourteen Peaks and assure Osten that friends will help them summit.

“Because Mount Hood is so prominent and close to Portland, and so beautiful, people are like, ‘That’s the mountain I want to climb,’” Osten said. Then, at 10,000 feet, reality crystalizes. “Once they get to the Hogsback area and are looking up Old Chute or the Pearly Gates, they figure, ‘I’ve hiked all this way, and the summit’s just up this steep part, I have to do it. But everyone forgets about the descent.

They give it their all on the ascent and get to the top or most of the way and are totally gassed, and then it’s ‘How am I supposed to get down from here?’”

Despite the accessibility of mountaineering gear, Osten has seen people wearing soft hiking boots with crampons falling off. “I saw girls in yoga pants and no helmet up there.

You see some stuff and wonder, ‘How do more people not die on this mountain?’ There are so many people that don’t know how close they were to almost falling, and that’s the scary part for me.”

The rise of social media has especially changed the Mount Hood climbing scene. For one thing, copy-cat syndrome makes people think they can, or now have to, climb Hood because so-and-so did. “People can get themselves into trouble pretty quickly taking from the curated social media world,” Scott said.

An insistence on summiting also suffers from social media’s pressure. Never mind potentially hazardous conditions or fatigue. “People are driven to complete the summit goal because they know they have to post, because they’ve already posted about their pre-climb preparations,” Van Tilburg said. “And that’s the first thing people ask: ‘Did you summit?’”

The internet can aid climbers with easy access to weather and snow data. Anyone can glean instant reports on climbing conditions from immediate post-climb social media posts. But inaccurate reports and misinformed sources complicate matters for climbers who fail to evaluate information critically.

Take, for example, the common guideline that Mount Hood must be climbed in the pre-dawn hours, before the sun’s warmth loosens rocks that can hit climbers.

“That’s always been some of the allure about it. Hood has this reputation for being both accessible and dangerous, so that motivates people to climb it.”

— Greg Scott, Mazamas board president According to Van Tilburg, this maxim isn’t always true, or safe. Last summer, two climbers nearly died this way.

“Somebody told them you have to leave at midnight, to summit at 6 a.m. to be off the mountain before the rockfall,” Van Tilburg said. “Both people fell on bullet-proof ice at six in the morning, both were airlifted to Portland trauma hospitals. On each of those missions I skied to the patients at 10,000 feet and never put on crampons, because at noon it was good climbing conditions.”

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ike the total number of climbers on Mount Hood, how many people keep their potential rescuers’ lives in mind before heading up remains unknown. The pressure on SAR members and resources is real. “It’s hard to do fifty-nine

Climbers ascending Mount Hood. (photo: Mazamas)

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days of rescues with forty people, when all of us [Crag Rats] are volunteers, and we have jobs and families and leisure activities of our own,” Van Tilburg said. “It’s very rewarding but also very draining.”

Mount Hood’s climbing season used to stretch from March through early July. But today’s highly variable weather patterns and the mountain’s surge in popularity have eliminated any concept of a season. The SAR teams, always alert, foresaw this after rescues doubled in 2013.

“We definitely have to keep the pressure on our group to keep recruiting, training and fundraising,” Van Tilburg said.

All last summer, formerly an unpopular time to climb because of low snow and high rockfall, Mount Hood’s SAR teams worked on rescues, some of them complicated. “I did a ski rescue mission in September,” Van Tilburg said. “I don’t know if we’ve ever done that. We don’t do rescues up there in September because there’s usually nobody climbing the mountain.”

The U.S. Forest Service hopes to offer more assistance on the mountain they manage. At the start of 2024, a new fee-based permit system will take effect on Mount Hood’s upper alpine wilderness. The required permit will not limit the number of climbers, but it will at least provide more data about who climbs the mountain, when and where.

Revenues will add two more climbing rangers to the mountain, to help inform the general public, especially underprepared climbers, and to coordinate with SAR. Currently, only one seasonal climbing ranger works on Mount Hood.

“Consistently high use, with accompanying climbing accidents and negative impacts to the alpine natural environment, have long needed increased management of the area,” said Ryan Matz, Mount Hood National Forest climbing program manager. “Nearly all of the revenue from this permit system would directly fund our climbing ranger program, providing the financial resources to better manage recreational use and impacts in the alpine upper elevations of Mount Hood.”

Within the climbing community, opinions diverge about the potential pros and cons of a permit. Yet while other Cascade Range peaks like Rainier, Adams and Saint Helens have had fee-based permits for years, Hood, the mostclimbed of them all, has not.

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umans are changing the mountain in more ways than one. “We’ve already passed the point of keeping Oregon the way we know it,” said Anders Carlson, a glaciologist and president/co-founder of the Oregon Glaciers Institute. “The last time the glaciers were stable, and the mountain snowpack, temperatures and everything were happy and in equilibrium was in the early 1980s.”

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FROM TOP Crag Rats and Portland Mountain Rescue members escort a climber down Old Chute on Mount Hood’s popular south-side route in winter. A pair of Crag Rats admire the view while on a mission on Snowdome, below Anderson Rock, on the remote north side of Mount Hood. Crag Rats and Portland Mountain Rescue members work on a technical rope mission on Eliot Glacier, at approximately 10,500 feet, on Mount Hood’s northeast flank. (photos: Christopher Van Tilburg)

A volatile climate only makes Mount Hood more dangerous because variability leads to instability, the mountaineer’s bogeyman. Snowpack depth on Hood, historically robust, fluctuates more now, both annually and year-to-year. This opens the potential for fumaroles and crevasses to trap climbers.

In 2022, a warm, dry stretch from January to April left the fumaroles exposed all year, a rarity. One man was seriously injured after falling into the south side’s Devil’s Kitchen fumarole in January, requiring an eight-hour rescue that included Van Tilburg.

Rain-on-snow events, much more common in this warmer climate, can lead to avalanches. While the Northwest Avalanche Center keeps no data on slides along climbing routes, anecdotal evidence suggests an increase.

“I’d say avalanche risk is definitely higher, and it’s probably a combination of the changing snowpack and the number of people,” Van Tilburg said.

Alpine safety pays close attention to the temperature threshold: Is it freezing or not? In this warmer climate, rock- and ice-loosening freeze-thaw cycles have become more frequent at higher elevations. Rockfall and icefall, serious mountaineering hazards, now begin earlier in the year and in the day. “Our mountains already have a really bad rockfall problem because they’re giant piles of kitty litter,” Carlson said. “And now we have more water available and more freezing and thawing to make them fall on us.”

New temperature regimes produce a number of consequences on Mount Hood. According to Colby Neuman, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Portland, some of these aren’t so bad, at first. A rising freezing level, for example, will produce more snow with higher water content at the higher elevations.

“It can be a mixed bag, where milder temperatures in winter could actually benefit climbers by creating more solid snow bridges across the Bergschrund and crevasses,” Neuman said. “That could be a good thing through March and April, but as we roll into the May-to-July timeframe, warming temperatures could overwhelm that signal and lead to the opposite. Those snow bridges would melt out earlier in the season and make it more dangerous to climb later in the season.”

As the decades go on, the traditional climbing season will have to adjust accordingly. “Melting is one of the big dangers on Hood,” Neuman said. “With a warming climate you can expect the climbing season to move up earlier in the year, for it to end earlier in the summer and it might take longer for it to develop in the fall or early winter. It’s a gradual process.”

The disappearance of snow and ice in places will redirect some climbing routes. Currently, the main glacier

along the south-side climbing route, Coalman Glacier, near the summit, looks healthy. Mount Hood’s upper 1,000 to 2,000 feet remain lofty enough to stay cold despite the warming climate.

But glaciologists can no longer define Palmer and Glisan as glaciers because they are gone, cooked. Other glaciers show signs of retreat. On the mountain’s north side, Eliot Glacier has stagnated. Its upper section presents more crevasses than before, which has made travel for climbers and rescuers more dicey.

“Hot high pressure systems are becoming more common, and that’s not good,” Carlson said. “Glaciers in Central Oregon are already doomed. If you want to see what Hood will look like in fifty years, just go look at what North Sister and Middle Sister look like now. In winter you’ll still get snow, but it’ll get more and more unstable, and we’ll have less of an icy top and more of a slush cone.

And slush cones are bad for climbing.”

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changed climate requires us to adapt, and a new year-round climbing season proves that climbers already have. The warming trend won’t go away. Neither will the deluge of climbers on Mount Hood, nor the inherent perils associated with mountaineering. “It’s not a matter of whether the mountain is more or less dangerous,” Mazamas president Greg Scott said. “It’s a matter of understanding the risks, and making a decision to climb with eyes wide open.”

Resources exist to help climbers prepare for a summit attempt on Mount Hood. Professional guide services offer the safest way for the inexperienced to reach the summit. The Mazamas hold a Basic Climbing Education Program and an Intro to Alpine Climbing course. Portland Mountain Rescue shares expertise via its website, social media channels, podcasts and lectures at the Mountain Shop. Other Cascade Range peaks provide safer training ground: Adams, Saint Helens, South and Middle Sister, for example.

As changes spread across the mountain, so will climbers. Those who have summited via the standard southside route will seek solace and new terrain on Hood. Rescues will follow. The SAR teams recognize this and are already steps ahead.

“As people get disenchanted with the crowds, they naturally start moving to less crowded places on the mountain, and it puts them into areas that are more remote, dangerous and less traveled,” Van Tilburg said. “It will probably be an issue in the next few years. We’re trying to anticipate that problem by bolstering our equipment and our SAR base on the north side. We can’t let down our guard for one second.”

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PORTRAITS FROM A COMMERCIAL FISHERMAN written by Kerry Newberry | photography by Corey Arnold IMAGINE THE SKILLS it takes to succeed on a commercial fishing boat. Think perilous weather and pummeling ocean waves, 18-hour work days, tiny living quarters and months out at sea. “When I put together a series, I’m trying to provide the whole sensory experience from landscapes and portraits to action shots and all the interesting creatures we encounter,” said Portland-based photographer Corey Arnold.

Since 1995, Arnold has worked seasonally as a commercial fisher, first on a crabbing boat and then eventually with a wild salmon gillnetting operation he now captains in Bristol Bay, Alaska. He first began capturing the life of commercial fishers in 2002—it was pre-smart phones and three years before Deadliest Catch aired. “At that time, it was largely undocumented,” he said.

Arnold quickly found a niche and has consistently had his work featured in publications ranging from The New Yorker and National Geographic to Outside and Time.

He’s traveled to some of the most remote places on earth, chronicling the wondrous and wild world of commercial fishing. Whether it’s hauling crab pots in a storm or a dome of brightly colored buoys, Arnold’s photos reveal the vitality, grit and mystery found working at sea. “There’s amazement everywhere,” he said. Learn more about his work at www.coreyfishes.com.

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The crabbing vessel f/v Time Bandit heads out into the Bering Sea from the Port of Dutch Harbor during King Crab season in November.

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2 1) Arnold is part of a group that sells to the Portland-based Iliamna Fish Co. The CSF (community supported fishery) offers individuals shares from their sustainably managed wild sockeye salmon fishery.

Dutch Harbor. Bald eagles overpopulate the island due to the year-round food source of leftover fish and bait found on the many commercial fishing boats coming and going on a daily basis.

2) Titled “Fight or Flight,” this image is from Arnold’s Aleutian Dreams series, an homage to his years working on crab and salmon boats in Alaska’s remote Port of

3) Billie Delaney hauls a set gillnet across the mudflat in Bristol Bay, Alaska. Nets are often strung out and anchored across the mud at low tide. They catch fish when the tide comes back in.

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4) A self portrait aboard the f/v Rollo that captures Arnold tying down stacks of crab pots while working in the Bering Sea. The massive metal cages weigh up to 800 pounds each and have to be swung on the boat by hand. Arnold worked for seven years as a commercial crabber, one of the world’s most dangerous fisheries.

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1) Over the years, Arnold has found deep connections in the fishing community throughout the Pacific Northwest.

“People might fish crab season off the Oregon Coast each winter and then will travel to Bristol Bay in summer to fish for salmon,” he said. “Once I tapped into this world, I realized commercial fishermen have a lot of pride in what they do.”

2) In 2008, Arnold bought two small boats, hired three crew members and began fishing for salmon in Alaska’s pristine Bristol Bay. He returns for three months each summer to fish near the mouth of the Kvichak River. Here he’s pictured, second from the right, along with his crew.

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3) Commercial fishing boats are like giant bird feeders at sea. Hundreds of seabirds often follow boats even in the most remote waters of the Bering Sea, in hopes of stealing scraps of discarded bait and fish falling out of nets.

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TRAVEL SPOTLIGHT 76 ADVENTURE 78 LODGING 82 TRIP PLANNER 84

pg. 90 Northwest Destination takes us to Phoenix and its Desert Botanical Garden.

Desert Botanical Garden

NORTHWEST DESTINATION 90

For a perfect skiing getaway, visit the Geiser Grand Hotel in historic Baker City, Oregon, well-known for its authentic Northwestern cuisine fine dining, plus a fitness/ gym center and wine tastings. Guests will appreciate the discount lift tickets provided for nearby Anthony Lakes Mountain Resort, the state's highest base elevation ski area. The resort offers a well-rounded winter experience for all family members, including snowboarding and cross-country ski trails.

*Write up by USA Todays 10 best: Ski Hotels #5 Photo courtesy of TravelBakerCounty.com

travel spotlight

Taking the High Road Oregon’s Outback offers solitude and intrigue in winter or spring

Steens Mountain in winter is an exhilarating outing in showshoes or backcountry skis.

written by Joni Kabana

Joshua Meador/TandemStock.com

PEOPLE OFTEN SAY “just take the high road,” but did you know you can do this, literally, in Oregon? The highest road in our beautiful state is a stunning drive around the Steens Mountain in southeast Oregon near the quaint town of Frenchglen. The mountain, the largest fault-block type in the northern Great Basin, soars to almost 10,000 feet but it is the surrounding landscape that makes this mountain stand out from the rest.

Surrounded by high desert sage, the Steens Mountain commands with dipping valleys and caverns and gorgeous sweeping vistas along every turn. The drivable internal loop is only open during weather permitting times of the year, usually mid-June through October, but visiting this location in off-season has its own very special rewards.

With less cars and crowds in the area, standing before this mighty behemoth, alone, will give you a profound wilderness experience.

If you have time, drive an extra two hours on Route 205 to the Alvord Desert to visit yet another wildly isolated destination. In the off-season, this dry lake bed is free from campers and vehicles. Once there, turn off your engine, walk out onto the vast white earth and feel the silence. It’s an experience you will not forget.

For those wishing for a bit more action, make time for a dip in hot springs that are found in various spots throughout the region or drive some back roads to see if you can catch a glimpse of wild horses that roam the area.

Pack extra water and food and make sure your vehicle is in good shape before venturing outside of the main throughways and let family/friends know your plans. This is the Wild West as it was, and still is.

For accommodations during this winter adventure, consider staying at the Central Hotel in Burns. After sitting idle for 20 years, Forest and Jen Keady purchased the building in 2016 and renovated it “as an extension of our home.”

Attentive to the smallest details, this fully restored hotel is a haven for the most discerning tastes. From heartwarming signage to a hidden “Boiler Room” whiskey cellar, this hotel pampers the adventurous spirit with comforts and surprises. Cold outside? Just wait until you see their extraordinary fire pit on the patio.

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adventure The Devil’s Elbow on the Oregon Coast, at the mouth of Cape Creek.

Oregon’s Devilish Places The devil wears drama … and beauty and intrigue in Oregon’s places that take its name

Taylor Higgins/EugeneCascadesCoast.org

written by Jen Sotolongo

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YACHATS

Devil’s Churn Located just below the Cape Perpetua Visitor Center, Devil’s Churn is one of the highlights of the entire Oregon Coast. The 80-foot wide chasm was formed as a result of thousands of years of waves crashing against the volcanic rock.

Visitors can take the short Trail of Restless Waters to the bottom and watch transfixed as the waves ride through the chute and careen against the wall and send the water back to collide with incoming waves.

During high tide and during the windy winter months, the waves become more violent and can spray as high as 200 feet into the air, so exercise caution during extreme conditions.

Photo, at left: Julia Voigt/EugeneCascadesCoast.org

WHEN PORTUGUESE explorer Ferdinand Magellan named the Pacific Ocean due to his observations of the calmness of the water, he clearly didn’t visit the Oregon Coast. All along the entire coastline, visitors can find a number of “devilish” spots where Lucifer himself seems to have put in the work to make a joke of peaceful waters encountered by Magellan.

Thanks to its rugged coastline, the Coastal Range, and tumultuous winter windstorms, several destinations named for the Devil located along the Oregon Coast (and a bonus spot near Mount Hood) prove that the Pacific is anything but peaceful.

The best way to visit the churns, elbows, caldrons, and punchbowls is to plan a road trip along Highway 101. If you really want to see the Devil at work, plan the trip during the winter.

adventure

HECETA HEAD Devil’s Elbow is the name of the peninsula just south of the Heceta Head Lighthouse, just north of Florence. A large parking lot offers direct access to the Heceta Head Beach (formerly known as Devil’s Elbow Beach), which sits in a cove at the mouth of Cape Creek. The destination includes a trail network of seven miles of varying difficulty where visitors can enjoy ocean and wildlife viewing opportunities, including sea birds like puffins, cormorants, sea lions, and whales.

The Heceta Head Lighthouse stands 56-feet high and the light was first illuminated in 1894 and can be spotted 21 miles from land, one of the strongest lights on the Oregon Coast.

TravelOregon.com

Devil’s Elbow

Devils Punchbowl lives up to its name with a hellish and drunken churn on stormy days.

NEWPORT

Devils Punchbowl Likely created by a collapsed roof over the top of two sea caves, Devils Punchbowl in Otter Rock is truly a unique experience. The cavernous hole fills up with water during high tide and visitors can watch the water swirl and crash from the parking lot above. During low tide, it is possible to take the short trail from the parking lot to enter the punchbowl and explore the tidepools and rocks from below, just be mindful of the tide chart; getting caught inside during high tide would be deadly.

LINCOLN CITY

Photos, at right: Oregon State Parks

Devil’s Lake State Recreation Area Lincoln City’s Devil’s Lake Recreation Area consists of two parks on opposite sides of the lake. The campground, located on the west side of the lake is walking distance to Lincoln City, and is the only campground on the Oregon Coast located within a city, providing ideal access to shops, restaurants, and the beach.

The 685-acre lake is protected from coastal winds, making it a favorite destination for paddlers, fishing, and boating.

The lake serves as a wintering ground for a number of migratory waterfowl, including geese, ducks, osprey, and eagles.

OSWALD WEST STATE PARK

Devil’s Cauldron Just about an hour outside of Portland, Devil’s Cauldron makes for a lovely short and sweet visit during a day trip to the coast. Starting at the Elk Flats Trailhead/Neahkahnie Mountain Trailhead in Nehalem, head west toward the

coast and follow the half-mile trail to the Devil’s Cauldron.

From the viewpoint, visitors can watch the waves crash against the cliff sides and stare into the hypnotic sea swells swirling around in the cove below. The trail to Devil’s Cauldron is narrow and can be muddy and overgrown, so go prepared with proper clothing and shoes.

COOS BAY

Seven Devils State Recreation Site This out-of-the-way spot gives access to several miles of sandy beaches that run between Cape Arago and Bullards Beach State Park. The Seven Devils State Recreation Site was once owned by the Merchant Family Farm whose name still bears the name of the beach by Twomile creek. Less favored than the more popular beaches in Bandon and Cape Arago area, this region is ideal for quiet beach walks and agate hunting. During certain times of the year, it’s possible to spot harbor seals.

BANDON

Devils Kitchen This short walk from Face Rock State Park in Bandon leads to a flattopped rock that kids and adults alike will enjoy climbing during low tide to check out the sea life in the tidepools.

Nearby is a Haystack Rock that offers even more tidepool exploration during low tide.

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mthoodterritory.com

adventure

Devil’s Peak Lookout in the Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness near Mount Hood.

For a quad-burning workout and a chance to see a decommissioned fire tower, head to Devil’s Peak Lookout, which sits at an elevation of 5,045 feet in the SalmonHuckleberry Wilderness.

MOUNT HOOD

Devil’s Peak For a quad-burning workout and a chance to see a decommissioned fire tower, head to Devil’s Peak Lookout, which sits at an elevation of 5,045 feet in the SalmonHuckleberry Wilderness just southwest of Mount Hood.

On a clear day, it is possible to see Mount Hood, Mount Adams, and Mount Jefferson from the peak.

Accessible year round, there are two main trails that lead to the lookout—Hunchback Mountain, a rougher, but shorter 2.4-mile trek roundtrip with 900 feet of elevation 80 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE

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gain and Cool Creek, which is the typical approach, totalling 8 miles and 3,200 feet of elevation gain. The roads to both trail heads require high clearance, and it’s essential to check road conditions and reports from recent hikers to learn about closures and damaged bridges.

REEDSPORT

Devil’s Staircase Tucked deep inside one of, if not the most, pristine wilderness areas in the Siuslaw National Forest, Devil’s Staircase is a sight to behold, though it requires some serious navigational skills. The Devil’s Staircase Wilderness is one of the newest additions to the National Wilderness Preservation System and comprises some of the last-remaining old-growth forest in some of the most remote and rugged terrain in the Coastal Range.

The five-mile hike traverses over extremely difficult terrain with no proper trail, including steep slopes, dense vegetation, and unstable soils. The trek can take an entire day, especially if you lose track of the route, as GPS and cell service are not reliable. Even the road to the “trailhead” is overgrown and requires route finding expertise.

Those who test their skills and make it to Devil’s Staircase will be rewarded with a pristine waterfall that cascades 50 feet down a natural staircase of three to five foot drops each. The wilderness is home to spotted owls, bald eagles, black bears, cougars, and other wildlife.

lodging

George Barberis

ROOMS The eight elegant suites feel extravagantly expansive thanks to soaring ceilings and sky-high windows. A mix of contemporary and classic design pairs exposed brickwork with statement lighting.

Each suite pays homage to an eminent river from the nearby Willamette to the high desert Owyhee. River names are etched across the fireplace along with elaborate river art in each room.

Evan Sung

George Barberis

FEATURES

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP Tributary caters well to foodies and oenophiles who cherish the food and wine of McMinnville. Breakfasts are immaculate at Ōkta downstairs … but only after a luxurious morning soak.

Lodging

Tributary Hotel written by Kerry Newberry WITH EIGHT luxurious suites set in a beautifully restored century-old building, the Tributary Hotel is an ideal place for wine country idyll. Located on a leafy street in downtown McMinnville, the recently opened destination hotel is surrounded by numerous boutiques and tasting rooms, a smattering of bakeries and the perfect small town bookstore.

One of wine country’s most charming hubs, McMinnville has long been a stop for a pinot pilgrimage—many of the state’s top wine estates are a short drive away and some have tasting rooms right in town. This polished addition to the scene brings a gastronomic edge to town.

MORE INSIDE The hotel suites are perched above the highly acclaimed Ōkta, an Read more inventive restaurant led by Michelin-starred chef Matthew Lightner. about Tributary Hotel’s Ōkta in Both spots share a similar ethos, focusing on exceptional hospitality Dining on pg. 25 and an enhanced sense of place, and intentionally debuted together.

Their shared vision is to illuminate the story of the Willamette Valley through imaginative food and wine experiences. Whether that’s a sixteen course dinner at Ōkta or setting guests up with bespoke visits to top Oregon wineries, a stay here promises élan and indulgence.

610 NE 3RD ST. MCMINNVILLE www.tributaryhotel.com

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With each hotel reservation, the hospitality team will secure a dinner reservation for your party at Ōkta, the nine-table restaurant that’s been hailed one of the most poetic dining experiences in the Northwest.

See page 25 for more on the restaurant that was envisioned and designed in collaboration with the hotel.

DINING One of the most exquisite breakfasts around, expect farm-inspired bites that include a mini-quiche or omelet along with just plucked seasonal vegetables and fruits.

You’ll also enjoy pastries and bread from the wood-fired oven on Ōkta’s farm served with creamy sheep’s milk butter and crunchy Jacobsen’s Sea Salt.

AMENITIES Embrace the hotel’s vision of a “sanctuary of slow” from your room. Whether it’s reading fireside or creating a spa moment in the gleaming white oversized soaking tub. Enhance your stay with a sparkling wine tour or a hot air balloon ride—anything is possible with the immersive hospitality team at the hotel.

Visit Corvallis

trip planner

Corvallis The heart and the brains of the valley Marys Peak, the highest in the Coastal Range, sits above Corvallis, the heart of the valley.

written by James Sinks

IT’S ENTIRELY possible that somebody stuffed the ballot box.

Corvallis—the home of Oregon State University, with miles of tree-lined bike and walking paths, a scenic Willamette riverfront, a downtown that’s straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting, and smiles on pretty much everybody—was voted the second-friendliest college town in the United States, according to the folks at CollegeDeals.net (www.greatcollegedeals.net/ friendliest-college-towns-america).

The winner, allegedly? Ithaca, New York. And, well, as anybody who’s tried to drive a car in New York state will tell you, that survey result sort of stretches credulity.

The CollegeDeals folks also include Corvallis in their national ranking of the smartest college towns, thanks to a high rate of locals with degrees. The upshot of it all: The city is livable, nerdy and nice.

How nice? The staff is even uncommonly friendly at the Angry Beaver Grill, according to reviewers online.

The Benton County seat, Corvallis also is routinely but undeservedly overshadowed by other towns, which is nothing particularly new. Born in the 1840s at the confluence of the Willamette and Marys rivers, in what was the historic range of the Central Kalapuya Indians, the farming community was originally dubbed Marysville. But because of feared confusion with Marysville, California, town founder Joseph C. Avery changed 84

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the Oregon moniker. The name “Corvallis” combines the Latin words for heart and valley.

Today, the city in the heart of the valley is home to 59,864 friendly people and it attracts thousands more on fall Saturdays when the hometown Beavers play football. The city is also a regular quick pitstop for tourists headed to or from the central coast.

But it doesn’t tend to attract the same hang-around-for-a-fewdays tourist buzz as other Willamette Valley communities, even though the place is surrounded by stunning all-weather viewpoints including 4,097-foot Marys Peak, the highest spot in the coast range. From the top on clear days, you can watch the sun disappear over the Pacific, 70 miles away. The waning light show is worthy of the original Kalapuya name for the mountain, Chateemanwi, a “place of spiritual power.”

This time of year, it’s safe to expect snow, so bring snowshoes if you plan to channel your inner Jack Kerouac, who advised wisely that you “won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.”

No matter how you want to remember the trip, Corvallis is waiting to entertain your brain and your taste buds, with outdoor art, booze, boutiques and bookstores, farm-totable restaurants and nerdy date-night opportunities.

Chances are, it won’t even take an entire weekend to see why everybody keeps smiling.

Mural by Eileen Hinckle

The #1 medium-sized U.S. city for biking* *Or unicycling, if that’s your thing.

2022 ranking by saveonenergy.com

trip planner

Day

Visit Corvallis

2 Towns Ciderhouse

THE SEA TRAIL • CIDER • SCIENCE

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Wintertime temperatures in Corvallis aren’t crazy cold, with daytimes typically in the 40s, but it’s a smart plan to think like a beaver and pack to be warm and waterproof. You’ll definitely want to get outside.

Hikers and mountain bikers welcomed the news in 2021 when, after years of planning and negotiations with private landowners, the 62-mile Corvallis-to-the-Sea Trail officially opened. The route starts at Shawala Point Park in Corvallis and winds west through the Coast Range to Ona Beach near Newport. The hike takes several muddy days, but the first segment will whisk you down 9 miles of paved and gravel paths, and offer a chance to loosen your legs if you brought bikes along with your warm clothes.

If you’d rather trek among trees on foot, several trail options are accessible through Peavy Arboretum, a university forestry study site just north of town. Along some of the well-groomed paths you can soak up knowledge from interpretive signs, unless your partner grimaces when you stop to read them. (Pro tip: Snap photos with your phone so you can read them later.)

Just up the road, you can try to get back into his or her good graces at the sustainable and salmon-safe Airlie Winery. Tucked against a coastal fir forest and with a photo-backdrop-ready pond and dock, the woman-owned and operated winery has racked up awards for its small batch pinots and whites including its popular Seven blend. They also have snacks.

Wine isn’t the only boozy game in town. Dreamed up in 2010 by two (apple) sauced childhood friends, 2 Towns Ciderhouse is based in Corvallis even though the duo-city reference is to both Corvallis and Eugene. One of the partners attended Oregon State; the other went to the University of Oregon.

At the tasting room, your taste buds can explore the core of 2 Towns’ business with craft ciders on tap—Pineapple cider is a mainstay—plus another 14 rotating options from other cideries.

With a little luck, you can also digest some lessons. Check the university calendar to see if there’s a Science Pub happening at a local watering hole during your stay. Past topics include oceanbased energy development, raising Christmas trees, and “Why Scientists and Social Justice Warriors Need Star Trek.” It’s free, but registration is suggested.

From the department of “Why Everybody Needs a Trip to Corvallis,” end the day at SNUGbar, in the basement of Magenta, a downtown Asian Street food restaurant. Under the red-hued lights, check out your date, the eclectic food and dessert selections, and the old vault of the Benton County National Bank, which has been repurposed as a walk-in fridge. The place almost feels like something out of Star Trek, only with curry, coconut creme caramel flan and cosmopolitans.

FROM TOP 2 Towns Ciderhouse has fourteen rotating cider taps from area cideries.

Gathering Together Farm is what farm to table should be, with its home-grown menu.

Day

Lainey Morse

Lainey Morse

trip planner

ABOVE, FROM LEFT The rage (and the origin) of goat yoga at No Regrets Farm & Sanctuary, just outside of Corvallis. Migratory elk and waterfowl abound at William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge 14 miles south of Corvallis.

PHILOMATH • COFFEE ROBOTS • WILDLIFE REFUGE Philomath College closed almost a century ago, but the community that shared its name has more staying power—and these days, new energy. Five miles from Corvallis, Philomath was long a traditional mill town, but high tech and renewable-focused startups are helping to mix things up.

The food scene is also evolving. In addition to burger-type fare, you can now find one of the state’s best gluten-free restaurants, Eats-and-Treats BBQ. In the growing season, there’s organic farm-to-table hotspot Gathering Together Farm.

For breakfast, near the brick former college building (which now houses a history museum), don’t miss The Dizzy Hen and its dynamic menu that includes vegan hash with curried lentil cake, beet omelets, and pork ragu with grits. And drinks.

Afterward, order your Philomath Timber Towne coffee via a delivery robot, which is all the rage in Benton County. Food delivery robots also zigzag the Oregon State campus, and will bring coffee in Adair Village, north of Corvallis. Happily, the robots aren’t planning world domination, at least not yet. We think.

Ten miles to the south is the 5,325-acre William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge, which is free to visit for you, for herds of elk, and for thousands of wintering waterfowl including dusky Canada geese and swans. When created in 1964, the property pieced together several farms, and it remains home to several historic clapboard barns.

Among the trail options is an all-weather, mud-free choice: an accessible boardwalk that snakes a quarter mile over wetlands to a platform that’s perfect for taking flocks of photos of flocks. That’s an appropriate activity seeing as Finley was a photographer as well as a conservationist. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Finley’s nature images helped persuade President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907 to create the first national refuge west of the Mississippi, at Three Arch Rocks on the Oregon coast.

To warm your fingers and liver, cabin-themed Long Timber Brewing Co. in nearby Monroe welcomes you with hot (and cold) drinks and fireplaces inside and out. Opened in 2019 by the owners of the local Hull-Oakes Lumber Co., the brewery celebrates the valley’s logging heritage and is filled with memorabilia such as a 64-foot-long bandsaw blade hanging above the bar. The blade was still in use a month before the restaurant opened, said co-owner Todd Nystrom.

Up a nearby driveway with a white metal goat on a signpost, you’ll find the world’s original goat yoga farm, launched in 2016

by Lainey Morse after a disappointing health diagnosis and a divorce. After a flurry of international attention, she wondered if her No Regrets Farm & Sanctuary would be a passing fad.

But the visitors are still coming, and she’s licensed the business brand to farms across the country.

“Once people come, it’s just more meaningful than they anticipated,” she said, walking her six-acre property in the town of Bellfountain. “It’s not a cash cow, and it’s not a petting zoo.

It’s a type of therapy.”

On warm days, visitors hang outdoors with the herd for yoga sessions or goat happy hour, where you bring your own beverages and mingle with the star attractions, including black-and-white pygmies Ansel and Adams. When it’s cool and wet, the sessions move to the circa-1890 barn, where it’s not warm but it’s dry, and the signs are validating. Says one: “You’ve goat this.”

Back in Corvallis, if the rooftop deck is open, which typically happens come early spring, grab drinks overlooking the city at Sky High Brewing. Or, for a more formal finale, there’s warm-destination-inspired fare at del Alma Restaurant and Bar, with a menu featuring flavors of the Caribbean, Latin America and Spain, and no robots.

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EAT American Dream Pizza www.adpizza.com Biere Library www.thebierelibrary.com Visit Corvallis

Del Alma Restaurant and Bar www.delalmarestaurant.com Dizzy Hen www.thedizzyhen.com Long Timber Brewing Co. www.facebook.com/ longtimberbrewing Oregon State robots www.food.oregonstate.edu/ robot-delivery-mobile-ordering Philomath robots www.delivery.daxbot.com/ philomath-or Sky High Brewing www.skyhighbrewing.com SNUGbar www.magentarestaurant. com/snugbar Tried & True Coffee www.triedandtruecoffee.co

STAY Courtyard

by Marriott Corvallis www.marriott.com Hotel Corvallis www.hotelcorvallis.com

PLAY 2 Towns Ciderhouse www.2townsciderhouse.com/ taplist/taproom Airlie Winery www.airliewinery.com Alley Art Walk www.theartscenter.net/ alley-art-walking-tour Burst’s Chocolates www.burstschocolates.com Corvallis Science Pub www.oregonstate.edu/events Corvallis-to-the-Sea Trail www.c2ctrail.org No Regrets Farm & Sanctuary www.headquarters. goatyoga.net Valley Rock Gym www.valleyrockgym.com William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge www.fws.gov

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Find sculptures such as “Cassie” by Sue McNiel Jacobson on Corvallis’ Alley Art Walking Tour.

Day DOWNTOWN • ALLEY ART • BOOKS + BREWS A meander in downtown Corvallis is like walking in an art gallery. Even the posts along the Second Street sidewalks are a series of flowing bronze sculptures called Waterdance.

In the morning, the imagery might help conjure craving for a different satisfying liquid, and happily rich espresso awaits at Tried and True Coffee, one of the many retail and food sellers that are still thriving in the picturesque district.

If it’s the kind of day when you want to break a sweat before breakfast, or if you have energetic kids and they have you climbing the walls, get vertical at Valley Rock Gym, where climbing shoe rentals are free for first-time visitors.

They also offer yoga, without goats.

Downtown offers a drove of early dining options whether you’re interested in breakfast, lunch or all of the above. Pick pastries or quiche from the case at New Morning Bakery or fresh sourdough loaves and treats at Wild Yeast Bakery. Ready for lunch? A trip to Corvallis isn’t complete without a slice of pie from American Dream pizza, which even made the itinerary for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama when he was campaigning in 2008.

Stroll the riverfront—or rent a kayak if it’s warm and the Willamette River allows it. Then, you can combine boutique and window shopping with the Alley Art Walking Tour. A guide to downtown murals and whimsical sculptures is downloadable from local nonprofit The Arts Center, which also runs a gallery on Madison Avenue. For art of the edible sort, and your nose will be happy too, step into the charming Burst’s Chocolate shop, a downtown mainstay since 1938.

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023

In 2021, the Benton County Historical Society achieved a long-sought goal with the opening of the Corvallis Museum. For $5 you can prowl the architecturally striking, angular and airy two-floor downtown exhibit hall, with galleries filled with mementoes and potentially-partner-pleasing interpretive signs.

The nonprofit also runs the sister museum in Philomath.

Hunting for a final stop that perfectly captures Corvallis’ nerdy and nice vibe? It might be at the unassuming Bière Library, a Belgian downtown restaurant with an exhaustive beer, cider and cocktail list. Amid stacks of books between the tables, the effusive staff will bring you comfort food such as paprika chips, warm Belgian salad with mustard vinaigrette, and an assortment of crepes including one dubbed “Old Man and the Brie.”

While you wait, sip your beverage approvingly with a random book, in the glow of either the faux fireplace in the corner or the neon “#NerdAlert” sign on the wall.

The Bière Library

CORVALLIS, OREGON

trip planner

Books and Belgian beer abound at nerdy Bière Library.

• S H OP

• NE

Explore Albany ory Y

G

HER • ST T A A

t s r u o y r e v o Disc

DI

Start your next adventure on the roads less traveled. Savor soulwarming cuisine, take a joyful ride, and seek out reflections of history here and the surrounding Willamette Valley. We are #authenticallyAlbany and we can’t wait to share it all with you.

Plan your day or weekend getaway at VisitAlbany.com Connect with us and download our free Albany Explorer app today

541.928.0911

Clockwise from top left: Thompson’s Mills State Heritage Park (Kristi Crawford), Sybaris Bistro (WVVA), “Larwood Covered Bridge Reflection” (Shelly Wilson), Albany Historic Carousel (AO Films)

northwest destination

Phoenix

A high desert retreat from the doldrums of winter written by James Sinks

NO ONE WOULD blame you for glancing around the room for a Cheshire Cat. It’s a magical world in this dimly lit subterranean speakeasy, where birds are chirping on the speakers, the barkeep is concocting craft cocktails amid greenery, and wall-to-wall video screens offer virtual panoramas of moonlit landscapes. And it’s happening in the most unlikely of places: Down an astroturf stairway in what was once the pit for an oil change shop, northeast of downtown Phoenix, Ariz.

Phoenix offers desert air with a dash of sprawl. February and March see the flocks of snowbirds descend on the city.

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made up of Phoenix, Scottsdale, and several other interconnected cities, all in the shadow of striking desert panoramas like Camelback Mountain. Thanks to wintertime temperatures that hover near 70 and a bevy of hotels, spas, golf clubs and nightclubs, the valley offers an irresistible draw for frostbite escapees across the West.

And come February and March, like migrating Loons (and Mariners), visitors include professional baseball players and fans for the annual spring training Cactus League.

Given the comfortable weather, winter is the season to be outdoors. It’s a strenuous but rewarding hike to ascend Camelback, or you can prowl winding walkways amidst colorful cacti, critters and

dspaz.com/Visit Phoenix

On a recent afternoon, we made a reservation at 36 Below—a good idea because the place is tiny, at just 600 square feet—to see if the libations and decor lived up to the hype. We weren’t disappointed in either, especially the smokey whiskey one that arrived in a mock Faberge Egg. The basement bar, hidden beneath what is now a bright coffee-and-beer pub on a nondescript busy boulevard, offers a stark contrast to the sun outside—and serves as a metaphor for what’s happening in parts of Phoenix nowadays. Built as a car-focused place, it’s morphing into something artsy, hip, and decidedly unexpected.

Of course, you can still expect to drive—a lot—in Arizona’s Valley of the Sun, the sprawling and fast-growing metropolis

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023

An Pham/Visit Phoenix

northwest destination

ABOVE The local restaurant scene is jumping with spots like craft pizza place CiBo.

wildflowers at the Desert Botanical Garden, a 140-acre reserve with more than 50,000 different plants. Rather get your steps on the golf course? There are 200 of them scattered across the valley, catering to duffers with a range of handicaps and bank balances.

Hungry? Bacanora’s flavorful southwest cuisine won a coveted mention on the 2022 New York Times Restaurant List. CiBo serves up delicious craft pizzas in a bungalow. And if you like toe-tapping music and bar fare, head to the historic Rusty Spur Saloon, the oldest tavern in Scottsdale, where performers hit the stage daily.

Long ago, the Valley of the Sun was home to indigenous tribes who dug canals to irrigate crops. Centuries after that, the area was ceded to the United States when the Mexican American War ended in 1848, and soon after the city was established as a frostfree agricultural hub, with a name chosen because Phoenix rose from the ruins of an earlier civilization.

Southwest indigenous culture is in the spotlight at the Heard Museum, with expansive exhibits and a goal to be the world’s preeminent place for American Indian art. For other fun things indoors, don’t miss Butterfly Wonderland, where your inner child can marvel in a giant atrium as hundreds of the star attractions flutter overhead. And next door at the OdySea Aquarium, you can even see swimming sharks from the bathrooms.

Downtown, Phoenix is transforming into a walkable, art-filled entertainment hub. The Roosevelt Row district boasts galleries, restaurants, bars and boutiques, and outdoor murals around almost every corner. They cover an entire alleyway block in the 11/2 Street Mural Project—perfect for Instagram backdrops. If it’s early in the day, get caffeinated at Fair Trade Coffee before you wander.

The art doesn’t stop when the sun goes down. At nearby Civic Park, an undulating aerial sculpture called “Her Secret is Patience” blushes colors into the night.

Even if you’re not staying there, duck into the Found Re: Phoenix boutique hotel, which has a gallery of kitchy art including an oversized painting of a lounging Burt Reynolds, plus a sofa where your sweetie can get a photo (without Burt) under a neon pink sign that announces, truthfully, “You’re like really pretty.”

And in case you haven’t found everything you’re looking for, down the street in the parking lot behind Gracie’s Tax Bar, there’s a mural of a grinning Cheshire Cat. 92 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE

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northwest destination

PHOENIX, ARIZONA

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP On the outskirt of town, Camelback Mountain offers an escape and beautiful trails.

The Desert Botanical Garden encompasses 140 acres and thousands of plants. The annual Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market—which showcases more than 600 Native American artists and draws thousands of visitors—is held on the Heard Museum campus.

EAT 36 Below www.36belowaz.com Bacanora www.bacanoraphx.com CiBo Pizzeria www.cibophoenix.com Fair Trade Coffee www.azfairtrade.com Pa’La Wood-Fired Cooking www.palakitchen.com Rusty Spur Saloon www.rustyspursaloon.com

STAY Bespoke Inn Scottsdale www.bespokeinnscottsdale.com Found Re:Phoenix www.foundrehotels.com Hotel San Carlos www.sancarlosphoenix.top

PLAY

An Pham/Visit Phoenix

Fernando Hernández/Visit Phoenix

Brandon Sullivan/Visit Phoenix

Butterfly Wonderland www.butterflywonderland.com Camelback Mountain trails www.phoenix.gov/parks/ trails/locations/camelbackmountain/trailsd Desert Botanical Garden www.dbg.org Heard Museum www.heard.org OdySea Aquarium www.odyseaaquarium.com Old Town Scottsdale www.oldtownscottsdaleaz.com Roosevelt Row Arts District www.visitphoenix.com

36 Below serves up imaginative craft cocktails such as the Divine Timing from its underground location. The immersive, speakeasy-style bar changes up its drink menu every quarter. (photo: 36 Below)

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1859 MAPPED

The points of interest below are culled from stories and events in this edition of 1859.

Astoria Seaside

Milton-Freewater Hood River Portland Tillamook Gresham

Pendleton

The Dalles La Grande

Maupin Government Camp

Pacific City Lincoln City

Baker City

Salem Newport

Madras

Albany Corvallis

Prineville

John Day

Redmond

Sisters Florence

Joseph

Ontario

Bend

Eugene Springfield

Sunriver Burns

Oakridge Coos Bay Bandon

Roseburg

Grants Pass Brookings

Jacksonville

Paisley

Medford Ashland

Klamath Falls

Lakeview

Live

Think

Explore

16 Crater Lake

48 Modern Macramé

76

Steens Mountain

25 The Oregon Cheese Cave

50 Rockafairy

78

Devils Punchbowl

26 Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission

82

Tributary Hotel

40 Fernweh Woodworking

84

William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge

42 RiverSea Gallery

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Phoenix, Arizona

94 1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2023

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Until Next Time On a cold December morning I woke up early to shoot the sunrise from the rim of Crater Lake. Once there, I realized the more dramatic scene was unfolding outside of the park, at lower elevations. Fortunately, I had enough time to cross-country ski to the ideal vantage point where I could capture the clouds lifting from the vast frozen landscape. Taking this image was the perfect example of having a specific goal in mind for the day as a photographer, then shifting focus to capture a moment that was entirely different from what you had originally anticipated. photo by David N. Braun

Continue for Special Insert

2 BEST PLACES TO RETIRE 2023

Welcome to our Best Places to Retire 2023.

There are many ways to parse data to divine the “best” places—too often prioritizing taxes so highly that results look like bland tax havens, in which retirees are tax advantaged but lifestyle poor. We know that culture, recreation and lifestyle are important to our audience, so we equally weighted factors such as golf, trails, restaurants and arts alongside property tax and nearby medical facilities. We narrowed the vast field initially by property taxes and beginning in communities that fall in the bottom half of property taxes in the state. We took into account the Medicare ratings of area medical facilities , then ranked the cities and towns within those areas for the other factors.

Our audience engages with local arts, travel and trails, golf and goulash, a good library and limoncello mojitos, dipping into the city for live theater and new exhibits at SAM or PAM, but also enjoys the ease of access to trails, fishing and fairways right outside their doors.

AT LEFT White Salmon and Hood River, on opposite sides of the Columbia River, offer endless hiking trails. (photo: Jason Hummel Photography/State of Washington Tourism)

A publication of Statehood Media www.1859oregonmagazine.com www.1889mag.com Cover: Grants Pass (photo: Visit Grants Pass)

2023 BEST PLACES TO RETIRE 3

OREGON

Grants Pass’s climate still makes an attractive pitch to retirees. (photos: Visit Grants Pass)

Grants Pass Hood River’s Fruit Loop is an asset for healthy living. (photo: Visit Hood River)

Hood River Along the banks of the famed Columbia River and in view of the Cascades, Hood River has the backdrop for a picturesque E TAKTE retirement. Also NO known as the Medical: playground for Providence windsurfers and Hood River kiteboarders, Average Hood River is effective home to some of property Oregon’s finest tax rate: dining, including 0.61% Celilo and Broder Øst, Scandinavian fine dining.

Trails go along the river, into the Columbia Gorge Scenic Area and into the foothills of the Cascades as you meander into the agrarian Fruit Loop of apple and pear orchards along with wine grapes. The wines of the region have also taken off and are showing well and drinking better. Hood River’s small but ambitious Columbia Center for the Arts is the stage 4 BEST PLACES TO RETIRE 2023

for art exhibits as well as small stage productions.

The surrounding agriculture and proximity to Nordic and downhill skiing is a bonus.

ABOVE, FROM TOP Recreation along the bustling riverfront of the Columbia.

Broder Øst serves outstanding Scandinavian fare. (photos, from top: Katie Falkenberg/TravelOregon.com, Broder Øst)

Gold was an early attraction to Grants Pass, before the local chamber of commerce decided the climate in Grants Pass was the selling point. A banner claiming “It’s the Climate!” was hung over Sixth Street downtown, where it E TAKTE remains to this day.

NO True this Southern Oregon town Medical: does indeed have a pleasant climate, Asante with mild winters and warm summers Three Rivers that make for a good growing season.

Average The small town vibe is evident in its effective farm to table restaurants such as Ma property Mosa’s and The Haul and its cultural tax rate: institutions such as Rogue Theatre.

0.58% Golf plays out at Dutcher Creek Golf Course, a stunning par 70 links course.

Recreation abounds from the banks of the Rogue River to the nearby Rogue-Siskiyou National Forest.

Let’s not forget the wineries of the Rogue River Valley begin just west and south of Grants Pass.

ABOVE, FROM LEFT Grants Pass is along the famed Rogue River, where whitewater rafting is the attraction. The Rogue Theatre offers a cultural spin on the town. (photos, from left: Chad Case, Cate Battles)

Joseph & Enterprise charm in dining through Neighboring towns in the E TAKTE its beer. Terminal Gravity shadow of the Wallowa O N Brewery in Enterprise range in Eastern Oregon, this area caters to Medical: and Embers Brew House Wallowa in Joseph lead the pack. people who love trails, Memorial The cultural scene is led the arts and good craft beer. Named after the Average by Chief Joseph Rodeo effective Days and the renowned famed Nez Perce Chief property Fishtrap creative writing Joseph, one of this land’s tax rate: program. The beautiful most cunning warriors, 0.69% Alpine Meadows nineJoseph pays homage to its hole course has lovely mounearly heritage through bronze tain views all around. Let’s not sculptures cast from its own forget Wallowa Lake at the bronze foundry. These small, southern end of Joseph. Sailing, rural mountain valley towns boating, waterskiing, fishing, draw artists and craftspeople swimming and paddleboarding who crave solitude, nature and all coincide on this 3.5 mile creativity. Despite its small long ribbon lake. population, the area finds its

These small, rural mountain valley towns draw artists and craftspeople who crave solitude, nature and creativity.

Wallowa Lake is as beautiful as it is useful for residents. Boating, swimming and paddling are de rigueur here. (photo: Wallowa County Chamber of Commerce)

ABOVE, FROM TOP The little town of Joseph sits at the base of the Wallowas.

Chief Joseph Days Rodeo is an annual event and cultural icon. (photos: Wallowa County Chamber of Commerce)

2023 BEST PLACES TO RETIRE 5

WASHINGTON

Winthrop its thorns, though, being Tiny little Winthrop way E TAKTE more than three hours up in the North Cascades NO from an airport of any size may seem like a stretch for many retirees, but Medical: (Spokane) and the medithat is also the point. The Confluence cal facilities—Three Rivers Health and Mid Valley—are each small town is surrounded by mountains while the Average an hour away. With places effective that are as beautiful and gurgling pristine Methow property interesting as Winthrop, River runs through town. tax rate: however, the extended Designed for retirees who 0.78% family and friends will thrive on hiking and Norfind their way to you. Also the dic ski trails, Winthrop also has Confluence Health facility in a coterie of good restaurants town is small but ambitious and with thriving happy hours. with affiliations with Seattle Copper Glance for cocktails Cancer Care and the University and Old Schoolhouse Brewery of Washington-Harborview for local craft beer and a riverside outdoor deck. This rose has Medical Center.

Tiny little Winthrop way up in the North Cascades may seem like a stretch for many retirees, but that is also the point.

6 BEST PLACES TO RETIRE 2023

FROM TOP Recreation abounds in tiny Winthrop, including a lifetime’s worth of Nordic trails.

The Methow River quietly runs through town. (photos, from top: Jason Hummel Photography/State of Washington Tourism, Greg Balkin/State of Washington Tourism, Jason Hummel Photography/State of Washington Tourism)

Long Beach Along a gorgeous sweep of the Pacific Coast, Long Beach is a sleepy town in some respects but buzzing in others. Those who love the mild temperatures of coastal towns and seafood will be right at home in E TAKTE Long Beach. The maritime weather NO is neither scorching nor freezing but Medical: ideal for snuggling next to a fire with Ocean maritime bounty. A healthy menu of Beach fresh Dungeness crab and Willapa Hospital Bay oysters, as well as DIY clams and Medical canned for you at Sportsmen’s CanClinics nery. The Long Beach Tavern and The Average Depot Restaurant are great examples effective property of locals showcasing locally grown or tax rate: caught foods. Walks and bike rides along the wooded boardwalk are de 0.88% rigueur here, as are extended hikes along the Discovery Trail, an 8.5-mile path from Cape Disappointment south of Long Beach to Long Beach’s northern boundary.

Peninsula Golf is a nine-hole, par 33 course on the edge of town, or drive a little farther north to Ocean Park and Surfside Golf Course, a parkland nine-hole course.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP The boardwalk along the coast at Long Beach. Cape Disappointment for storm watching. Oysters and clams are on the menu in Long Beach. (photos: Mark Downey— Lucid Images Gallery/State of Washington Tourism)

Water play on the Columbia near White Salmon. (photo: Jason Hummel Photography/State of Washington Tourism)

White Salmon One hour east of Portland, Oregon, White Salmon is a diamond in the rough perched on a bluff above the Columbia River.

E TAKTE White Salmon O N serves as the baMedical: secamp for many Providence outdoor pursuits Hood River on the edge of the Average Gifford Pinchot effective National Forest property and the water tax rate: play of the mighty 0.72% Columbia, not to mention the mountain and road biking opportunities. Though it still has a lot of growing up to do, it is headed in the right direction with iconic Everybody’s Brewing and the quaint Henni’s Kitchen & Bar. We note that

White Salmon is only four miles from Hood River on the Oregon side of the Columbia and another one of our Best Places to Retire. For medical facilities, head across the river to Providence.

For golf, too, stay on the Oregon side for Indian Creek and Hood River golf courses.

Everybody’s Brewing is everybody’s favorite in White Salmon. (photo: Jason Hummel Photography/State of Washington Tourism)

On the edge of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, White Salmon has recreation nailed. (photo: Jason Hummel Photography/State of Washington Tourism)

2023 BEST PLACES TO RETIRE 7

H O M E T O E X T R AO R D I N A RY O P P O R T U N I T Y

Redefining the standards for senior living 62+ INDEPENDENT LIVING

10 stories | 127 apartment homes 1,095-2,310 SF floorplans

OPENING FA L L 2 0 2 3

• Highly desirable SW Portland location • Sophisticated design, iconic city views • Designed with modern Passive House® principles Live at the doorstep of Portland’s Arts & Culture District and minutes away from the best urban trail system in the nation with an active, progressive, and engaged community of foodies, hikers, musicians, art collectors and more.

Opening Fall 2023, Discover Parkview at Terwilliger Plaza T E RW IL L IGE RPL AZ A.CO M | 503 - 974- 087 9

2545 SW Terwilliger Blvd. Portland, Oregon, 97201