Willamette River Run, Portland, OR

March 24, 2001

On a mostly overcast Saturday morning I drove down to Olympia, WA to meet with Rusty Lane and Ron McDonald. Rusty was there with his dual boat trailer, and Ron with his single. Today I was borrowing Rusty's second escapade and carpooling with him to Oregon City, OR, so I got in his car and off we went.

We had a couple of FRS walkie talkie radios with us, so we were able to share anecdotes between the two vehicles during the two hour drive to Portland.

After a short stop at a fast food joint in Oregon City, we launched our boats just below the falls on the Willamette River. This part of the river was rather crowded, with lots of fishing boats either anchored all over the river or zooming up and down stream at speeds ranging from a few miles per hour to 40 mph or more. Apparently there was a steelhead run happening, but we did not see many fish being caught. Perhaps the mid-day appearance of the sun scared them away.

We took a short detour up river to take a closer look at the falls, and then headed down the river. Dodging the fishing boats, fishing lines and anchor lines was a bit of a chore, but as long as we gave them wide berth up and downstream we had no problems.

Soon we came upon the junction of the Clackamas and Willamette rivers. I tried pedaling up the Clackamas, and actually succeeded, at the astounding speed of maybe 1 mph. Yes, the current was fairly swift, and if I had a GPS on board it probably would have registered speeds in excess of 9 mph as I pedaled back downstream. Hmmm, perhaps this is a record speed for Escapades?

Rusty and Ron were pretty far downstream by this time, so I hurried to catch up with them. I had to maneuver between a couple of lines of boats and got pretty close to shore, but had no problems with hitting the bottom or snagging anything.

From what we could tell it appeared that the river level was pretty low. Most of the docks along the banks were high and dry, held in place by tremendously tall piles or posts. The river must really be a sight to see in a wet year!

As it was, we slowly pedaled past parks, multimillion dollar mansions, marinas, house boats, and still more fishing boats. One new house, only 6 stories high(!) along the steep west bank still had stickers on its windows, but no apparent access to the water.

Near Elk Island both Rusty and I managed to collect some weeds on our props; however, while I was able to dislodge the stuff from my prop relatively easily, the stuff on Rusty's prop required the hands-on approach from Ron to clean off.

As we came within a mile of our destination, Willamette Park, the sun disappeared behind rather ominous clouds. A light drizzle started, and up went our bimini tops. Shortly thereafter the wind began to pick up, and Ron wished that he had brought along the side windows for his boat. Oh, well....Regardless, the biminis did a pretty good job of keeping us mostly dry, but I chose to not bring out my digital camera for any more pictures!

Across the river from the park we noticed several rather unique house boats. One was silver in color, with two silo-like windowed towers. Behind it was a boat with angled beams, quite unlike any we had ever seen before. If not for the lack of time both Ron and I would have liked to have taken a closer look. That will have to wait until next time, when we pedal past the skyscrapers of downtown Portland.

Bob Emms, a new Escapade owner from the Portland area, met us at the dock in the pouring rain. He graciously loaded us into his van and drove us back to our cars, and escorted us through the winding roads back to Willamette Park. Just as we arrived at the park the sky cleared and the sun came out. It was a fitting finish to our journey.

Take a look here for pictures.

Thanks, Rusty, for suggesting this outing and providing the transportation!

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