Hayden Island

The Importance of Whale Poop

A study finds that whale poop plays a major role in the health of the ocean, here.

No, there will not be a cocktail recipe for this one.

Springwater Trail Parts 2 and 3

You can enter Oaks Bottom from the north or the south. I’ve always avoided the main entrance to the north because I associate it with death. When I was in college, a kid I knew disappeared, and I remember them searching Oaks Bottom for him (they later found his body in the river). Years later, someone else I knew drowned there. But I’ve been walking Jackie along the bluff above Oaks Bottom and down through the southern part for many years as well. There are lots of birds there, including blue herons, osprey, and at certain times of the year, a pair of bald eagles.

For the sake of the project, I finally parked at the main entrance and walked down trail I’d been avoiding. It’s a perfectly nice, lightly wooded area, with a paved trail that links up with the Springwater trail.

I continued south, past the gigantic mausoleum, until I got to Southeast Spokane Street, and then I went back. There’s a mural on the mausoleum wall that faces the marsh, with native birds painted much, much larger than life. I wrote an article about it once, and interviewed the head muralist. Well, it turns out that he is also dead — he died in a snowmobiling accident this spring.

A few days later I parked near Spokane and took the next segment of the trail, including the part that hasn’t been built yet. You walk on surface streets for about half a mile, heading west away from the Willamette, until you get back to the trail. As you can see in the photo, it’s not quite as fancy as the main entrance from Day One.

We walked through Sellwood and crossed three bridges: one over Johnson Creek, one over the highway, and one over some railroad tracks. If you were leading a group hike, you could work in a little commentary on the history of transportation here.

From here on out, Johnson Creek will be a regular presence. It’s the one remaining of a huge number of creeks that used to run through the city of Portland (or where the city was to be.) For some reason Johnson Creek was never paved over — one of those examples where neglect is beneficial for the environment in the long term. Johnson Creek runs through some of the sketchier parts of Portland. Along with its obscene name, the creek brings to mind trailer homes, abandoned cars, dumped tires, and blackberry brambles.