I got to talking to Mom one evening and she expressed interest in visiting the NW Trolls that have been popping up over the Pacific Northwest. I noticed that the next few weekends in September were going to be nice and I wanted to drive down to Oregon to get GC17. I asked Vicki and Brian, our geocaching friends The SuperKnotts, who live down in Vancouver if they've found that cache or not yet. They said they did in 2018 with one of their friends who was in town. Well, now I've got to find someone to go with me. Ben was on shift that day, I didn't want to make Bev do a hike like that with me, since she is not an "off road vehicle", and the time I was there to grab GC12 with Ray in 2013, he and Brenda already found it a few weeks prior, and we didn't have time to go walk up to it. It sat on my list for the next ten years.
Mom and I planned a trip down to Oregon to see the troll and to grab GC17. I was surprised she wanted to go hiking with me again after the Mailbox Peak trip a few weeks ago. I assured her it was nothing like the hike we went on that day. We asked Dad if he wanted to go, and he said no. I told her that I would be at her house around 8 a.m. and to be ready to go. The night before, I got my hiking stuff together, made sure all of my random things were in my orange backpack and gathered up my car GPS because we would need it.
Ben woke me up as he was leaving to head to shift in Tenino, and I went back to sleep until my alarm went off at 7. I rolled out of bed, got ready, grabbed a chewy bar, water and was out the door by 7:30ish. I headed into Rainier and picked up Mom. She was actually ready to go. I got the address to the troll into the Nuvi. She tossed in her backpack, hiking pole and hiking shoes and we were off!
We drove down Hwy 507 through Tenino, into Grand Mound and hopped onto I-5 south and traveled over 90 miles down to the Washington and Oregon border. It's been a while since I drove over the I-5 bridge into Portland. Traffic was minimal because of the time of day we went through, but sometimes it can be a crapshoot. At the junction of all the freeways and highways merging into one, we got in the correct lane to continue down I-5 south.
We took Exit 296B (the Multnomah Blvd Exit), followed that road through some residential area and then turned left onto Oleson Road. The Nuvi told us where to turn. We pulled into Nordic Northwest and there wasn't that much parking available, but we did manage to find one after a few minutes. We got out, locked the Escape and walked over towards the troll.
Ole Bolle, the troll who lives on the Nordic Northwest campus, is part of a public art exhibit, Northwest Troll: Way of the Bird King, that includes six trolls created by Danish recycle artist Thomas Dambo. Fashioned out of recycled materials, the art installations turn trash into treasured trolls who tell us a tale of protecting nature and honoring our land.
In Nordic mythology and folklore, trolls are known to be fierce protectors of nature.
We followed a woodchipped trail that led us to Ole Bolle, the troll. He had the roof pried up and was peering into a small building. We took several photos while we were there. I saw there was an Adventure Lab and Mom, and I spent some time doing all ten waypoints and checking out the Fogelbo buildings on the campus.
Mom waited in the Escape while I went to go grab a cache across the street at the bus stop. Fogelbo (GCACXJQ) was fastened on the back side of the bus stop. The ammo can was decorated with a Swedish flag and had a lock on it. The combo for the lock was on the cache page. I got the lock off, opened the container, signed my name and was disappointed there weren't any cool things inside of it. I locked it back up, stuck it back in its hiding place and walked back to the Escape.
I plugged the coordinates into the Nuvi for Wildcat Mountain near Sandy. Like I mentioned before, I have been out that way with Ray, back in 2013, to grab GC12. He and Brenda already had GC17 when I went with him so, I would have to do GC17 another day with someone else. I really could not believe it had been ten years, so much has happened since then.
The night before, I was debating whether to go up and grab it via the "short cut" or, go the longer way around. I read through the logs, and several had mentioned people out there shooting targets and the "short cut" was most likely going to be riddled in shooters due to the summer-like weather we were still having. I decided to just to the 5-mile hike just to be safe.
I was curious to see what route the Nuvi was going to take us from Beaverton to Sandy. It took us south down through Tualatin, where we got onto I-205, drove past Oregon City and up to Clackamas and onto Hwy 212, east through Boring. We got into Sandy, and I started to recognize some things from last time. We followed Nuvi's directions, got off of Hwy 26 and onto SE Wildcat Mountain Dr. We followed it for several miles all the way to the Douglas Trailhead.
I stopped at one of the wide spots in the road to grab 1217's Front Door (GC15V8K). I hopped out while Mom stayed in the Escape. It was a quick grab from a stump. I signed our names, got a photo and put it back. You could hear several people shooting off in the distance.
We continued up to the trailhead. When we got there, I noticed it had changed a lot since the last time I was up there. The trees had grown up a lot and there were more rocks piled up, attempting to keep vehicles off of the trails. I parked right where Ray and I parked ten years ago. Mom and I got our hiking socks and shoes on, our backpacks, hiking poles and peed behind the bushes before we went. I had to remember exactly how Ray and I got to the actual trail.
I told Mom that I remembered walking up this "pipeline" looking service road. It had a lot of trenches and berms worked into the landscape and even some downed trees and stumps. Again, trying to keep vehicles off of the trails. Mom followed me while I navigated our way to the trail via my geocaching app. We left the parking area around 12:15. We will see how long it took us to hike back.
We reached the rock pit and continued east along the trail when it split off. GC17 is east and GC12 was west. The Douglas Trail followed the ridgeline. We walked past an array of different plants and trees including a section of Madronas, small and large firs, rhododendrons and bunch grasses. As far as we knew, we were the only ones hiking up, but you could still hear echos of gun shots in the distance.
As we got further into the hike, we started to see the landscape change into a forest of tree trunks with boulders, downed logs and more open spaces. This is where we gained a little bit of elevation in our hike. We had to stop a few times, but it was nothing like Mailbox Peak, Mom was able to take shorter breaks and hike in longer chunks. It was more of a gradual gain than a sharp vertical gain.
We reached a junction in the trail and took McIntyer Ridge north towards GC17. We finally reached the tree line and was able to see blue sky and some of the other ridges and hills in the distance. We trudged on and kept letting Mom know that we were getting closer to the top and to the cache we came up here for. I am so glad we waited for a nice, clear day to go up there. We started seeing Mount Hood poking out of the trees and hills.
We got closer and closer to GC17 and I was getting excited! Another Jasmer cache off my list! Mom and I stopped to take a few pictures of Mount Hood in the distance. We had about 200 feet to go until we reached the intersection of the two trails. There was a sun-bleached tree snag, a beat-up bench and a great view of Mount Hood. For some reason my phone decided to restart itself and I did not have great service up there, so my GPS failed for a while. I had no idea where I was looking for the cache. I spent probably a good half hour searching everywhere while Mom sat on the bench and ate her sandwich, lol. I even got raked across the leg by a bush that grabbed me.
My phone finally found a hint of a signal and updated itself. I was able to see where I was and could access the hint. I was searching in all the wrong places. Where the trail intersects, I walked down the hill to a stump and there it was, Geocache 7/21/00 (GC17). It wasn't the original container like GC12 was, but it will do. I found it 23 years and about two months after it published. I was in between my sophomore and junior year of high school. Soooo many things have happened between that span of time. It was crazy to think about it.
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I got our names on it and because it was a special cache, we weren't in any hurry and I remembered to bring my stamp, I stamped the Cougar logo on it. We took various photos with it, I ate my sandwich with it, lol and then it was time to put it back and make our way back down to the Escape.
The hike back down was much quicker. We did take some time to enjoy the surroundings and the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. In my head I thought about the two hikes we've taken in September; this one was by far a breath of fresh air compared to the one we took earlier that month. I know Mom was happy to be able to enjoy the hike without having to be exhausted and rescued again, lol. We arrived back at the parking area around 3:45. The hike was about 5+ miles roundtrip and it took us about 3.5 hours. Not bad.
We used the bathroom behind the berm and out of view of others, just in case someone happened to drive up, took off our socks and shoes, put all of our gear into the back of the Escape and headed back down into Sandy. We listened to WSU beat up on Northern Colorado on the radio. Mom wanted a hot fudge sundae from Dairy Queen, and I wanted a beer from the Boring Brewing Company. We stopped at Dairy Queen first, went inside and Mom got her hot fudge sundae. We drove across the street, found a parking spot and went into the brewery. The lady was very nice at the counter, and I ordered The Hoppy Blonde. I thought their logo was hilarious. Mom finished her sundae while I drank my beer. We chatted about random things as we sat there in the remaining sunshine.
I finished my beer, brought the pint glass to the counter and headed out. Mom wanted to go to a JoAnne's, so we typed one into our phones and found one in Gresham. We followed the directions to a little shopping center. They were having a really good sale on just about everything, including fabric. Mom bought a couple different patterns of fabric so she could finish some baby quilts. We saved a ton of money on the sale, plus not having to pay sales tax. The Cougars defeated the Bears 64-21. I found another radio station that was playing the Duck game. They were beating up on Hawaii and ended up winning 55-10.
We got back on to I-84, hit the junction at I-5 and headed north to Washington. Mom wanted Papa Pete's for dinner, so we stopped at the one in Ridgefield. It was semi-busy, a kid's birthday party just got done and was at the tail end of it. We ordered a large pepperoni and black olive and a side salad with Thousand Island dressing. We found a place to sit, I went to the bathroom to wash my hands, and we shared the salad while we waited for our pizza to get done. Once it came out, we ate, and it definitely hit the spot after a long day. We were there for about an hour.
We stopped at the nearby Arco for some gas before hitting I-5 again. We listened to the Mariners play the Dodgers as we drove north...they didn't win. When we got closer to Chehalis, I asked Mom if she needed to stop for anything and she said yes, so we stopped for about an hour, while she picked up the things she needed.
We got into Rainier around 10 p.m., dropped Mom off and I headed home. I got home just before 10:30. I got in a shower, logged my caches, talked to Ben and then went to bed. I always have a hard time during this part of the year because I know that summer is leaving, and fall is approaching. It just takes so long for summer to return.
Next Adventure: Spokane Trip: Traveling to Spokane, Hanging with Brenda and Ray, Geocaching and Heber Hatchets
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