Another Day, Another Hike

To keep our momentum going, we decided to take a quick hike in the neighborhood today. We totaled about eight miles and 1,043 feet in elevation gain, all starting from our front door. It's really nice to have these kind of trails and hikes within walking distance of home.

We brought our handheld GPS with us today, to track our entire route. There is a really cool website (www.GPSies.com) where you can upload your hike from your GPS and display it on an interactive map with all the stats. If you are so inclined, you can see what I mean by clicking here. That will have all the info from our hike today.

This was our route today, starting and ending at our apartment

We took the Upper Macleay and Wildwood trails to reach Pittock Mansion, home to Henry and Georgiana Pittock in the early 1900s. After traveling to Portland from PA in a wagon train a "barefoot and penniless" boy, he worked for Thomas Jefferson Dryer and eventually took ownership of the (then) weekly Oregonian newspaper, which is now our daily newspaper. This is the dream house he and his wife commissioned a local architect to design, situated on 46 acres over 1,000 feet above downtown Portland. The interior can be toured for $7, but the grounds are free for strolling and picnicking. We opted to enjoy the grounds with some sandwiches from St. Honore bakery... mmmmmmm.

The front entrance to the mansion

View of the mansion from the backyard

View of downtown (and our apartment) from the backyard

Continuing on the trail

There is a huge series of trails all networked through this area

We also decided to check out the International Test Rose Garden on the way down. We were here a couple weeks ago, but the roses weren't in bloom yet. Today, it is almost there! Lots of roses in full bloom, but some that haven't quite gotten there yet. Another two weeks and it should be gorgeous.

Entrance to the garden, which is free to the public

Some beautiful, coral-colored roses (I forget the name)

My new favorite rose, called "Rainbow Sorbet"

Rainbow Sorbet, a hybrid tea rose

Even more Rainbow Sorbet

Water break!

I didn't get the name of this variety, but the peach/purple combo is gorgeous

We'll be sure to visit again in the coming weeks! And I'm sure we'll have many more interesting hikes to come. We bought a new book of 100 hikes in our area today, so we'll be starting to check those off the list!

Love,
Jenny