"MOLALLA - SUBURBAN GATEWAY" Molalla by mtncorg

Molalla is a small former farming/logging community that while still serving in that role, has converted into an outlying suburban community of the Portland metroplex. Like in many cities of the fast-growing American West, housing is hard to find in an affordable fashion within the city of Portland. New home buyers end up moving far out into the former hinterlands - like Molalla - in search of something they can actually pay for.

Molalla, itself, is not unlike many other American towns. There is an old business core - reduced in importance by new markets going up on the town's outskirts - with the requiste church and saloon. The town is locally known for a rodeo put on every Fourth of July. Beyond that, you - the traveller- probably won't have much reason to stop here in Molalla - unless you know someone here. Molalla is, however, a gateway to forests, rivers and mountains that lie beyond.

The northern Willamette Valley, on its eastern side, is dominated by three smaller rivers coming out of the Cascade Mountain range. The Sandy River, in the the north, comes directly off of glaciers on the west side of Mt Hood. Not an actual tributary of thw Willamette, the Sandy dumps into the Columbia a few miles east of the Willamette's own confluence. Next, is the Clackamas River, a Willamette tributary draining a vast region deep within the Cascades. The third, is the Molalla River, also a tributary of the Willamette. The Molalla drains the front ranges west of the Clackamas basins. Her basin is the site of intensive logging operations and much of the land is managed by the Bureau of Land Management - the BLM - which is usually associated with the vast grasslands found in southeastern Oregon. For miles along the Clackamas and its tributaries, the US Forest Service maintains recreational areas for fishermen, kayakers, and campers. Here, along the Molalla, the BLM serves a similar role. The drive along the upper reaches of the Molalla is gorgeous, extending far into the mountains. Recreation abounds along the river. Far up the river, the BLM has established a wilderness area around Table Rock which is a gem for the hiker to wander among. This wilderness is aactually contiguous with the Forest Service's Bull of the Woods wilderness area to the southeast and forms a vast wild corridor in the upper reaches of both Molalla and Clackamas river basins. This is what brings me to - and through - Molalla