Travel Tips

In late January 2009, we had yet more snow. Mostly, this arrived as about 1 inch (2.5 cm) on Sunday morning, January 25 and about another inch (2.5 cm) staring in the late morning of January 27, as I write this.

In northwest Portland there is a road called Cornell Road. This road follows the Balch Creek Canyon west into the West Hills, and then enters Beaverton.

In this area, much of Balch Creek Canyon is a park called Lower Macleay Park. Here, the small stream called Balch Creek and the canyon it is in has been left in a fairly natural state. Much of the park is dense forest. During the relatively rare snow and ice that sometimes hit Portland, the forest and stream look like the above photo.

The white snow definitely adds a unique light touch to the normally dark canyon and forest.

During a somewhat less enlightened era, Portland decided it was a good decision to eliminate Balch Creek from the main part of the city. Therefore, between Lower Macleay Park and the Willamette River, the creek goes underground where no one can enjoy its noise, and no fish can use it as spawning ground.

Uphill from the entrance to the park, the park features a trail that runs beside Balch Creek. It is a wonderful place in terms of being in the forest, yet it is very close to home for quite a large number of people. Weekends can see quite a large number of people using these trails.

As you can see from these photos, the stream and the forest are quite beautiful in the snow and ice. While these photos don't show it, as it wasn't cold enough for there to be ice in the water, but in colder weather the stream is quite beautiful. Ice partially forms on the water and especially near the small waterfalls there can be some wonderful formations.

Should the sunlight come through the trees and strike the ice in a certain way (which is very rare as the canyon sits in shadow most of the day, particularly in winter) the ice is very attractive.

Though, during this day, no such light happened to strike the ice or snow in the canyon.

After crossing Balch Creek twice, the Lower Macleay Trail joins the Wildwood Trail. After continuing up the hill, the Wildwood Trail crosses Balch Creek again, and climbs up the hill to the Pittock Mansion.

However, that is not the end of trails along Balch Creek.

If you follow the signs from the Wildwood Trail to the Portland Audubon Society, you can also enjoy the several miles of trails in the Pittock Bird Sanctuary that is owned by the Portland Audubon Society.

Here, the trails are much less crowded, the trails are narrow, and the chance to see wildlife is probably much better due to the fewer people.

Even if you don't see true wild wildlife here, you can also visit a few of the educational birds that are in cages at the Audubon Society of Portland Wildlife Care Center. The Wildlife Care Center has wildlife that is being rehabilitated for release into the wild, and in order to keep them wild animals they are kept away from the public. However, the center also has a few birds that are used for educational purposes. These are birds that for various reasons could never be released back into the wild. The public is allowed to view and get reasonably close (but not too close!) to these birds.

Portland Audubon Society bird sanctuary includes a pond where a number of animals may be found.

Yes, even in the snow you can find ducks on this pond. Normally, the ducks find better food elsewhere, but with the snow covering many of those other places, they came here instead.

The Portland Audubon Society bird sanctuary pond has an observation shelter at its edge. There are benches inside, and from there it is possible to watch all visitors to the pond.

As Balch Creek descends from the top of the hill, there are several places where the rocks form small waterfalls. This is one of those places.

I was never able to get the sunlight reflecting on ice in Balch Creek (The sun too low in the sky, and it was not cold enough to make ice in the flowing water.). However, I was able to get a few photos of sunlight coming through the trees and hitting the snow.