Our first stop on last September’s Oregon Cascades trip was at Milo McIver State Park. It’s a good-sized park, on a hillside overlooking the Clackamas River, and makes a good midway stop if you’re barreling down the roads between Gig Harbor and greater metropolitan Bend, Oregon.
It wasn’t raining when we arrived, but it had been raining, and the local trees had stored up all the water in order to dribble it out onto our campsite after we arrived. For this reason, and because we planned to hit the road fairly early the next day, we didn’t deploy much of our little traveling campsite kit.
Our campsite at Milo McIver was really pretty nice. Spacious, fairly private as these things go, and level. Also damp — not unusual for September in western Oregon. Pine needles and other detritus attached themselves to our shoes, then spread across Toto’s floor like a mumps outbreak. We survived.
According to legend, this park hosts one of the finest disc golf courses around. Accomplished golfers come from near and far to play in championship tournaments here. When we first planned the trip, we were to stay here two nights, leaving me time to triple par on the course, but that plan changed, we stayed only a night, and I didn’t get to shame myself.
But we did get to see a lovely little spot on the Clackamas River, just a short stroll from the campground.
Check it out! This is River Mill Reservoir, a small lake formed by (you guessed it) the River Mill Dam and Hydroelectric Project. What a great spot for a picnic, sez I.
The path from the campground loop brought us right out to this spot. The dam is in the opposite direction.
We took these shots from a small pier clearly placed for the use of fishers and, oh, birders, maybe. That’s the reservoir-side of the hydro dam down there. And those things up above, why, those are clouds. Feel free to contact me with any nature questions you might have.
A handy path along the shore brought us to a nice vantage point just below, and yet somehow above, the dam.
That’s the spillway, for extra spillage, on the right, and off to the left there are generators and whatnot. I think.
The Portland Railway, Light and Power Company had this contraption built in 1911. They were probably not thinking of iPads and electric cars at the time, but maybe gas lights were going out of vogue (little did they know a new gaslighting phenomenon would re-emerge a century later).
But I digress. This place, constructed by a firm that built over 100 other dams around the United States, is the only one of its type left west of the Mississippi. It’s on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. And now Tyler and Wally have seen it, and left their mark, as it were.
Not too close to the river, though.
There’s more to explore at this park, so we are going to go back sometime.
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