Overly Complicated Gorge Trip: Day 1

I took the Empire Builder Amtrak line in and out of the gorge. It's a long haul ling, goes all the way to Chicago, so big delays were a strong possibility. I could handle a 12 or 20 hour delay coming back. One going out would be more of a problem, but I did plan as if it would be delayed. But, then it was delayed way more than I'd planned for.

The gorge from the train is stunning, but also the windows were too dirty to even try to get really solid shots. I went more for 'train aesthetic' shots. I will get one or two stunning shots of the gorge someday, but that day hasn't happened yet.





The the Coast Starlight is considered the gold standard of scenic Amtrak trips and people are like 'what? why?' when I say I prefer this line is something I will never understand.

The reason why the delay was a problem is that when I arrived I'd need to get across a bridge you cannot cross on foot. Not only is it illegal, but it's old, narrow, the platform is mostly metal grating and there is a curve meaning a truck at speed will not see a pedestrian ahead:



I needed to have a pre-scheduled cab ride to get across and even though I gave myself lots of wiggle room, I was sitting in the middle of nowhere through my whole appointment window. The cab company says on their website that you can't cancel or reschedule, but for things like this they do track delays and move things around if they can. Despite getting in very late, a little blue car pulled up for me as soon as I arrived. I was so relieved.

The first place I stayed was very mid-century. The directions to my room was 'take a left, then a right, go through the breezeway, when the floor splits go up, then down the hall, then up again....' There were a lot of architectural elements I've only seen in midcentury hotels.



I enjoyed the place a lot.

Overly Complicated Gorge Trip: Day 2 - The Hike

I woke up the next day to a few logistical problems:

One - I had three conflicting sources of info on what the bus schedule was, and if it was even running

Two - Official info was that the road I needed back to town was suddenly closed due to construction, which would turn my hike from a very do-able 7 miles, to a 'I can probably survive' 14 miles. Either way, there would be about 600 feet of elevation change.

Despite all the uncertainty, I headed out anyway. This was literally my fourth attempt at knocking out this leg of the through hike and a fourth failure would be insane. Also, the weather was great and the air was clear and perfect. Smoke hasn't hit yet, but projections are this is going to be a bad year. So I was like fukkit, it's the gorge, I probably can't get into trouble I can't get out of. I need to get while the gettin's good.

Spoilers: The day went pretty smoothly outside of some stress about whether I was doing a very do-able hike or setting myself up for hell.



Finally, the damn trail! The full trail through the gorge should be completed next year, right now I am doing the existing bits in chunks. I have also hiked out to some un-restored highway ruins in the past and need to see if they are still there when I get a chance.

The original highway was not only further inland than the current one, but it also tunneled through the rock in a few sections:







( Two more tunnely pics )

Finally out at the Mosier Twin Tunnels! This took so long! Finally being there was amazing, but I hit this early in the day and wasn't sure how things would pan out from there. But hey, at least I was there and not stranded in the middle of nowhere at a connecting bus stop.

The current highway below:




When it's fully complete it will be a way to hike or bike the length of the gorge. It's a massive infrastructure project to make the gorge more accessible, but the trail doesn't go to where the current cities and towns are and there's no shuttle buses. It's a bit of a paradox. When I do the next chunk I'll need to start in Mosier again, but head the other way. Mosier isn't even a regular bus stop. The only places to stay in Mosier are extremely expensive rentals meant for groups of 12 people. Trying to do this accessible trail to support car-free travel in the gorge is a bit of a nightmare without a car.





This tree, note the roots, it's just clinging to the rock. Just hanging out, trying to thrive in an insane situation:



Lunch spot:



The road back to town was open! And a bit spicy, very curvy and not much of a shoulder:



After I got back, had showered and everything, I went out to Fermentation's beer patio:

Indie horror game news

* Exit 8 is being adapted into a movie Trailer

* Phasmophobia is being adapted into a move Deadline article

* Bloodstained is getting a sequel Trailer

Whether it's good or bad, I am glad to see that Phas is getting a movie because they spawned a whole genre. Copying what they spent years developing became a massively successful business model.

Along the same lines, it's good to see Bloodstained being so successful. 'Metroidvania' style gameplay is the underpinning of so much of the entire gaming market. Iga, who designed the 'vania' half, got treated like shit by Konami. Once he was able to get away from them, he crowd funded Bloodstained during the golden era of video game crowd funding, but actually delivered unlike most other projects. Now Iga has gotten to make another game while Konami just does terrible things to the Castlevania IP.