Friday, February 11, 2011

3/60 marquam trail to council crest & kyle's birthday!

Completed: 2/2/11 (Kyle's birthday!)
Difficulty: Moderate
Rating: 3.5 stars
Time: we forgot to look! and we got a little lost!
Length: 3.7 miles

this picture is a view from the top of our hike! (the photo isn't the best and didn't do all of the views justice because i, unfortunately, do not have a great camera! also, if you are thinking of buying kyle and i a gift anytime soon, a fancy camera is very high on our 'want' list!)

so one of the things kyle wanted to do on his birthday was go hiking! so the plan was to wake up semi-early and go hiking, then go for lunch, hang out and watch a movie at home, go climbing, and then eat cake!
so we decided to do the marquam trail to council crest hike because it is in town (about 5 minutes from downtown!) and the author of our hiking book recommends doing this on a clear day because you have a view of mt. st. helens, mt. rainier, mt. hood, and mt. adams--which all happen to be volcanoes! and i know how much kyle loves mt. hood, so i suggested this one!

the trail starts out near ohsu (which happens to be one of the hospitals i want a job at!) so i knew exactly how to get there. marquam trail happens to be a little nature preserve-type area that has a nice loop and that connects to the council crest trail! the trail crossed 2 different roads and cut through the woods near some awesome houses, so you could tell it was right in town. it did also cross over the road that leads up to council crest park. it is good to know that there is a road because all though i really enjoyed this hike it would be

nice to take friends and family who are visiting up there and there isn't always enough time for everything!

this hike was DEFINITELY worth it because the views on top were A.M.A.Z.I.N.G! this was also a pretty busy trail and i can only imagine hiking it everyday as a nice start to the day kinda thing! there were some pretty parts to the forest area that we were walking through including a fallen-log bridge (and a real bridge that i crossed...kyle took the dangerous route!) and a stream.

kyle and i also happened to get a little turned around. at one point there was an option of taking the higher path or the lower path. we chose the higher path. well eventually this took us way to far to the left (council crest was to the right of where we started) so i thought it felt wrong. we finally happened upon another hiker so i asked if we were going the right way. NOPE! so we turned around! we did walk about 3/4 miles out of our way though! just a little extra exercise!

we took our time up at the top and took lots of pictures! sadly, most didn't turn out that great! once we got back down to our car we drove downtown and went to deschutes for lunch. it is a little expensive but kyle and i really like it! so far we have taken my mom, ryne and sam, and kyle's family all there! the place has good food and great beer! plus we filled up kyle's growler! we stopped at belmont station so kyle could buy himself an expensive bottle of beer with some of his birthday money and one of his co-workers suggested we check out rocky butte if we were looking for views of mt. hood! thats another place in portland (this time you drive to it!) and it was really cool! more great views!

later we got home and watched groundhog day which was a very fitting choice and i had never seen it! then we went climbing and came home and ate chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream cake from cold stone! cold stone ice cream cakes are one of kyle's favorites!

so right now if we are to get all of these hikes done by the end of the year we should already be at 7! eek! we have 4 done (we are a little behind on the blogging!) and we are doing another tomorrow! we are still playing catch up!

and i finally got new hiking shoes! i LOVE them!


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