Lake Oswego

June 18, 2025

The weather is changing temporarily. It's overcast and cooler this morning, with the chance of showers for a few days this weekend. Better ride while the conditions are right.

There was some back and forth last night over what ride to take today, with the goal that Rachael can start getting some modest climbing in. I offer several ideas, but Rachael comes up with the winning bid: a loop south to Lake Oswego that we've ridden variations of many times over the years. Today we pick the shortest, gentlest one: straight up Broadway through downtown, up Terwilliger to its high point by the Chart House restaurant, then dropping through Tryon Creek State Park to lovely/loathful Lake Oswego. From there we cross east to West Lynn, cross the Willamette and drop into Oregon City over the arched concrete bridge, and then return up the east side through the usual way, the one we just rode three days ago: up the Trolley Springwater Corridor and the Eastside Espkanade to whichever bridge we opt for to cross back to the west side.

It's really an excellent ride, very diverse, with a respectable amount of climbing - 1,800' in this variation, with nothing too serious except for the short, super-steep ramp out of the small shopping mall we cut through on our way out of Oregon City. And that one, though only maybe an hundred yards long, is a real challenge that averages aroound 15%. We're both proud of ourselves that we stay in the saddle all the way to the top, with me getting a final boost by some audible grunts and groans. And we're really pleased and flattered when a man at the bottom cheers us on and applauds us when we crest out and start the drop to Lewis Park and the famous blast furnace.

And, as promised, we just ride except for a few spots where we're stopped anyway and I haul out the phone for a few quick shots.

At the Chart House, a historic vintage restaurant at the high point of Terwilliger Boulevard that features a knockout view of the river and east to Mount Hood when the visibility is there to see it.

There's no summit sign at the low col on Terwilliger, so the totem pole will have to do.

Leaving Tryon Creek Park, entering lovely but loathsome Lake Oswego.

Sound track: Canadian Sunset, by Gene Ammons

Lake Oswego is one of those unusual towns that I have an extreme love/hate relationship with. On the one hand it's a beautiful spot, a stylish place with an abundance of attractive street art and surrounded by natural beauty and important historical sites. On the other hand, I don't think there's another town in the region that leaves me feeling angry virtually every time I bike through it, frustrated and just a bit disgusted that this prosperous, elite enclave won't allow public access to anything but a tiny sector of its lake, and won't find a way so folks can bike safely down its precious main street without risking your life or riding/walking through a crowd on its sidewalk. Today is a glaring example, as we bike together the quarter mile from Tryon Creek Park to downtown Lake Oswego. It's a slight climb on a four lane shoulderless road, but traffic is light enough that drivers can easily pull over into the center lane to safely get past us.

The pride of Lake Oswego: the pig iron blast furnace, the first one on the west coast. Before this was built in 1866, all iron used on the entire west coast had to be delivered from the east coast by ships rounding Cape Horn.

The blast furnace is Oregon's oldest industrial monument, and the only surviving blast furnace west of the Rocky Mountains. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, its completion was hailed as the most important industrial development of the century by cities from Portland to San Francisco.

Context for the blast furnace. Note in particular the vintage photograph, taken by famed 19th century photographer Carlton Watkins, the man whose early photographs of Yosemite, the Redwoods and the Columbia Gorge led to the establishment of our earliest national parks.

On the William Stafford Pathway, looking down the Willamette to the abandoned railroad bridge south of Milwaukee.

Incredible. For the second time in as many days we're forced off the steel Bridge by a slow-moving freight train.

Really? There's another one coming the other way?

Admiring the new mural at the east end of the Steel Bridge. And it's really new - the artist was just starting it when I biked past here last week.

Sound Track: St. Michael, by Sonny Rollins

We end the ride by overshooting our apartment and biking to Justa Pasta, where we claim a table in their covered outdoor dining area that was added when indoor dining was shut down in the Covid year. Justa Pasta opened as a restaurant somewhere around 2000, just before we sold our home in Salem and moved to Portland. For years it was a regular part of our lives, with part of our weekly routine being to take an after work ride in Salem at the end of our work week and stop in for dinner here on our way to our new home. It's fallen out of the rotation over the last few years but today we're reminded of what a fine place it is. I suspect we'll be here again before we leave town, dining outdoors while the weather is conducive.

Mine's fine too. Grilled chicken again, but with spinach cannelloni, grilled veggies and an appropriate beverage.

It's been an excellent day, leaving us both upbeat about how well the ride has gone for both of us, even given the mess approaching Oregon City because of the I-205 project. If we'd known how bad it would be in advance we probably wouldn't have come this way, and we probably won't repeat it until the project is completed; but it was marred about a mile of the loop after all. For the most part it's really a fine ride, one with enough elevation work to challenge us both without flattening us.

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Today's ride: 35 miles (56 km)
Total: 1,289 miles (2,074 km)

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Karen PoretYou’re both amazing people who inspire others to “ do it”!
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