Around Mt. Hood, Oregon

Heading back to Hood River, then south on the Hood River Scenic Highway (hwy. 35),  as we traveled around a corner Mt. Hood suddenly came into view. Wow! what a site.....

This is a beautiful part of the state. The road is lined with prosperous looking farms, fruit orchards and fruit packing plants. This time of year the trees are heavy with ripe pears, and a few wildflowers here and there for color.

It was only a short drive down the highway to a gem of a county park that Steve discovered using one of his favorite resources USCampgroundsInfo.com

Tollbridge Park is operated by Hood River County, and it's definitely going on our "A" list! (We didn't have one, but I think we'll start one now!) If we had known this park was here we never would have stopped at Memaloose.

The park has basically four loops. One for tents, one for full hookups (no tents allowed), two for partial hookups where tents are allowed - 85 sites in all, not counting the group sites. As the park takes reservations we could see that many sites were already spoken for, but we'd only planned two nights so we were able to snag one of the five river-side sites. All the river side sites are named for Oregon rivers, rather than having the usual numbers, and ours was "Crooked".

The sites are all carved out of the dense, mixed forest so, at least in the loop we stayed in, they are fairly private. The campground map indicates a trail along the river, and though there are trails back to the river in several places, the trail along the river is rather sketchy and overgrown in areas. In some sections even Shiner had trouble deciding which rabbit trail was the one to follow!

Our river access was a bit steep, but we found several nice, sandy locations out at the edge of the park where Shiner could play in the water and she had a ball! She'll rescue drowning logs as long as someone will toss them into the water for her.

She does prefer the larger ones though, if a stick is too small to suit her she'll rescue it, then park it on a little island in the middle of the river and wait for us to throw something larger and more worthy of her attention.

We really enjoyed our hikes down to the river. The forest here is an interesting mix of fir, pine, big leaf and vine maple, ferns, wild roses and a myriad of other shrubs, all sprouting from between volcanic boulders and lovely beach sand.

Most of the underbrush is ferns and typical forest shrubs, but one sunny, sandy patch along the trail was filled with heat-loving manzanita bushes, a surprising contrast to the brilliant blue Oregon grapes glowing in the shade only a few yards away.

We took a short drive on our second day over to the little town of Parkdale and stopped in McIsaacs's market. They have anything you'd need, including some nice looking local produce and a full line of craft beers.

We had a wonderful, relaxing time here, watching the river slide by, admiring the forest and listening to the rushing water. 'A vast improvement over the trains and traffic noise we've had in many campgrounds. For families with small children, the picnic area at the entrance to the park has a nice playground, so there's something here for everyone! You can find the park on Facebook too.