Grade:
B+
Length:
5.5 - 6 miles...ish?
Difficulty:
Easy, very flat but a little long for a walk. Bikes or roller blades are better.
We did this trip on bikes. Good ride. Only takes about an hour by bike and that's if you make lots of stops like we did. On roller blades I'd say it would take about 2-3 hours. That last section has old pavement so that might slow you down a bit. Lots of neat nature to see. Lots of grafitti once you get into town though. There are 2 stores that looks like they catered to people on the bike path. Paul's Bicycle Way of Life and Euphoria Chocolate. Take that as you will. And now pictures! Remember you can click them to make them bigger and all points are reflected on the map.
1. The is the parking lot where you start out. It's pretty new. It's not even on Google Earth yet.
2. Across the street from the parking lot is Greenhill Humane Society. That's where we got our dog. Don't go to a breeder or (even worse) a mall pet store for a dog. Go to Greenhill, save a dog! Or a cat...whatever. BTW, we didn't bring Cobalt on this trip but he LOVES this trail.
3. For the first 1/3 of the trail you'll be traveling through the wetlands on nice new concrete trails.
4. This is looking back at the first chunk of the path. YOu can almost make out the parking lot
5. And this is looking the other way
6. this is looking about 45 degrees to the right. The trail makes a 90 degree turn up ahead and this is looking at the bridge further on.
7. This is a dam thing. I'm not sure when they use it...
8. I'm sure this sign would tell me if I were to read it...
9. There are supposed to be some of those $.25 bionoculars here. Looks like it's busted today.
10. This is turning 180 degrees from the last picture. A lot of bird-watchers come to this parking lot because most of the migratory birds are around here. Also saw 2 hawks. I want to say they were red-tail but I don't know anything about hawks.
11. Onward!
12. Here is a horse and pony a goat and a sheep. Can you find them all?
13. Canadian gooses, eh! (My neightbor has corrected me. "It's not 'Canadian geese,' it's 'Canada geese.' That's their proper name." and Wikipedia confirms it! I have been living a lie! So now you know. Thanks neighbor. I'm still going to call them Gooses though, just like the plural of Moose is Mooses and the plural of Mice is Meeses) There were several hundred in a flock further back...couldn't get a good shot because they were so far away and since they were all gouped together they just looked like a big blob.
14. You can see another bridge up the trail a-ways
15. So the path is on the right...a crazy mystery business with lots of "private property" signs is on the right. They don't seem to like having a bike trail by their establishmnet. Not sign of what this company does but they seem awful unpleasent from the warning signs all over the place.
16. Here is a shot of the CIA headquarters or whatever it is.
17. Looks like a good place for watching nature if you don't mind standing.
18. This is the first of about 10 underpasses, there are (I think) 3 busy streets you have to cross with no crosswalks and limited ramps. Be warned.
19. YURT! You can actually see the Yurt on the map. There are some limited nature trail bridges back in here. I think it's a BLM thing. I should find out.
20. Blue-Heron!
21. Some business put a honey-bucket out here. That's very nice of them. I'm going to assume it was done out of the goodness of someone's heart and not because people were pooping outside. I would have to be INSANELY desperate to use it though.
22. Ah! a famed Eugene double decker bus. Yes, that's right. Someone welded one bus on top of another. It's actually kinda common in Eugene. I know of one bus with a sailboat welded on the top.
23. I always drove by this bridge on West 11th and wondered what the story was. It seems a bit excessive.
24. See? A bit big for a bike bridge.
25. Here is one of the busy streets we had to cross. My suggestion is to cross the street first and then ride on the side of the road to the other ramp.
26. This is a community garden. There are quite a few of these in Eugene.
27. Lower quality older path here
!!!. This is where I saw a guy FISHING in the creek. That is completely insane because A. The Amazon is not something I would call "clean" and B. THERE ARE NO FISH!
28. The home strech. A very pretty neighborhood.
X. This is where I parked
29. The end of the line. Parking here would work too.
11 comments:
I can cover a mile in about 15 min walking. Putting me at around 3-5 mph depending on terrain.
I bet you were moving 10-15mph on bikes. So 10-15mph or more depending on speed.
The CIA building is actually PSC (www.psc.com), and yeah they go a bit overboard on the security. In addition to cameras and nameless buildings, they have motion sensors around the property. Kind of weird for a company that manufactures barcode reading equipment.
AH! Thank you for the information Anonymous! I love running this blog because I find out stuff like this :)
I was disappointed to see that someone else had already solved the mystery of the PSC Scanning Building...I had hoped that for once my internship there may have had some usefulness to someone :(
Well, you could tell us why they have the crazy security and nameless buildings. Although in your place I wouldn't because anyone who has that much security has goons and or thugs.
ahh... very nice, thanks.
Um, so, do you have any ideas for a ncie bike route that goes to Veneta (or Noti?) I am looking for a route that wont get me squashed on 126... thanks!
Actually, there are a lot of fish and other wildlife in Amazon Creek. Now, the "clean" part is debatable but you'd be surprised at the amount of habitat in the creek. Check out:
http://www.metrowaterways.org/amazon.html
I just took this path today for the first time in a long time. I started by greenhill and kinda got lost downtown where it abruptly merges onto 13th. I was trying to make my way to Hayward.
I don't understand why the Fern Ridge Path doesn't continue on the OTHER side of Greenhill and go to the reservoir or whatever it is, and then on to Veneta. Now that would be some worthwhile biking! But as it is, it is still greatly appreciated. Riding bikes on 11th Avenue would be terrible, like, like, Los Angeles.
I used to work at the 'mystery business'. it's called DataLogic and they make scanners like they use in the grocery store check out line.
Amanda, do you know why the look like a secret military establishment or something?
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