I recently began reading the New York Time online, in hopes that I'd quit paying the ridiculous 75-cent price for out-of-Portland Oregonians (it's mostly working). It's nice, since they email the headlines to you, from which you can click to read at your leisure.
Today there was an article on rural poverty, using Oakridge as the setting. I wouldn't call the article all that great (it really isn't), but it does remind us that the transition of rural economies that has been assumed to be in full swing is not being well felt in all communities equally.
The real reason I posted this is that I was actually in Oakridge and Westfir (the tiny neighbor town of Oakridge) this afternoon. I've been enjoying the Middle Fork Willamette corridor quite a bit this summer, and have wondered more than a few times why it doesn't enjoy the success that the much-more constricted spacewise McKenzie corridor does (my friend Sam I think summed it up: on the way to Bend). At the same time, I wonder what's keeping the town from capitalizing on recreation commerce more. Every trailhead I went to had multiple mountain bikers resting from a recent descent, and in town I saw at least 50 bicyclists. In a month, I'll be hiking through there on my four-day backpacking trip (if all goes right). I'll be sure to drop by the bar for grub and some grousing with the locals.
I encourage anyone to go visit the area, it's quite a fantastic place in the mountains (I highly recommend entering Waldo Lake Wilderness via Salmon Creek Road; a lovely area, and any given day could result in never seeing another person. Bring strong calves, though).
Is that Big Mountain Pizza?
ReplyDeleteI think you found something here, with biking becoming the next big thing. Oakridge could see an explosion in population and recreation type businesses.