On my ride on New Year’s Day, I looked in on two parts of the Luckiamute state park north of Albany, got encouraging news at one place and, at another, became aware of the need for repairs.
A reader found a new sign at the Luckiamute state park in Polk County and feared it meant that the improved and much-delayed launch for paddle craft had sunk for good. As it happens, the paddlers’ access concept is stalled but still afloat.
Little has changed at Truax Island on the Willamette River since I last looked at the place a year ago, except that with its algae-choked water holes and abandoned gravel pits it looks even more foreboding than before.
The state parks department has been planning for years to build a paddlers’ access on the Luckiamute River in Polk County, and maybe this is the year it finally gets done. In the meantime, though, boaters do have a way to get their small craft in the water, as the video shows.
Oregon officials say they have no intention of condemning any land to provide public access to Bowers Rock State Park, but Rep. Andy Olson wants to make sure that if they do, they don’t take a farmer’s fields.
Today, a little tip for the sign makers in state government and anywhere else:  If you don’t want people to do any target shooting, don’t make the sign in the form of a target for them to shoot at. This one, in part of the Luckiamute State Natural Area in Polk County, proved irresistible to a vandal […]
Paddlers’ access: A change in plans
For more than five years, Oregon state park officials have wrestled with plans to install a floating dock and ramp on the Luckiamute River, so that launching and retrieving canoes and kayaks would be less of a chore. Now they’ve given up and changed the plans to something less complicated and easier to achieve.
Tags: Luckiamute River, Oregon State Parks, paddlers' access