The same old signs mark the public entrance to Bowers Rock State Park on Sunday, Oct. 5, 2025.
Here it is October already, and I had not taken my annual bicycle ride to Bowers Rock State Park. On Sunday I finally did.
Everything was the same as on my last visit in February 2024. The same gravel trails through woodlands and open fields, the same tranquility, the same welcome absence of madding crowds.
Here’s a glimpse of what I saw:
The state Department of Parks and Recreation has made no effort to develop any facilities at Bowers Rock since acquiring the 568-acre tract on the Willamette River west of Albany in the 1970s.
As I said in the video, that’s fine with me. In recent years we have learned what people do when they have easy access to public spaces: They trash them, often as not.
The entrance to the park is about 1,200 feet west of the corner of Bryant Way and Bryant Drive, down a road covered with crushed rock. Addresses along that road call it Bryant Way, but city and county maps call it Cherry Lane.
For years now, one or more owners of private property along that road have posted signs that discourage public access.
But as I reported in 2016 after looking into it, the state has a 30-foot-wide easement for access to its property along that road. The easement is recorded in a 1917 deed on file in Linn County records, and the state’s position is that the easement allows public access as well.
That, anyway, is what I count on every time I ride the bike down that road between the “no public access” signs and the entrance to the park. No one has stopped or arrested me yet. (hh)
Bowers Rock State Park is at the end of this road, an extension of Bryant Drive. (Photo taken in November 2024)
The timing on this article is wild!
I remember reading up on the Bowers Rock easement dispute after I saw the state park on google maps and was shocked I had never heard of a state park in my own hometown! I’ve biked down that “private road” more than a few times, so you’re definitely not the only one, but every time I’ve been the park has been as deserted as you describe.
I’m currently attending law school out of state, and I just had a property law class on easements today. It reminded me of the whole Bowers Rock debacle (hence me googling it again). Gonna stop by office hours to ask my prof what she thinks about it tomorrow. Super curious to see if/when/how it gets resolved in the courts.
Thanks, Hasso, for providing us with a “trip” to Bowers Rock State Park. I see there’s no algae on that little pond. It is in the same environs as Waverly Lake and the Swan Lakes, but an absence of “human” beings close by must contribute to a lack of algae growth on the pond.
It’s a total shame that the Albany community has a 500+ acres within 2miles if city limits and the State hasn’t developed it, nor have they let Linn County Parks and Recs develop property. At the very least, there should be a parking lot on State property. When I drove a vehicle down the “easement” to check out Bower Rock, I received a tongue lashing from the property owners to the south of gate. So much river frontage that the Public could enjoy.
As somebody who once owned 15′ of property the easement crosses, and somebody who also lost an easement dispute, the state is gaslighting as they can’t develop the park without using eminent domain. Futhermore, I doubt there telling the public that they can use the easement will stand up in court if it ever comes to that. If you give an easement across your property to a neighbor, he can’t use that development to develop more houses or whatever using that easement even if it is a 60′ road. It cost me $16,000 to learn that lesson.