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| Main Street, Joseph, OR. |
We recently got our club 182 back from the shop for a panel upgrade, so was able to get in one more flying trip before the Pacific Northwest fall weather arrived. Three of us flew to Joseph, OR (KJSY) for some hiking around Wallowa Lake and an opportunity to ride the pedal powered rail cars at
Joseph Branch Railriders. We departed VFR on Friday afternoon and with the favorable winds aloft, made the 245 mile flight in just under two hours. We made a brief stop at Enterprise (8S4) to drop off one of our party to pick up a rental car and then made the 5 minute flight to park the airplane KJSY where we were met by the member of our party that picked up the rental car. After checking in to our respective accommodations, the
Kokanee Inn and
Bronze Antler B&B, we headed to downtown Joseph for food and cocktails at the Embers Brewhouse. We called it an early night as we had hiking and the rail ride planned for Saturday,
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| 1060 TXI, GI275, GFC 500, GTN 750/650 |
I was up early to walk around main street and find a coffee shop before meeting up with the rest of the crew. After walking the length of main street up and down each side of the street, I stopped at
Arrowhead Chocolates for an espresso. Turns out they serve Stump Town so this turned out to be an excellent choice.
We continued the morning with a quick car tour of Joseph and then drove out to Wallowa Lake for a short hike. The hike was relatively short (two miles each way) and we made a vertical ascent of about 1000'.
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| Above Wallowa Lake |
After the hike, we headed back to town for some lunch and a short break before our afternoon rail ride. We signed up for the two hour rail trip, which is a round trip run to Enterprise and back to Joseph. There are other length trips and will have to do the four hour Minam-Wallowa River trip next time. The rail cars are pedal powered and do have electric assist for the uphill leg of the journey. Since it's downhill from Joseph to Enterprise, once we got the car rolling it was pretty much a coast down the tracks until the road crossings which require a mandatory stop. Then it's pedal-pedal-pedal and coast until the next crossing, or until you catch up with a slower car in front of you. According to the GPS telemetry of my Garmin Virb, we topped out at 17 mph.
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| Railriders Pedal Car |
At the end of the line in Enterprise, the rider staff used a nifty carousel device to turn the cars around for the ride back to Joseph. Here's where the electric assist really came in handy, once the car gained some speed (about 3 mph), as long as the rear left seat pedals were moving, the motor accelerated to 7 mph and it was a leisurely trip back up the grade to Joseph. It had been a full day, so we returned to our respective accommodations for a short rest before dinner. As it turned out it was prime rib night at a popular place called the
Stubborn Mule and Saloon.
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| Hells Canyon |
Sunday was fly home day, but since we were nearby Hell's Canyon we decided to fly east to get some arial views of the canyon before heading home. We flew to the canyon dam and then up the canyon a few miles before turning back west for a stop in Pendleton, OR. (KPDT) for lunch. We had planned to eat at the restaurant in the terminal but they were closed on Sunday's so the folks at Wildhorse Aviation provided us with a crew car to go grab lunch in town.
