LANE COUNTY, Oregon
From Treetops to Sandpiles
Fun for Kids of all Ages
by Amanda Bjerke
In Lane County, Oregon, even octogenarians feel like kids again—climbing trees, playing in the sand and paddling down rivers. Here the simple joys of childhood take on extraordinary proportions.
Consider the Pacific Tree Climbing Institute in Eugene. From April through November, certified arborist Rob Miron helps folks of all ages attain a lofty perspective. “Generally speaking we climb 200 feet or higher off the ground. It’s a completely different perspective than being on the forest floor. Wildlife has more interest in you. Birds come really close. We see the big raptors flying around. Once we had an osprey with a fish in its talons come within 10 feet of us,” he said.
Climbs usually last all day. Miron explained the process, “We’re typically up 100 feet at noon. We stop and have lunch prepared by a chef on board. We get good organic meals in the woods.” The climbers eat in a tree boat. “It’s a great way station, a sturdy hammock with four points of connection with a mattress in the bottom. It’s what we sleep in as well.”
Miron explained that his services are tailored to fulfilling his client’s dreams and for many folks that means sleeping high in the tree canopy. “Mostly people want to spend two nights. We do have a person who wants to do five nights, and we’re going to help them with that. It is an amazing experience. When you wake up in the canopy, every living thing around you acts as if you’re supposed to be there. The birds are Mother Earth’s alarm clocks. They’re singing and jumping along the limbs all around you. It is incredible.”
Miron’s services also include the possibility of zooming along zip lines between the trees. “Generally they’re between 100 and 150 feet in length and about 150 feet in the air. That’s a lot of fun, too.”
The tree-climbing season extends from April through November. It costs $200 per person for a day climb—six hours of fun and lunch. Overnight stays span 24 hours, cost $500 and include three meals. Equipment is similar to that used by rock climbers. No special instruction is required. “It’s lot of rope work, more so than fixing anchors. Tree climbing is much easier than rock climbing,” Miron said. There is no age limit. “The youngest person [to participate] was two years old. The oldest was 82. They all loved it. But that 82-year-old was really something. He had been the head of his local Boy Scouts. So we were pretty impressed because he had spent a lot of time in the forest, and he said it was the most fun he’d ever had.”
Age is no bar to participating in another seemingly extreme Lane County adventure—sandboarding. Think snowboarding down steep dunes. Just 60 miles west of Eugene, the consummate beach town, Florence, is home to Lon Beale and his Sand Master Park—the world’s first sandboarding facility. Not that the sport is new.
Beale, considered by many to be the father of modern sandboarding, said “while it may be the latest phenomenon in board sports, it’s probably among the oldest sports in the world. Chinese and Egyptians were sliding down dunes thousands of years ago.”
Beale has spent much of his life perfecting the art. As a kid growing up near Death Valley, he “used to slide down the dunes on old car hoods. It was crazy.”
Now, sandboarding has gone mainstream and Beale’s facility leads the way. Josh Tenge, four-time world sandboarding champion, gives instruction at Beale’s park. “GQ [magazine] just did a story on people with the world’s 50 top jobs, and they included Josh.” Rightly so. The snowboard instructor turned professional sandboarder is paid to travel the globe sliding down the world’s steepest sandpiles.
Back home in Oregon he has free rein at a park where creating jumps, rails and half-pipes is as easy as building a sandcastle. “We can shape it any way we want it,” Beale said, “and when it dries we can ride all the way down a dune and into the ocean if we want. Riding into the waves at sunset is magical. It’s just addictive.”
Oregon visitors can get in on the fun with very little training. “If you are a surfer or a snowboarder, you’re almost there,” Beale said. “It’s just different enough that you need a little instruction.”
Even people who don’t have a knack for staying upright on the steeps have a great time according to Beale. “The sand doesn’t hurt you. We ride shirtless and in shorts. The sand grains aren’t anchored like they would be if you were rubbing up against sandpaper. By the time they’ve formed a dune, the sand grains are very soft and non-abrasive. It’s like playing football or volleyball on the beach. It doesn’t hurt to fall down.”
Last year more than 17,000 people took to the 40-acre park. “The youngest was three; the oldest was 84,” Beale recounted. Because it’s sand, older people are more likely to try it. But the bulk of the crowd is in their mid-30s.” A 24-hour pass provides unlimited access to the dunes, plus free sandboard wax. A one-hour private lesson is $45. The season never ends. “Snowboarders and surfers get a few months out of the year and then they’re done. We never stop,” Beale said.
Beale is not Lane County’s only adventure pioneer. In the 1920s a 13-year-old with the regal name of Prince Helfrich began taking tourists down the McKenzie River. He went on to develop the McKenzie River drift boat and a rafting dynasty.
Jonnie Helfrich is married to Prince Helfrich’s grandson Aaron. She explained “Prince was a pioneer in the creation of river craft and also in the exploration of new rivers. He had three sons and a daughter. All the sons followed Prince into the river business. My husband is a third-generation guide. Currently, there are 10 of us guiding. We represent seven different companies. A fourth generation of Helfrichs is guiding now, and I have no doubt that when my kids get a little older, they’ll be involved.”
Jonnie Helfrich, a lifelong boater, runs her family’s Oregon rafting operation. Her husband guides on the Middle Fork of Idaho’s Salmon River. The two met when her Virginia canoe club hired his company to provide raft support for a trip down that legendary waterway. “It was a successful river romance,” she said. “I moved to Eugene the next January, got a job teaching school and five years later we were married.” Her river capabilities made her a natural fit for the family business.
“As a guide, I had lived in a lot of different places—Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Maine, California. This is a very unique place from a rafting standpoint. The McKenzie is not a terribly difficult river. The hardest rapid is a three. They’re not scary at all, just a lot of fun. The McKenzie is fed by a huge underground water system, so even in drought years the water level doesn’t fluctuate much over the course of summer. When the Willamette is dropping like a rock, we’re maintaining on the McKenzie,” she continued.
Jonnie Helfrich also noted that the Eugene area is unique from a lifestyle standpoint as well. “The number of opportunities is really neat. People come out and think that in Oregon it rains all the time. That’s just not true. But, that said, you should be prepared for everything especially if you’re planning a whirlwind tour of the county,” she said noting that Lane County stretches from the Oregon Coast to the soaring Cascade Mountains and includes the lush Willamette Valley home to many wineries “It is possible to go from playing at the beach to hiking in the mountains in a single day. So, you should be prepared to layer up. Shorts and a nice warm jacket are both a must.”
Explaining that she grew up in the “Megalopolis of southeastern Virginia, Helfrich also lauded Lane County’s culture. “I like the arts and I love Eugene because it offers both. I am able to go rafting during the day, and at night I can be all dressed up at the Hult Center at the ballet. To be able to expose my kids to all the aspects of life here is really special,” Helfrich concluded.
DID YOU KNOW?
Eugene, a/k/a Track Town, USA, is home to the University of Oregon where legendary track coach Bill Bowerman and his star Steve Prefontaine inspired a running craze that swept America in the early 1970s. Prefontaine perished in a 1975 car accident in Eugene. Bowerman founded Nike, now based in the Portland suburb Beaverton. Eugene still retains its Track Town cred’ as the site of the 2008 Olympic Track and Field Trials.