Blanton Ridge Park

Blanton Ridge Trailhead from Google Streetview

Kim and I took a walk from the house to Blanton Ridge Park today. Blanton Ridge is part of the Eugene Ridgeline Park system which has over 1000 acres of parkland including Spencer's Butte, which Kim mentioned in our last post.

According to the pamphlet on the parks put out by the city of Eugene this portion of trails "offers a secluded walk through a mixed forest of towering Douglas-fir and big-leaf maple." You are also supposed to be able to look out over town. Unfortunately the middle of the trail was closed due to trees being down and trail maintenance so we didn't get to that part. We sadly didn't bring a camera, because if we did we might have a picture of a Steller's Jay to show you (they are the only crested Jay west of the Rocky Mountains so you should be very sad to miss out). To appease you I found a photo on Flickr.

Some rights reserved by amhuxham

The trailhead is less than a mile from the house. We decided while walking the trail that our fitness goal should be to run from our house to the top of Spencer's Butte and back. There is no timeline for the completion of this goal. That's about 10 miles round trip with over 1100 feet of vertical gain. That means that over the trip up it averages around a four percent grade. Expect photos taken by us (not the google van) of various points along this trail as time goes on. The Blanton Ridge trail is supposed to be reopened fully on October 28th.