Explore Oregon

Park City and the surrounding Wasatch Range boast some of the best and most consistent snow for skiing and riding.

Park City: Ski, Dine & Explore in Utah’s Alps

Park City shines with the nation’s largest alpine resort and a hopping after-slopes scene written by James Sinks When life sends clouds—as Pacific Northwest winters are known to do—seek silver linings. Try looking eastward. An abundance of escapist luster awaits in the craggy, silver-laden Wasatch Back Range in Utah, and in its centerpiece nineteenth century mine town of Park City. Navigate silver (and gold) Olympic medalists’ terrain. Celebrate the silver screen. Admire local-fashioned sterling jewelry. Lunch at the Silver Star Café. And happily embrace the truism that not all that glitters need be gold. Long a hunting territory of Indigenous Ute tribes, the Wasatch region of the Rocky Mountains wasn’t initially enticing to westward-bound settlers in the 1860s, especially when compared to the fast-growing religious enclave founded by Brigham Young at nearby Great Salt Lake. But then prospectors struck silver. For the following century, mines churned out precious ore and…

Built in 1860, Kubli Haus is a tastefully updated version of its prior self.

Kubli Haus: A Historic Stay in Jacksonville

written by Kerry Newberry | photography by Martina Patella/Kubli House For Kathleen and Brian Dunn, Kubli Haus is more than a small town retreat—it’s an ode to history and happenstance. A few years ago, when considering a pivot from city suburb to small town life, the couple began touring properties in Southern Oregon. “When we first drove into Jacksonville, we looked at each other and knew this was it,” said Kathleen. Steeped in history and packed with charm, the entire town of Jacksonville is designated a National Historic Landmark. It’s easy to swoon over the beautiful brick buildings and leafy neighborhoods. What the couple didn’t expect was to fall head over heels for a ramshackle but stately historic home built in 1860 that was in need of monumental TLC. “We knew it was a big risk,” said Brian. “But we also wanted to invest in the town.” The yearslong labor…

Jacksonville sets up like a postcard during the holidays.

A Storybook Winter: Jacksonville & Applegate Valley’s Holiday Magic

’Tis the most wonderful place when snow comes to Southern Oregon written by James Sinks Imagine a storybook gold rush-era town, where stately houses and brick boutiques glisten with holiday charm, where recreation options beckon and where cocoa and award-winning wines take turns warming you up. Also, imagine it’s not only Santa checking to see if you’re naughty or nice. Bigfoot might be watching, too. In Southern Oregon’s Jacksonville and the neighboring Applegate Valley, imagination meets reality. Here, as the mercury falls, lights go up and the nostalgia comes out. Each year, a Victorian Christmas celebration offers a tantalizing escape to a simpler time. Distant are big city stressors, and real world depressors. Soak in the decor, food, farm stands, spas, musicians, trails, parade and the romantic downtown that practically begs you to hold hands inside your winter gloves. This year, the tradition gets bigger. Jacksonville Trolley buses that previously…

Vancouver Island’s Malahat SkyWalk soars above the forest, giving visitors who make the climb unparalleled views.

Malahat SkyWalk and Victoria’s Indigenous Ties

The soaring Malahat SkyWalk helps connect the present to Vancouver’s Indigenous past written by James Sinks Unfolding below, a lush blanket of Vancouver Island rainforest disappears at a rugged shoreline, and then rises again through mist-shrouded hillsides across a narrow bay. Eagles tack in the wind. There is no bustle, except maybe the happy screams of children descending a slide nearby. The bird’s-eye vantage comes courtesy of one of the more ambitious and architecturally stunning ecotourism projects in North America, the circular Malahat SkyWalk, just northwest of Victoria, B.C. Opened in 2021, the centerpiece of the $17 million SkyWalk project is a towering wood-and-steel scaffold that invites you to corkscrew from a Douglas fir-and-cedar forest upward some ten floors—roughly 800 feet from the ground below—to a 360-degree viewing platform where on clear days you can see as far away as Washington’s Mount Baker. It’s a place that can make you…

Camping is vastly improved with a pie from Beckie’s Cafe.

Beckie’s Cafe: A Historic Oregon Gem

A long-time favorite in the Umpqua National Forest written by Joni Kabana Who would have thought back in 1926 that a small cafe located minutes from Crater Lake National Park would survive recessions, change of ownerships and even a pandemic? Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Beckie’s Cafe—in addition to host Union Creek Resort—has been a beloved destination for many sojourners, even as far back when Union Creek was an important camping spot on the long stretches of trails connecting early settlements with Crater Lake. Zane Grey, Jack London and Herbert Hoover purportedly have made stops there and mingled among patrons, in addition to many repeat connoisseurs. “Beckie” was actually Ed Beckelhymer, who opened the cafe and passed the torch to his wife, Cecil, also becoming known as “Beckie,” until she passed during the late 1960s. A few recipes might have changed over the years with new owners,…

Plan a kayaking outing with the help of the adventure coaches at Headlands Lodge.

Romantic Off-Grid Escapes: Oregon’s Lakes, Rivers & Ocean Retreats

Wanderlust and Love written by Cathy Carroll The spray off a waterfall, the rush of a salty ocean wave, the lapping of a meandering river, the placid surface of a mountain lake—they woo us, beckon us, seduce us. Whether you plunge in, paddle in or perambulate by them, they heighten our senses, soothe us and provide the perfect setting for relaxing, romantic fun. They abound. Here are a select few. NETARTS + PACIFIC CITY Waves Kayaking through mellow Netarts Bay between Cape Meares and Cape Lookout, connect with your partner as you take some lessons in play and relaxation from seals and sea lions lounging in pristine surroundings. Fully exhale as pelicans, great blue herons and bald eagles soar overhead, and western snowy plovers—palm-sized, sand-colored puffs—skitter on the shore. Songbirds serenade, and cormorants perch on rocks, spreading their great black wings out to dry. Follow suit, warming your own wings…

Grange Estate at Dundee Hills combines luxury in the midst of luxurious wines of the Willamette Valley.

Grange Estate: A Luxe Farmhouse Retreat in Dundee Hills

written by Kerry Newberry The vintage photographs, golden Douglas fir interiors and wall of antique farm tools (an ode to the agricultural history of the area) radiate modern farmhouse charm. But as you walk around the recently opened Grange Estate at Dundee Hills, there’s also a luxe wine country aesthetic from the open kitchen with sea-green Moroccan clay tiles to the sumptuous leather couches and backlit bookshelves. Set in the heart of the Willamette Valley’s famed Dundee Hills, this new retreat is the sister property to the neighboring and beloved Black Walnut Inn. The nine-room property is packed with treasures that celebrate the spirit of place, from historic maps and artisan furnishings to local crafts like an eye-catching Oregon flag tapestry that was hand-woven by Kush Rugs. You can soak up vineyard views from most windows—or settle into an Adirondack chair on the rambling veranda. Even better, you can reserve…

Enjoy kayaking, boating or fishing at the iconic Wallowa Lake just south of Joseph.

Discover Joseph, Oregon: Art, Nature, and Local Culture in the Wallowa Valley

In artsy Joseph in summer, there’s much to see and experience—and not much time written by James Sinks It’s little mystery why Joseph attracts artists in droves. Surrounded by windswept grassy fields and in the shadow of towering peaks and glacier-carved Wallowa Lake, and with the easygoing aura of a place where nobody is in a hurry including hungry herds of loitering local deer, the Western-themed hamlet all but demands that you slow down, exhale and revel. And yet it’s almost impossible—nor would it be responsible—to breathe and bathe in the dramatic landscapes of the northeast corner of Oregon without also acknowledging a sad irony. It was here in 1879 that newly arrived settlers called the town Joseph, after the Nez Perce chief who’d just recently been chased from the valley. Chief Joseph always hoped his people could one day return to their ancestral homeland and the place his father…

Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve offers a beautiful and austere experience without the summer crowds of national parks.

Explore Idaho’s Craters of the Moon: 100 Years of Lava Landscapes and Adventure

Celebrate the centennial of Idaho’s dusty lava wonderland at Craters of the Moon—and then clean up your act afterward written by James Sinks As he zigzagged an otherworldly expanse of lava flows, blackened buttes and craggy caves in central Idaho—and on rocks so jagged underfoot it left his Airedale terrier’s paws bloodied—Boise explorer Robert Limbert remarked that the more than 600 volcanic square miles looked like a desolate moonscape. And yet at the same time, also strikingly beautiful, he wrote in National Geographic in 1924, as part of a bid to secure federal protection. “It is a place of color and silence,” he wrote in dispatches from the Craters of the Moon. “It is the play of light at sunset across this lava that charms the spectator.” The name stuck. The same year, President Calvin Coolidge formally designated the Craters of the Moon National Monument, he said, to conserve its…