Explore Oregon

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Stand-up Paddling

About five years ago, surfing legend and Bend resident Gerry Lopez went into his shop in Maui and built his first stand-up paddle board, a one-off job for a special client. A week and a half later, big wave legend Laird Hamilton, walked into Lopez’s shop to claim the stand-up board that would launch a frenzy over the emergent sport.

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Say Cheese

Historical lore dates Tillamook County’s first cheese to around 1856, when William W. Raymond separated curds and whey in a large vat. The growing season was too short, so settlers resorted to cows and surplus milk. Over the past century, Tillamook became synonymous with the 100-year-old Tillamook Creamery, whose medium cheddar was awarded the best at the World Champion Cheese Contest in Madison, Wisconsin this March. That quality no doubt contributes to the little-known fact that Tillamook Cheese Factory is the second most visited site in the state of Oregon. More than one million people each year peer through the observation deck windows to see one of the world’s best cheeses being sliced. Leisha Mizee-Riggert’s forebears emigrated from other cheese-producing nations of Holland and Switzerland and began to raise dairy cows four generations ago in Tillamook. Their family dairy farm, as with 110 others in the area, is a member…

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Guile before Guns

Nearly a century ago, a deft-minded Governor Oswald West put his hand to his holster and drew out political genius rather than his pistol.

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Rogue River Adventure

On May 14th, seven of us departed from the bridge at Grave Creek for a three-day float trip down the Wild & Scenic section of the Rogue River. 

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Highway 199

An interesting stretch from Grants Pass to the California Border reveals cavemen as political pranksters, The Duke, treehouses and Dutch Brothers’ origin.

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Silverton: Oregon’s Garden City

Silverton rolls out of the Cascades to the west and over valley soils that support sheep farms, tree nurseries, a handful of vineyards and other agriculture. Fifteen miles west lies the state capitol, Salem, and forty-five miles north is Portland. Silverton takes after neither. Depending on where you look, Silverton is a sliver of artistic Ashland, a dash of Dundee wine country and dose of Eugene oddity.

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1859’s Best of Oregon 2010

This spectacular forest preserve off the Santiam Highway (Hwy 22) was mostly unheard of until 1859 when gold was discovered in the area. That led to years of misuse of the resource.

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Survival Challenge on the Oregon Coast

A Man vs. Wild attache teaches city-slickers how to survive in the wilderness of the Oregon Coastal Range in the dead of winter. The result was wet, hungry and tired—but true primal survival nonetheless. The lessons learned along the path, invaluable. 

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Racing Mountain to Town

When Jenny and Dave Sheldon left Jackson, Wyoming to move to Bend in 1975, they brought with them the idea of a new type of outdoor sports competition involving alpine and Nordic skiing, paddling and cycling, an event similar to what had been run successfully in Jackson that spring.