Oregon Trail

Think Oregon

How the Oregon Trail could change and no one will have known what happened

Stop B2H Coalition, a small nonprofit centered in La Grande is working day and night to preserve the Oregon Trail from Idaho Power n estimated 80,000 early pioneers arrived in Oregon on the Oregon Trail, passing over the American West and etching their journey in miles of wagon wheel ruts. These ruts stand witness to an historic and epic journey, the evidence still visible almost two centuries later. But as Smithsonian magazine put it back in 2016, some of these ruts are in “danger of destruction as municipalities push to stretch bigger and better power supplies across the region.” That’s the case in Oregon, where a long-proposed project could change the view forever. It’s a battle over the desert, farmland, forests and big skies of Eastern Oregon—with scant attention from the rest of the state. It’s a tale of underdogs fighting enormous odds to protect what’s theirs, and what their…

Oregon Trail
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The Oregon Trail, 175 years later — Gravel Bikes, Running Shoes & Great Brews & Views

  written by Kevin Max regon gives a lot and sometimes, when you’re retracing the Oregon Trail on bike and on foot in a four-day span, it gives more than you expect. Okay, we took an Airstream too, but chiefly for its historic connection along the Oregon Trail. Read on. It was the second week of June, and my friend Zach Violett and I left Central Oregon with our dogs and a thirst for new adventures and good beer, bound for Farewell Bend State Park—the eastern point of modern-day Oregon’s section of the Oregon Trail. Wagons that left Independence, Missouri, crossed here months later into what is now Oregon. We brought gravel bikes, running shoes and a curiosity of what we might find along the way. Zach is an ultra runner who was recovering from a hernia surgery. Thus predisposed, he would, by doctor’s order, have to reduce his mileage…