Photo Post: Barlow Road // My foot print on the Oregon Trail

· by · in Adventure, Lifestyle, Mt. Hood, Oregon. ·

We didn’t hike the trail. To walk on that snow, we would need snow shoes. We weren’t dressed for the occasion. The snow on this trail was up to my hips and I am not short, so we took photos on the side of the road.

The sign says:

Barlow Road is the first road built over Cascade Range in 1845 – 1846 by Samuel K. Barlow (1792-1867). Mr. Barlow was an Oregon Pioneer from Kentucky.

The Barlow Road was a part of the Oregon Trail. The road was authorized by the Oregon Legislature in 1845, and by September 1846, it made its way around the south side of Mount Hood. This 80-to-110-mile road provided an alternative to the dangerous and expensive route that used rafts to transport wagons down the Columbia River. The Barlow Road began at The Dalles, Oregon, headed south through Dufur and Tygh Valley (which some folks consider the start of the Barlow Road), then turned west at Gate Creek and generally followed the White River before it headed north through Barlow Pass and Government Camp. It then passed through “Tollgate #5” near today’s Rhododendron and continued to the community of Sandy, where it turned west and ended up at Oregon City.  (excerpted from TheBarlowRoad.com)

According to a lot of the account, the descent is the hardest part about this trail as it’s really steep.

fLVE Barlow Road Barlow Road2 my foot on the snow

4 responses to “Photo Post: Barlow Road // My foot print on the Oregon Trail”

  1. Really cool (and probably colder than I can handle). But I have some friends who’ve just moved to Oregon, this spring. I should tell them about this. Thanks

    • Sure. Why not. 🙂 I am not sure if it’s snowing there now though. Maybe starting…we were there earlier this year, so Spring time there’s a lot of snow for sure.

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