Google Maps isn't good for this one as it is off of a forest road. My understanding is that it is less than a mile from where you would park if you were to drive there.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/btpxqpNopb79DxBz7

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ddRk8RUzBfEd47ya7

Yep, there's a ton of it to be found especially in the Columbia River Gorge. For anyone not hip to Nick Zentner, allow me to introduce you to this national treasure...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQhjkemEyUo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSi17xJB1Sg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IjLO9ABKYU

Climbing on columnar basalt is interesting. Vantage / Frenchmans Coulee (2 hours or so east of Seattle) has a bit of a bad reputation but some of the routes are decent.

It's rare to have basements where I live in Bend, because it's all lava rock right under our feet, which is really expensive to remove.

Pilot rock outside of Ashland you can even hike to the top

The East Bay Park district is the largest regional park system in the US, so I'm not sure it's entirely fair to call them "lazy". There's an ongoing fight over whether they should prioritize improving/maintaining/restoring what they already have or acquiring new land.

This kind of thing exists in many places in the USA for many reasons (tax relief, government stupidity or inability or lack of funds, etc).

Sometimes the government is forbidden from buying land but nothing stops an individual or charity.

>Probably they had been trying to sell it to the state for months/years/decades

Third option:

Monks want to put up some minor tourist attraction, put in some parking and hand rails or engage in literally anything, doesn't really matter what since it's all invariably regulated near water. Bureaucrat who doesn't "get it" says no this is a special site if you want to do that you need to do XYZ first or GFY. Monks say we can't afford XZY, that would make this whole thing a nonstarter or defeat the point. Site languishes for a decade or two because while the subsequent bureaucrats may know what's right they can't necessarily ignore what the first guy said without sticking their necks way out. Eventually the monks find someone to help them out who gets the state to take it off their hands. Maybe they monks get a fair deal, maybe they're losing their ass, who knows.

This fact pattern is really common with redevelopment of eyesore unoccupied buildings in prime locations so it wouldn't surprise me to see it going on with some natural site like this.

meddling kids. :P

30 years ago, listening to FM radio in the Seattle area (probably Marty Reimer on KMTT), the DJ was talking about the gorgeous weather we were experiencing and added “if you’re talking to folk down in California, be sure to let them know how gray and rainy it is”.

I agree! These are just miserable places to live. Please reconsider just moving to Arizona or Utah. Leave us to our 10 months of misery a year. :)

Indeed! No one made a song with the title "Washington Dreamin". Same with Oregon and Idaho.

Have you seen Texas city traffic lately?

> I tell you what ... Texas is a much better decision.

I tell you h'what*

It's a tongue-in-cheek statement to prevent more people moving there so crowds don't spoil it.

I assume part of this is because there is a lot of national forest not that far from Portland, and aside from a few exceptions here and there you can't buy a piece for yourself. So if you do want your own piece of rural wilderness you have to buy farther way. And Portland does have millions of people, many of whom have the financial resources to buy a little chunk of their own paradise.

Personally I'd pay a solid chunk of change for a campsite size chunk of land on the east fork of the Sandy River near Mt. Hood, right where Nottingham Campground is. I'd never leave.

No, but rich assholes like getting away from it all too.

I have no doubts you're right, but got any examples? Just curious to see them.

The meme is "<____> sucks, dont' go there." Traditionally spoken by a "local", in reference to stuff they love. It kinda/sorta makes sense in the broader culture of "locals define themselves by excluding others" left-coast parochialism. (I don't think HN is the correct place for it.)

Another example of the meme style is this ski resort "tier" map: https://www.reddit.com/r/skiing/comments/1d96f93/my_tierlist...

Which is actually funny. And the "joke" is that the person who made the tier list is trying to "hide" the resorts they want to ski (Mt Rose., Mammoth, Kirkwood, Sugar Bowl, Alpine) from whoever's reading the blog post. While falsely "praising" the famous places in an effort to divert the crowds there. (The Reddit post is great b/c the author clearly communicates that they're being ridiculous.)

I think it originated in 1971, when OR governor Tom McCall famously said, "Come visit us again and again. This is a state of excitement. But for heaven's sake, don't come here to live." It wasn't meant as a joke, he was speaking in earnest. One of his ongoing themes was opposing growth for growth's sake and he helped pass the strict land-use policies that largely still exist. It has become a joke though, you will see "Welcome to Oregon, now go home" bumperstickers and such. And a quick way to get dirty looks at a party is to announce that you just moved here from California and can't believe how cheap the houses are.

Sort of. Phrasing varies, but at least for Idaho it's very common for people who live in Idaho to go on the internet and tell people how awful Idaho is and how you should absolutely not move there. On a related note, for people who do move to Idaho, one of the things they are advised to do as soon as possible is get new license plates so that they're not constantly advertising the fact that they came from out-of-state. Idaho has received a massive amount of immigration from other states and many people are unhappy about this.

Linear rankings like this are often misleading because the difference of 10 spots on the list may be very minor in absolute terms.

I don't think there's a single factor. Oregon is fairly rural, poor, and has a huge substance abuse problem, which likely factors in. It's probably the same thing that's happening in Nevada.

It's sadly true that Oregon schools are underperforming, but the idea that spending money on public land is somehow removing money from schools is an uninformed trope. Public funds are usually earmarked for specific uses; it's not just one big slush fund.

Oregon is also extremely rural - Portland is the most populous city in the state by far, and its e.g. far smaller than all cities in the Houston/Austin/Dallas/SanAntonio metroplex. There's important cultural factors that impact its education too, like historic underfunding, poor education spending priorities, and out of touch unions (many days off, striking mid year for funds that aren't there). But I always felt the rural-ness impacting wider education trends was very under represented in discourse.

>some poor southern states

Just for your curiosity - the remarkable progress in Mississippi really challenged my similarly held bias.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/11/us/mississippi-schools-tr...

The number bounces around a bit, but 47/48 is widely found.

https://wallethub.com/edu/e/states-with-the-best-schools/533...