We went to Oregon to see the Aug 21 2017 total eclipse of the sun. Although the location we saw it from gave us only 70s of totality, it was still spectacular and memorable.
We stayed with friends for the week, in Tualatin, a bit south of Portland. Our original plan was to spend the weekend at their cabin in Sisters, from where we would drive north to get longer totality; however, there was a forest fire burning near there, with a pending evacuation order (which did come to pass) so we decided to stay in town.
The reason for going to Sisters was for more reliably clear weather, but fortunately for millions of people, including us, it was forecast to be clear on eclipse morning in western Oregon. As it turned out, only the first morning of our trip and the last, were clouded over in the morning; the rest of the days were clear blue skies.
We spent 2 day pre-eclipse doing some scouting. We wanted to find somewhere that had a view of the Willamette Valley looking west. The idea was to see the shadow approaching. We figured that we would be able to see to the coast range, maybe 20-25 miles away. The shadow of the moon would be moving at 2400 mph, so would seem that the shadow would cross the valley in 20s or so. That was our aim.
We looked for clear areas in the hills on google maps and found some candidates to drive to. Which we did, on gravel roads, and found one silver lining to clear-cutting, which is that it does create expansive views. The problem was that it turned out these roads we were on were on Weyerhauser property, and technically, we were trespassing. There were no entrance checks the day we were there, but we thought that probably, they would staff their gates on eclipse day, so we looked for alternate sites.
The next day, we decided to explore the eastern side of Weyerhauser's property that borders National Forest land. There are National Forest roads galore in this area, so we thought we'd take them to the top of Goat Hill, which looked to overlook all of Weyerhauser's land. The first NF road we took was paved. Then it turned into a rough gravel road, then it turned into, essentially, a wide trail, and as we were driving the rental car, we decided not to push it. After we had turned around, we were passed by a capable looking Jeep which probably could have made it to the top.
Two strikeouts. These scouting trips were fun, but not producing any viable viewpoints. We took a day off from actual scouting to go into Portland to explore, but we still needed to have a plan, so we did some more google map scouting, finding another clearcut patch closer by, not on Weyerhauser land. Without actually driving there, we thought we'd just wing it on eclipse day, with the backup of going to a nearby small town's high school to see the eclipse.
Eclipse day traffic was forecast to be heavy, and we decided to set out at 7am. At that time, I5 south to Salem was jam packed, but we were headed east, then south, and roads were free-flowing, if not empty. We got to the gravel road going up to our scouted clearcut, and uh oh, looks like a security person waving us down. We were prepared for him to tell us that we weren't allowed access, but he was friendly and welcoming and told us to be careful and to dial 911 if there was an emergency, and more importantly, directed us to where he said the view "goes on forever". We drove up the road, and saw that our scouted area had more fully grown trees on it; would not have been suitable. But we were not where the guard was sending us. We drove up further and entered another clearcut, and wow, what a view! Except that we were in shadow, but we saw that slightly lower, there was another road, so we drove to the gate before this road, parked, and walked into the clearcut. Other than the devastation of the clearcut itself, the view was fantastic, perhaps even better than the views from Weyerhauser's property. We were able to procure some wood stumps for seats and settled in.
A little later, another group came in wondering who had found their secret viewpoint. This other group was from only 3 miles away, so it was indeed a local spot.
The eclipse itself from where we were was, as mentioned, only a little more than a minute long (max 2 mins at centerline -- this was a relatively short eclipse), but we were there by 8:30, so after setting up, still had an hour plus to go. A little after 9, the moon's shadow started obscuring the sun, and while it was cool to look at it every now and then, the interesting effects started when it was maybe 80% obscured -- then, the quality of the light looked very strange, the temperature had noticeably dropped, and things just looked very wierd.
We were able to see the crescent shadows about 5 mins before totality, and then we turned to look for the shadow. Here is the lesson for next time -- you can't see the shadow coming towards you. Instead, what happens is that it just gets progressively darker (but doesn't ever get as dark as night; more like dusk, at least where we were for this eclipse). We turned back to look at the sun just in time to see the "diamond ring" effect, which is spectacular. At totality, we looked through binoculars at the sun (i.e. at the corona). We saw some magenta color at 1 o'clock, which presumably was a solar flare. With the naked eye, the corona appears as narrow ring of light, and nothing like what photos make an eclipse look like. If you have just seen photos of an eclipse, you have not seen what it really looks like. You must see it in person.
After what felt like a very short time, the sun reappeared, and it got bright again quickly. We saw, at this point, rippling shadows on the ground, from the atmosphere heating up. And it was over. We packed up and got on the road. On the road, we passed some people still looking at the sun, which was probably at 25% coverage by that time.
Lesson for next eclipse: get to longest duration.
We stayed with friends for the week, in Tualatin, a bit south of Portland. Our original plan was to spend the weekend at their cabin in Sisters, from where we would drive north to get longer totality; however, there was a forest fire burning near there, with a pending evacuation order (which did come to pass) so we decided to stay in town.
The reason for going to Sisters was for more reliably clear weather, but fortunately for millions of people, including us, it was forecast to be clear on eclipse morning in western Oregon. As it turned out, only the first morning of our trip and the last, were clouded over in the morning; the rest of the days were clear blue skies.
We spent 2 day pre-eclipse doing some scouting. We wanted to find somewhere that had a view of the Willamette Valley looking west. The idea was to see the shadow approaching. We figured that we would be able to see to the coast range, maybe 20-25 miles away. The shadow of the moon would be moving at 2400 mph, so would seem that the shadow would cross the valley in 20s or so. That was our aim.
We looked for clear areas in the hills on google maps and found some candidates to drive to. Which we did, on gravel roads, and found one silver lining to clear-cutting, which is that it does create expansive views. The problem was that it turned out these roads we were on were on Weyerhauser property, and technically, we were trespassing. There were no entrance checks the day we were there, but we thought that probably, they would staff their gates on eclipse day, so we looked for alternate sites.
The next day, we decided to explore the eastern side of Weyerhauser's property that borders National Forest land. There are National Forest roads galore in this area, so we thought we'd take them to the top of Goat Hill, which looked to overlook all of Weyerhauser's land. The first NF road we took was paved. Then it turned into a rough gravel road, then it turned into, essentially, a wide trail, and as we were driving the rental car, we decided not to push it. After we had turned around, we were passed by a capable looking Jeep which probably could have made it to the top.
Two strikeouts. These scouting trips were fun, but not producing any viable viewpoints. We took a day off from actual scouting to go into Portland to explore, but we still needed to have a plan, so we did some more google map scouting, finding another clearcut patch closer by, not on Weyerhauser land. Without actually driving there, we thought we'd just wing it on eclipse day, with the backup of going to a nearby small town's high school to see the eclipse.
Eclipse day traffic was forecast to be heavy, and we decided to set out at 7am. At that time, I5 south to Salem was jam packed, but we were headed east, then south, and roads were free-flowing, if not empty. We got to the gravel road going up to our scouted clearcut, and uh oh, looks like a security person waving us down. We were prepared for him to tell us that we weren't allowed access, but he was friendly and welcoming and told us to be careful and to dial 911 if there was an emergency, and more importantly, directed us to where he said the view "goes on forever". We drove up the road, and saw that our scouted area had more fully grown trees on it; would not have been suitable. But we were not where the guard was sending us. We drove up further and entered another clearcut, and wow, what a view! Except that we were in shadow, but we saw that slightly lower, there was another road, so we drove to the gate before this road, parked, and walked into the clearcut. Other than the devastation of the clearcut itself, the view was fantastic, perhaps even better than the views from Weyerhauser's property. We were able to procure some wood stumps for seats and settled in.
A little later, another group came in wondering who had found their secret viewpoint. This other group was from only 3 miles away, so it was indeed a local spot.
The eclipse itself from where we were was, as mentioned, only a little more than a minute long (max 2 mins at centerline -- this was a relatively short eclipse), but we were there by 8:30, so after setting up, still had an hour plus to go. A little after 9, the moon's shadow started obscuring the sun, and while it was cool to look at it every now and then, the interesting effects started when it was maybe 80% obscured -- then, the quality of the light looked very strange, the temperature had noticeably dropped, and things just looked very wierd.
We were able to see the crescent shadows about 5 mins before totality, and then we turned to look for the shadow. Here is the lesson for next time -- you can't see the shadow coming towards you. Instead, what happens is that it just gets progressively darker (but doesn't ever get as dark as night; more like dusk, at least where we were for this eclipse). We turned back to look at the sun just in time to see the "diamond ring" effect, which is spectacular. At totality, we looked through binoculars at the sun (i.e. at the corona). We saw some magenta color at 1 o'clock, which presumably was a solar flare. With the naked eye, the corona appears as narrow ring of light, and nothing like what photos make an eclipse look like. If you have just seen photos of an eclipse, you have not seen what it really looks like. You must see it in person.
After what felt like a very short time, the sun reappeared, and it got bright again quickly. We saw, at this point, rippling shadows on the ground, from the atmosphere heating up. And it was over. We packed up and got on the road. On the road, we passed some people still looking at the sun, which was probably at 25% coverage by that time.
Lesson for next eclipse: get to longest duration.
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