And in one moment, I made a misstep and actually fell on my butt in the logjam, which was also partially submerged in water so my butt was wet…

But the end result of my efforts was that a sharp tree protrusion gashed my left index finger, and it seemed to be bleeding pretty non-stop…

Indeed, it really seemed like the Dream of the 90s that so endeared a lot of people to the city of Portland looked like it was dead as we drove through the downtown area…

But just as Mom and I were about to turn and walk downstream, Dad suddenly took a spill and fell belly-first next to the ground that we had stood on…

The cop was still there issuing citations. I took the opportunity to ask him where the nearest legal parking spaces were. At first, he gave me a smug answer…

So I made sure that each of my steps were sure and steady even though my face, legs, and arms were being whipped and scratched by the twigs of the fallen trees as I was scrambling…

…we did notice another party with dogs that were also whimpering. There was something about this place that dogs didn’t seem to like apparently…

Sure enough when we finally got to the familiar entrance for the Eaton Canyon Falls, we saw that the gate to its large parking lot was indeed closed…

It was an unfortunate circumstance since the mood had now soured from what should have been a serene and peaceful hike through the forest in pursuit of another one of the waterfalls along the…

Eventually at about 9:20am, Julie rushed us out of the house just as I was dialing into my meeting. Fortunately, I didn’t have to do any presenting though it would have been good to see…

As I was climbing and getting a few final shots back down at the Devil’s Punch Bowl, I saw that there was a couple of jeeps making the death-defying drive down! I took this opportunity to…

However, when I got to the other side of the river, I noticed that there was no trail and it was a straight bushwhack into the thickness of vegetation. Without pants, I realized that I probably…

Maybe all the bad decisions in pursuing this falls finally caught up with me and I had to respect the limits that Mother Nature threw at me. I even wondered if I saw the Grizzly Bear Falls at all…

It was unnerving to see this many people out here on a Friday, and I’d bet that on the weekends, it would be even worse. Maybe lots of people were already out of school…

In my mind, I was thinking that all the caution that we were practicing was essentially getting thrown to the wind the moment you start involving people who don’t take this seriously…

Regardless, by the time we were driving on Mt Baldy Road, we were seeing on multiple occasions flashing signs saying ‘All Baldy Trails Closed’ and ‘Parked Vehicles Will Be Towed Away’…

Julie was fearful that they might get reported to police so they stayed behind, but now that planted in my mind that perhaps there was a time limit for my exploration before the cops would show up…

Still, with all the mental stress from being stuck in the house and the uncertainty for how long COVID-19 was going to last in America, we were definitely getting cabin fever. Spring was usually…

Sure enough, when we got to the Bear Gulch Nature Center, given all the delays that Julie induced on the way here, it turned out that the car in front of us took the very last parking spot…

When they eventually showed up, we ultimately got started on our hike at about 10:20am. Surprisingly, our group actually consisted of about five different families, I think, with lots of kids…