I have always enjoyed the great #outdoors starting with fond memories of my parents packing up the #family and tent #camping in northern Ontario during the #summer. I learned how to pitch a tent, start a campfire, swim, stargaze, got introduced to #hiking and raspberry picking and absorbed all the interpretative nature programs put on by the park rangers. It left such an indelible imprint on that young boy's character that every summer no matter where I lived, I had a longing, a yearning to be out in the north woods. Today I have the good fortune of calling northwest Montana home and am surrounded by #mountains and #forest year-round.
After spending many years in the eastern United States schooling and working in Ohio, North Carolina and Florida I migrated to the western United States following a job after the Great Recession of 09. I landed in the Pacific Northwest, Hood River, Oregon to be specific. For someone who loved the outdoors, I thought I had landed in paradise. It took five days to travel across the country. As I traveled down Interstate 84 westbound from Utah and finally came into the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area (aka the Gorge), I was welcomed by #Mt_Hood, an 11,000-foot tall, snow-capped marshmallow of a #mountain. What a spectacle indeed!
The Columbia River Gorge (aka the Gorge) is a stunning, 80-mile-long river gorge that runs eastward starting near Portland, #Oregon to The Dalles, #Oregon. The jaw dropping scenery of the Gorge was created by a massive flood that occurred when an ancient ice-age lake, Lake Missoula, broke free from its ice dam in what is known as Montana today, and created a titanic flood that carved out the Gorge.
The river is the boundary between #Washington State to the north and #Oregon to the south. #Mt_St_Helens (yes, the infamous volcano that erupted in 1980), #Mt_Adams and #Mt_Hood, though not in the Gorge, are often visible and are the constant, mostly quiet guardians overseeing the Columbia River. There are different versions of a beautiful Native American story passed through millennium about the the three mountains. One well known in the Gorge is that two brothers, #Wyeast and #Klickitat were feuding brothers competing for the love of #Loowit. The struggle was so fierce, the Great Spirit transformed them into mountains, #Wyeast became #Mt_Hood, #Klickitat became #Mt_Adams and #Loowit became #Mt_St_Helens.
The physical beauty of the Gorge defies description. The narrow gorge is one of the few sea level crossings of the Cascade Mountain range. The western end gets enough rain to be classified as temperate rain forest while the eastern end can count its annual precipitation in single digits. Within this short distance is a fairy tale landscape of waterfalls, craggy cliffs, verdant forest, high altitude dessert, rushing rivers, a 10,000-year heritage of four Tribal Nations (yes, you read that right), fertile soils, stunning wildflowers and the mighty Columbia River, a river of such mammoth proportions that its watershed is about the size of France draining more water in the Pacific Ocean than any other river in North and South America!
For as much as I loved the outdoors, I was an amateur by comparison to what I encountered in the Gorge. Almost every possible type of outdoor recreation could be had for every season and types of recreation I had not heard of before. Examples include #windsurfing, #kiteboarding, #whitewater_rafting, #rafting, #kayaking, #canoeing, #mountain_biking, #road_biking #mountain_climbing, #bouldering, #hiking, #trail_running, #backpacking, #horseback_riding, #parasailing, #hang_gliding, #geocaching, #swimming, #slacklining, #camping, #ziplining, #golfing, #downhill_skiing, #cross_country_skiing, #snowshoeing, #birding, #fishing, #boating, and #wildlife_viewing and the list goes on.
And the cost to participate, at least with equipment, can be a substantial investment. According to Kitty Hawk Kiteboarding (khkkiteboarding.com), to get started with #kiteboarding you will need these basic items listed below. The following is a rough estimate on cost for the items to give you an idea of the investment required. All costs are in USD$:
#kiteboarding kite ($900 - $2,100)
#kiteboarding board ($400 - $1,000)
kite control bar and lines ($250 - $600)
harness ($150 - $300)
Initial investment total estimated at $1700 to $4000. Plus, depending on the wind where you will be #kiteboarding, you may also need to invest in a wetsuit, booties, lifejacket, and a helmet.
Let's add in #mountain_biking to mix of outdoor fun. DIY Mountain Bike (diymountainbike.com) estimates a middle range price to get into the sport safely at $4872, which includes the bike, helmet, gloves, hybrid pedals, mountain biking shoes, trail light and hydration pack. Yes, you can get all this much less expensive in cost and you can also get it much more expensive in cost. Top of the line equipment could cost you upwards of $30,000.
Now that covers at least two outdoor activities for spring, summer, fall. How about #downhill_skiing at #Mt_ Hood for the winter season? Newtoski.com you will need skis, boots, poles, jacket and pants, gloves, googles and helmet. They estimated the starting cost for all of these in 2020 to be $1000 and higher, though that seems to be a little on the low side. Add in ski passes and lift tickets for the season and the price easily climbs closer to $2000+.
An approximate price tag to get into three outdoor activities (#kiteboarding, #mountain_biking and #skiing) is $8,572 to $10,872. Yes, there are ways of getting this cost down, but it provides a first look at how expensive it can be to recreate.
And recreation is big #business! Statista.com reports that sporting goods store sales in the U.S. is approximately $45 billion per year accounting for 32.5% of the world's market share. Add in all the pieces of what contributes to the outdoor #recreation #economy, and the federal US data in 2019 reported that the outdoor #recreation #economy was valued at 2.1% of the US Gross Domestic Product, or $459.8 billion!
Okay, so my $500 hybrid #bike and assortment of old #camping equipment and #hiking boots looked so, well, paltry compared to the $800 Prevelo Zulu Two Heir bike, complete with pink ribbons and a bell that sounded like something from a kid's Disney movie, that passed me one day on an off-road trail ridden by an 8-year-old girl. I had met my match. The message was loud and clear, go big or go home.
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Next week. Recreation Gone Wild - Part 2 of 4 - Meet the Adrenaline Junkie
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