Fruit Loop Guide For Hood River Ready

Sun., Sept. 6, 1998

By Susan English susane@spokesman.com

Anyone planning to visit the Hood River, Ore., area during harvest season may want to request a Hood River County Fruit Loop Guide to Local Farm Stands.

The pamphlet includes a map and directions to area farms offering fresh produce through the season, a calendar of special farm-type events in the Hood River Valley, guidelines for harvest seasons and a map for a scenic driving tour of nearby Mount Hood.

There’s still plenty of fruit to be harvested in this northern Oregon area - anjou and bosc pears from mid-September through October, red and golden delicious apples mid-to late-September, and Newtown pippin apples October through mid-November.

For a copy of the brochure, call the Hood River County Chamber of Commerce, (541) 386-2000. It’s also available at visitors centers or chambers of commerce in the area.

Stop digging and just watch

Weary of looking for old arrowheads in the dirt? You can see some new ones being made at the Arrowhead Flaking Demonstration Oct. 3-4 at the McNary Wildlife Refuge near the Tri-Cities.

This is just one of many cultural seminars and interactive sessions offered at the refuge. For details, call (509) 543-8322.

Bugling with style

For a chance to see elk in the wild, reserve a spot on a walking tour of the Arid Lands Ecology Reserve north of Richland on Sept. 19.

Participants will join a naturalist on the 120-square-mile reserve to see an established elk herd during fall mating season. The reserve contains some of the only remaining shrub-steppe ecosystem in Eastern Washington.

You’ll need to reserve a spot on the walking tour. Call (800) 201-7202.

It’s the state fruit, after all

If it’s fall and you are in Washington state, it seems there are apples everywhere. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t just settle back and enjoy all the apple-related festivities.

Of course, near Spokane, the Green Bluff Apple Festival runs every weekend between Sept. 19 and the end of October. But there are other apple events, of course.

Celebrate Apple Days will be Oct. 3-4 in Cashmere, Wash., just west of Wenatchee.

Visitors in the Yakima Valley can take a self-guided tour through the area orchard country any time this fall. Just pick up a brochure at Washington’s Fruit Place Visitor Center in Yakima, or call (509) 576-3090.

Vancouver, Wash., marks the season with Old Apple Tree Celebration Oct. 3 which features the Northwest’s oldest living apple tree. For information, call (360) 696-8171.

The Steilacoom Apple Squeeze will be Oct. 11 in Steilacoom, Wash. and features fresh-squeezed apple cider.

The folks in Puyallup, Wash., stage the Cider Squeeze at the Meeker Mansion on Oct. 17. Visitors are free to bring their own apples and jugs (or you can buy them there) and presses are provided so you can squeeze your own juice.

Most celebrations also include farmer’s markets with other autumn produce and pumpkins.

Swimming for home

At the same time some communities are celebrating their apple harvest, others in the state are welcoming the salmon home.

Among the towns with salmon fests:

The Wenatchee River Salmon Festival is Sept. 19-20 and it’s actually held in Leavenworth at the hatchery on the Wenatchee River. There will be guided walks, entertainment and storytelling. For information: (509) 548-5807.

The Nisqually Festival of Waters is Sept. 26 along the Nisqually River in Yelm, Wash. There will be plenty of displays as well as traditional Native American dancing, fishing clinics, wildlife presentations, music and storytelling. For information: (360) 407-6783.

The Salmon Creek Water Festival will be Oct. 3 in Vancouver, Wash. For information: (360) 992-3363.

The Issaquah Salmon Days (which draws thousands of folks to this Seattle suburb) will be Oct. 3-4. The event boasts more than 400 food and craft booths, entertainment, tours of the Issaquah Hatchery, salmon theater and educational activities. For information: (425) 392-0661.

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