SILVERTONAPPEAL.COM ❚ WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2019 ❚ 3B
Snorkeling
Continued from Page 1B
Snorkeling in ‘Emerald Pool’
At mile 3.3, we reached our destina-
tion: Emerald Pool. It’s long and narrow,
between canyon walls just below the
trail.
I put my hand in the water to check
the temperature.
“Yup,” I said. “I’m wearing the dry-
suit.”
A big question for me is always
whether to pack in my drysuit, a full-
body layer that's the gold standard for
keeping warm. It’s harder to dive be-
cause it traps air, but I’d rather error on
the side of warmth, so I put it on and slid
into the water.
It was cold.
Really, really cold.
Jeff dove in wearing a wetsuit, made
a noise, and resurfaced.
“Yeah that’s cold,” he said laughing.
The upside, of course, was amazingly
clear views of the deep hole, along with
a handful of curious cutthroat trout that
inhabit Emerald Pool.
The most striking thing was the
depth. We’d kick down, and the bottom
was like an optical illusion that seemed
close but got further and further away
as you reached out to touch it.
We explored Emerald Pool for an
hour or so before packing up and hiking
back the way we came.
Waterfall canyon pool
The second place we snorkeled was
below the big waterfall and canyons
we'd seen within the first half mile of the
trailhead.
It was a tricky place to access that re-
quired hopping off a ledge and into the
pool. I've always loved snorkeling below
waterfalls, because the churning water
looks really interesting underwater —
waves of energy rippling through the
blue.
The most interesting place was
downstream, where the creek drops
into steep canyons and the pools are
deep, with fascinating caverns visible
below the surface.
There appear to be even better places
to explore downstream by "creek-
Mill City
Continued from Page 1A
tee and spark of the economic windfall.
“It’s a wonderful little community in
terms of people diving in, building on
successes and seeing the community
grow.”
Property values leap
exponentially
Mill City has gone through several
growths and declines since being incor-
porated in 1887, including during con-
struction of Detroit Dam when the pop-
ulation boomed to 1,792 in 1950.
But the population went flat along
when the logging industry struggled.
“We went for close to 20 years with
maybe a couple of houses being built,”
Kirsch said.
In the past five years, there have been
two subdivisions with six to 10 houses
each.
The city council is deliberating on a
proposed 15-unit subdivision and an-
other developer has started talks about
building an 80-unit subdivision within
the city’s urban growth boundary.
According to a study by RefiGuide-
.org released in June, Mill City is in the
top 10 cities in the United States where
property prices rose the most in the pri-
or year by growing 33.9%.
According to Zillow.com, the average
value of each home in Mill City is
$208,800.
“Mill City is still a very affordable
place to live,” Kirsch said.
In the past few years, restaurants
and other businesses have sprouted to
life along Highway 22.
There are still two major lumber com-
panies in the area, Freres Lumber and
Frank Lumber along with a number of
smaller logging outfits.
But the city no longer relies solely on
the industry.
Until the latest push, the last time
there was a significant infrastructure
investment in Mill City was in 2004
when it switched to well water from sur-
face water as its filtration system was
out of compliance.
A small housing development under construction in Mill City on Aug. 15, 2019.
ANNA REED / STATESMAN JOURNAL
Saving a pedestrian bridge leads
to millions
Harrington’s children were growing
and close to leaving home.
All she knew about Mill City was Gio-
vanni Mountain Pizza, which for her
was a stop between her home in Keizer
and a vacation home in Black Butte.
She started looking around for new
places to live, but Mill City wasn’t on her
list until going to a daughter’s track
meet at Santiam High School.
“I remember looking around and say-
ing, 'This is a pretty place,'” Harrington
said.
She bought a property along the
North Santiam River in 2003, finished
building a new house a year later and
never left.
Kirsch said a growing portion of the
community are people like Harrington,
who end up retiring in the town.
Harrington goes on daily walks
across the old railroad bridge, which for
decades has been a pedestrian bridge.
After a 2014 study showed the 1888
bridge needed to be repaired or torn
down, she became part of a committee
whose goal was to raise $400,000 to re-
store the bridge.
Through grassroots small-town
fundraisers, the group raised $300,000
before Marion County Rural Economic
Development Analyst Danielle Gonzalez
stepped in and told the group to think
bigger.
They expanded their scope to include
rehabilitating the weight-restricted
traffic bridge over the North Santiam
River, applied for and received an $8
million grant from the federal govern-
ment.
The grant will be matched by about
$400,000 from Mill City and $900,000
from Linn County.
It turns out that money attracts mon-
ey.
Infrastructure with a school bond
At one point in the 1970s, Santiam
High School was one of the most mod-
ern and amenity-filled schools in the
state.
“We have a very nice auditorium
which has classrooms and the cafeteria
that was built in that '69-70 school year,
and that was all built with timber mon-
ey,” Santiam Canyon School Board
President Rich Moore said. “And when
they built the elementary we have, that
was built with timber money.”
Oregon changed how it distributes
tax dollars for schools from staying ex-
clusively within their communities to
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being spread on a per-student basis in
1993.
In the May election, voters of Mill
City and surrounding communities au-
thorized $17.9 million for school bonds to
pay for new buildings for the high and
middle schools and other improve-
ments on the campus in Mill City, and
the school district was subsequently
awarded a $1 million grant from Oregon
Department of Education.
The city recognized the school bond’s
passage meant the new school build-
ing’s entrance would have no sidewalks
and a woefully inadequate street lead-
ing to it.
The city applied for a Safe Routes to
School grant, but the city’s lack of a
stormwater system made it prohibitive-
ly expensive, and it didn’t get the grant.
“Storm drains are hard to fund,”
Krisch said. “It’s not something every-
body looks at as an important aspect.”
Kirsch stays in contact with the state
senator and representative for the area
(Fred Girod and Sherrie Sprenger) and
approached Girod about Mill City’s di-
lemma. Girod offered to add money for
Mill City’s stormwater system in a fund-
ing bill.
House Bill 5030, which was signed
Aug. 8 by Gov. Kate Brown, gave the city
$1,880,000 for a stormwater drainage
through lottery bonds.
Kirsch said Mill City will again apply
for a Safe Routes to School grant, and it
isn’t finished with infrastructure im-
provements.
Mill City is one of four cities – Detroit,
Gates and Idanha are the others – part-
nering with Marion County to form a
joint wastewater sewer district. Mill
City has its own wastewater treatment
facility, but its nearly at the end of its li-
fespan.
“Small communities live and die on
grants,” Kirsch said. “We can save up
enough money to replace a water line
here, resurface a street here through our
own taxes and our fees, but to really do a
complete project, it’s tough to do that
kind of money.
“Everybody benefits from infrastruc-
ture.”
bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com or
Twitter.com/bpoehler
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whacking" — swimming and hiking —
but it would also have been a challenge
to get back to the trail.
So, we played it safe with the after-
noon getting late and decided to pack up
and return to the car.
Overall, I'd still say the Little North
Santiam is my favorite spot for back-
country snorkeling, but Elk Lake Creek
was a beautiful — although frigid —
place to explore an underwater world.
Zach Urness has been an outdoors re-
porter, photographer and videographer
in Oregon for 11 years. Urness is the au-
thor of “Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon”
and “Hiking Southern Oregon.” He can
be reached at zurness@StatesmanJour-
nal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on
Twitter at @ZachsORoutdoors.
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