E AST O REGONIAN
WEEKEND, July 13, 2019
EO Media Group Photo/Ellen Morris Bishop
Disc golfer David Hayslip tries for par on the No. 9 hole of the Wallowa Lake State Park disc golf course.
A good
walk
IMPROVED
Wallowa Lake State Park adds 9-hole disc golf course
By ELLEN MORRIS
BISHOP
EO Media Group
J
OSEPH
—
If
you’ve moseyed up
to Wallowa lake
State Park recently
and gazed into the
stand of big pine
trees west of the
river, you might
have noticed some
strange but colorful metal bas-
kets on poles. The “baskets”
are made of chains, and the
metal poles are red or blue. you
might also have noticed people
with an assortment of frisbees
nearby. Not to worry. Disc golf
has come to Wallowa County.
Disc golf was first invented
in the early 1900s in Saskatch-
ewan, Canada, where it was
played by tossing tin discs into
targets laid out in sand. In the
1960s, college students revital-
ized the game by tossing disks
and/or balls at targets rang-
ing from trees and light poles
to trash cans and water foun-
tains. In 1973, Ed Hedrick, the
inventor of the modern frisbee,
designed and installed the first
disc golf course in the town of
laCanada Flintridge, Califor-
nia. So disc golf, which now
is played on 9-hole or 18-hole
courses, and has its own pro-
fessional association, has been
around for a while.
When Jason Barber began
work as a ranger at Wallowa
lake State Park in 2017, he saw
the pine-shaded grassy area
west of the river as the perfect
place for a disc golf course.
He’d started playing when he
was a National Guardsman
in Clackamas and continued
playing on the collegiate team
at Mount Hood Community
College.
“It’s a fun game and it keeps
you outside,” he said. “The
park here has a great area for
a course — some trees for haz-
ards, but nice flat ground. And
I got tired of having to drive all
the way to la Grande to play.”
Barber and Interpretive
Ranger Patricia Bass pitched
EO Media Group Photo/Ellen Morris Bishop
Jen Hayslip watches as her disc approaches the No. 5 hole at the Wallowa Lake State Park disc golf
course.
EO Media Group Photo/Ellen Morris Bishop
Oregon State Park Ranger Jason Barber came up with the proposal and design for the new disc golf
course at Wallowa Lake State Park.
the idea to Park Manager
Mack Freeborn, who gave the
go-ahead.
Barber and Bass set up the
9-hole disc golf course in June.
Its fairways are 200 to 280
feet long, (standard distances
for most courses) and all are
par-3 holes. The object of the
game is to toss your frisbee
into the “basket” in a par num-
ber of throws. Hazards at this
course include big tree trunks,
low-hanging branches and the
Wallowa River if you over-
throw the basket on the No.
6 hole. There’s also the occa-
sional renegade off-leash dog
who may catch and abscond
with an errant disc. Playing the
entire 9-hole course requires
about an hour if you and your
friends take your time.
“If you don’t have offi-
cial disc golf frisbees of your
own, the park has some you
can borrow,” Barber said. “We
usually have three or four
groups playing through here
each day.”
The new disc golf course is
slated to move from its present
location to a more permanent
home at the Little Alps section
of the park, near the Wallowa
River trailheads in August.
Construction on the new Wal-
lowa River secondary chan-
nel, riparian improvements
and bridge will occupy much
of the present disc golf area,
Barber said.
“We’ll have a similar layout
at Little Alps,” he said.
Disc golf is new to Wallowa
County, but it is a well-orga-
nized sport that is popular in
more urban areas. It is based
on golf — but played with fris-
bees of different weights and
designs rather than a ball and
clubs. The basic set of discs
includes a lightweight fris-
bee designed for long flight,
known as the driver, one for
mid-range distances, and a
heavier, more bulbous frisbee
designed for short ranges and
for hitting the chains (or other
things), known as the putter.
The metal basket is known as
the “hole.”
The Disc Golf Association
(DGA) and Professional Disc
Golf Association (PDGA) reg-
ulations call for a “tee” area
where disc golfers make their
initial throw, a fairway, and
out-of bounds area, and an
area designated as a “putting
green.”