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Urban hikes: The metro area offers many scenic, invigorating walks - The Register-Guard,E Page 1 of 4 <br /> www.registerguard.com l @ The Register-Guard,Eugene,Oregon <br /> April 3, 2003 <br /> Urban hikes: The metro area offers many <br /> scenic, invigorating walks <br /> By Mike Stahlberg <br /> The Register-Guard <br /> With gasoline selling for more than $2 a gallon, a trip to the <br /> mountains for a simple hike in the woods is not the <br /> inexpensive pleasure it once was. <br /> But some avid Eugene-area hikers are discovering it isn't <br /> necessary to drive an hour or two to find interesting places to <br /> take long, invigorating walks with interesting things to see. <br /> Indeed, you can even ride Lane Transit District buses to <br /> several area hikes for less than the cost of a trailhead parking <br /> pass needed at some national forest footpaths. <br /> One proponent of "urban hikes" <br /> is Jan Jacobsen, an active 1111111111111111 member of The Obsidians <br /> outdoor club. <br /> Three times since December, <br /> Jacobsen has led groups of a <br /> dozen or so hikers on an outing <br /> through the west Eugene <br /> • <br /> wetlands on the newly opened F , <br /> section of the Fern Ridge Bike <br /> Path. <br /> "It was a great trip," Jacobsen Jan Jacobsen (center) leads a group <br /> said after her first outing. "Many of Obsidians on a hike along the Fern <br /> Ridge Bike Path in West Eugene.The <br /> of the group had never been on path meanders through wetlands. <br /> a city bus or on the Fern Ridge <br /> Path. The new path is Photo: Chris Pietsch/The <br /> impressive, and offers views of Register-Guard <br /> wetlands and lots of birds." <br /> Jacobsen uses the bus as a shuttle between the hike's ending <br /> point near City View and West 11th (where hikers leave their <br /> cars) and the starting point of the walk, just west of the bus <br /> stop at Danebo and Roosevelt streets. <br /> She estimates the walk through the wetlands and back to City <br /> View is about 6.5 miles. For a longer hike, a few members of <br /> her group continued walking east on the bike path to the Lane <br /> County Fairgrounds. <br /> http://www.registerguard.com/cgi-bin/printStory.py?name=e6.od.urbanhikes.0403&date=20030L 4/8/03 <br />