Lets Go Exploring

Mark Hougardy's Portfolio

urban

Exploring the Maude Kerns Art Center

Trip Report:
Group Leader: Mark Hougardy | Organization: Eugene-based hiking group | Date: February 9, 2024 | Duration: 1 day | Walking Distance: 4 miles | Participants: 8 | Elevation Gain/Loss: 200 feet

This was the final day to see the Maude Kerns Art Center’s 2024 season opener, “In the Realm of the Spirit: Work by Maude Kerns,” an exhibit of her non-objective artwork (abstract art). We enjoyed a pleasant 4-mile walk to/from the art center on side streets and through the University of Oregon campus. Maude Kerns was a visionary artist and educator, the first head of the Art Education Department at the University of Oregon (1921 – 1947). She is an internationally recognized artist in the Non-Objective Art Movement.

A Colorful Mural Walk in Corvallis Oregon

Trip Report:
Group Leader: Mark Hougardy | Organization: Eugene-based hiking group | Date: in April 2023 | Duration: 1 day | Walking Distance: 3 miles | Participants: 12 | Elevation Gain/Loss: 50 feet | Type: Urban Walking

Corvallis, Oregon, has a picturesque downtown area that is easily walkable. Hidden in plain sight, and in the alleyways are some colorful murals and art pieces just waiting to be discovered.

A Colorful Mural Walk in Downtown Eugene Oregon

Trip Report:
Group Leader: Mark Hougardy | Organization: Eugene-based hiking group | Date: in April 2023 | Duration: 1 day | Walking Distance: 3 miles | Participants: 12 | Elevation Gain/Loss: 50 feet | Type: Urban Walking

A little rain did not deter our group from seeing large murals and micro art pieces in downtown Eugene. A special treat was seeing the new colorful mural at the Farmers Market (shown).

Eugene Book Loop Walk

Trip Report:
Group Leader: Mark Hougardy | Organization: Eugene-based Hiking Club | Date: June 2021 | Distance: 5 miles | Participants: 8 | Type: Urban Walking

After 15 months of businesses having reduced in-person visits due to Covid-19 safety measures, it was good to go for a walk to re-discover 3 locally-owned independent bookstores in Eugene. Our group walked from Amazon Park to J. Michaels Books, Smith Family Books, and lopping back to Tsunami Books. A fourth bookstore was still closed to in-person visits, we will get this on the next trip. We visited a local tea house before wrapping up the day. At least 10 books were purchased between the 3 locations.

Walking San Francisco’s Wicked Barbary Coast Trail

San Francisco is a city born within a moment – the discovery of gold in 1848. The city’s parents were not elites or idealist, but gritty prospectors, sailors, railroad workers, gamblers, ladies of the night, grifters, poets, and carney hustlers. Like then, today’s San Francisco is often idealized as being a place where a person can discover one’s fortune, where an individual can craft their future, and where it’s OK to be weird. But, beneath the sidewalks, unimpressive alleys and among lonely buildings of the  original city —the old Barbary Coast— is a hidden San Francisco, a city that was forged in fear, sex, and gold.

Trip Report:
Volunteer Leader: Mark Hougardy | Organization: Eugene-based Hiking Club | Date: November 2018 | Duration: 4 days | Participants: 8 | Type: walking and urban exploration

Our interpretive walking trip explored how fear, sex, and gold changed the city in three important ways. We saw how fear directed at those considered “unfit” by society  (poor, minorities, and women) reveals they are the true backbone of the city, then how censorship of sex led to modern freedoms, and finally how gold fever changed forms never really disappeared.

Our group traveled by air from Oregon on Thanksgiving Day to San Francisco. Many of us overnighted at the Fort Mason Hostel and dined at a waterfront restaurant. The next day we traveled by trolley to Union Square and enjoyed the Christmas decorations before starting our 5-mile walk. We explored the sordid history of Maiden Lane, the colorful streets of Chinatown, and the historically depraved area known as the Barbary Coast. Our route followed much of the original shoreline, which is now half a mile inland. We visited City Lights Books and places where the counter-culture Beats hung out. We climbed the steep steps of Telegraph Hill to see the murals of the historic Coit Tower. Our walk took us along garden-lined staircases and alleys. The next day we traveled to the lonely island of Alcatraz to learn more about its prison then enjoyed an afternoon exploring the city. That evening the group enjoyed a salty performance of Beach Blanket Babylon. On the final full day, several members walked ten-miles from the Marina District over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito and returned by ferry. The group walked ~20 miles in total. The group returned by plane to Oregon. Photos by Mark Hougardy & Meg Stewart Smith.

Some of the faces and places who showed participants a good time… er, helped them learn more about San Francisco’s story on this wicked trip.

Group Leader Mark Hougardy sharing a story about a gutsy woman who challenged societal norms in the 1860s. Today, everyone can ride a trolley in San Francisco because of her struggle.

We caught a Holiday performance of Beach Blanket Babylon. King Louie sings his heart out. Photo: Beach Blanket Babylon

A resident of Alcatraz Island

Rediscovering Eugene’s Forgotten Streetcars

Trip Report:
Volunteer Leader: Mark Hougardy | Organization: Eugene-based Hiking Club | Dates: March 2018 | Participants: 14 | Type: Urban Walking Tour

It’s difficult to imagine today, but between 1907 and 1927 streetcars (commonly referred to as trolleys) ran along 18-miles of electrified tracks in Eugene, Oregon. Their comforting clickety-clack as the wheels passed over connections in the tracks were heard on four routes in this city of 11,500 people. Only the finest cars were used and each was superbly-crafted with heaters and rattan seats. At 45-feet in length, they could carry up to 100 passengers. The cost per trip was 5 cents for a child and 10 cents for an adult. Our walk will help re-discover this curious icon of the early 1900s using old photos and traversing the Fairmount trolley’s 5.5-mile route. We walked the Fairmount’s route in its direction of travel from the train station, through downtown, across the University of Oregon’s picturesque campus, passing historic residential neighborhoods, crossing over some of the last remaining visible tracks, and back. Although many of the trolley’s tracks are not visible today, look carefully, many miles of track from this time are hidden just under the pavement.