Statesman Journal from Salem, Oregon • Page 66

PAGE '1 OUT AND ABOUT Fridoy; May 241 996 Outdoor Best Bets Health walks Saturday, the Sifverton Walk Abouts will hold its annual City Country Year Around Kickoff, offering a pair of 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) walks for fitness buffs of all ability levels. To learn more about the club or the event, call 873-6638 or THE The new ride was selected for its 360-degree loop, amount of speed curves and relatively compact design. Timothy Gonzalez Statesman Journal Thrown for a loop Walk and talk Saturday and Sunday, Roger Hart, an assistant professor at Oregon State, will give a class and field trips titled "Ancient Forests" at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport as part of Seatauqua '96, Oregon State's environmental education outreach program. Participants will study the interrelationships of soil, water, plants, fish and animals. Times are 9 am to 4 p.m.

each day, and the cost is $30 a person, with enrollment limited to 15. For more information or to register, call (541) 867-0271. Tclos of tho trails Saturday, Columbia Gorge trail-builder Elinor Levin will lead a 7-mile, elevation gain hike on the Cascade Crest Trail. The outing is sponsored by Friends of the Columbia Gorge and is designed to acquaint people with the unique hiking opportunities offered by the national scenic :r.t Pc." When: Open from noon to dusk Saturday and Sunday and from noon to 6 p.m. Monday.

Summer hours, effective June 17, are from noon to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, from noon to 7 p.m. Sunday and from noon to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday. The park is open weekends from noon to dusk urrffl June 17.

Where: East end of the Seflwood Bridge (Tacoma Street) In South Portland, north of the bridQe along the WJlamette. Cot Admission to the grounds is free. Rides are $1 .25 for one ride and $7.50 for seven rides. A limited bracelet good for four hours for most rides, is $3. An unlimited bracelet, good for fourhoursfor all rides, Is $10.50.

Go-Karts are $3 a driver and $1 .50 a passenger. Garden golf is $1.50 a person. Samtrak, a train linking Oaks Amusement Park with the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, is $3 round-trip for ages 5 and older and $1 fof ages 1 to 4, OC3: (503) 233-5777. To find out more or to register for the hike, call (503) 241-3762. A 'breathtaking' $1 million roller coaster opens this weekend at the Oaks Amusement Park in Portland.

By Ron Cowan The Statesman Journal PORTLAND Oaks Amusement Park first welcomed visitors to the shady eastern shore of the Willamette River in 1905, the year of the Lewis Clark Exposition. And on Memorial Day of 1996, in spite of the buffeting of time, changing tastes and three major floods the latest in February Oaks Amusement Park still is welcoming visitors with a kind of family entertainment that never goes out of style. "I think there's kind of a return to the basic family values," said Joe Norling, 'president of the nonprofit corporation that runs the park. "We strive to make it wholesome, clean and safe." But the park also strives to be fun and to stay on the edge, which is why a new $1 million roller coaster is opening this weekend. The looping, twisting white and purple contraption, bedecked with myriad chaser and flasher lights, is one of the latest creations of Fratelli Pinfari of Italy.

Replacing a smaller coaster and another ride, the new coaster 36-fcet high and with 1,200 feet of track was being assembled this week in the parking lot, where it arrived after a 23-day sea journey from Italy. Names suggested for the new ride have ranged from The Hurler to The Super Looper, said Norling, who selected the coaster for its 360-degree loop, amount of speed curves and relatively compact design. "Absolutely breathtaking" is his description of the ride. "It's a relatively fast ride, about a minute from the time you leave the top of the drag train, but it old. The other major attractions here are the dance hall, a building with a gleaming oak floor and the roller rink, with a gleaming oak floor open year-round.

When the disc jockey isn't spinning contemporary songs, visitors are regaled by the vintage Wurlitzer organ suspended overhead. "It is the biggest hardwood roller skating surface on the West Coast, as far as we know," Norling said. It also is one of the few floating roller rinks, a fact proved by the February flood that closed the park for 10 days. The floor, cut loose from surrounding walls, floats on 150 drums, each 55-gallon size. The park recovered quickly from the February flood, which floated away a few items and left a coating of thick mud and silt, but operators are used to that.

"You know, the flooding is part of our heritage," Norling said. The park was inundated in 1948, 1964 and 1996, and although flooding took away the old Natatorium in 1948, the park handily has survived the river's inroads. The park is the last of its kind in Portland, outliving the onetime Council Crest and Jantzen Beach amusement parks. Originally a trolley park, Oaks was bought by the Bollinger family in the 1920s and turned in 1985 into a nonprofit community resource. Although other amusement parks foundered after World War II, with changing tastes and new entertainment options, Oaks simply has changed with the times but not by giving up its original appeal.

The new rides complement such traditional attractions as the picnic groves, mini golf, arcade games, horseshoe pits and the Ladybug Theater. The Jolly Glad-way of the past has become the Midway of today. Oaks now draws up to 400,000 people a year, up to 7,000 a day at its peak in the summer. "I think the park is in better shape than it has been since the 1920s," Norling said. Water works Sunday, the Cascade Canoe Club of Salem will hold a sedate quiet-water social paddle on the Willamette River from Independence to Salem.

For more information, call 378-0827. For those wanting a wilder ride, the club will have a fast-water outing for experienced paddlers on the best available nearby water. Potential sites include the Mol-lala, White Salmon or upper North Santiam rivers. For more Information, call The new ride is the fanciest, but it's only one of 26 in an amusement park that has added a new ride each of the last six years. The rides, keyed to different ages, range from the Octopus to the Tilt-a-Whirl, the Rocko Plane, the Skooter bumper cars, the Sea Dragon pirate ship ride and the Haunted Mine ride.

Also new this year are the kiddy bumper boats. Even with the new, the old is what serves Oaks Amusement Park best. Among the park's classic attractions is a 1911 Herschell Spillmam Carousel, which has been at the park since 1923 and is valued about $1 million for its menagerie of handcarved wooden animals. The park's leafy picnic area, which takes up most of the 46 acres overlooking the river, also is a big draw. The grove of white oaks includes trees up to 150 years Ilavo a blast Sunday, the Albany Rifle and Pistol Club will hold Its monthly smallbore and bigbore silhouette shoots from 9 am to 4 p.m.

at the club's main range. For more information about the club or club activities, call (541) 967-4025 (smallbore) or (541) 752-7924 (bigbore). From staff reports.