Explore Oregon Podcast: The state's most beautiful places and biggest issues

In this episode, host Zach Urness reposts his tips and tricks to finding the perfect Christmas tree in Oregon's national forests.

With a $5 permit, you can travel far and wide in the national forests to find a tree to bring home — whether you live in Portland, Salem, Eugene or elsewhere. It's not always as easy as it seems, however.

The podcast breaks down where to get a permit, which forest to target, what elevation to find success and other tips on exploring in the snow.

In this episode, host Zach Urness talks with author Dan Shryock about his book on Oregon's Scenic Bikeways.

Shryock, who wrote "Cycling Across Oregon" in 2024, talks about what inspired the book, his eight favorite rides and what he discovered along the way.

The routes Shryock rode took him through deep forest, over the Cascade Mountains, onto the Oregon Coast and into eastern Oregon canyons.

In this episode, host Zach Urness looks at the curious case of how a non-native fish, walleye, showed up at Lookout Point Reservoir and was then flushed into the Upper Willamette River Basin.

Urness interviews two fish biologists about how walleye, a tasty but controversial fish, were discovered at the reservoir east of Eugene and spawned to become a fishery popular with anglers.

In 2023 and 2024, the walleye were pushed downstream by deep reservoir drawdowns and have been getting caught in new places. Biologists are waiting to see if walleye will establish a new population — which could be bad for endangered salmon and steelhead.

In this episode of the Explore Oregon Podcast, host Zach Urness brings back a second volume of his favorite weird, wild and quirky stories from the first 70 episodes of the podcast.

This edition features:

- Why Hood River was once called "Dog River"

- A ghost wagon rising from the Detroit Lake

- A major drug bust on the Oregon Coast that led to a beautiful collection of trails

- The history of Hoodoo Ski Area

- Why it's dangerous to visit Proposal Rock with a significant other

- Valley of the Giants and the Grove of Titans

Favorite podcast tales volume 1: Betrayal in Grants Pass, a nuke at Cape Kiwanda, D River showdown by Zach Urness / Statesman Journal

Host Zach Urness breaks down how the government shutdown is impacting Oregon's public lands and three other news stories focusing on wildfires, salmon and Douglas fir trees.

Urness talks about the status of national parks and monuments such as Crater Lake and the Painted Hills during the closure, before talking about how bad the 2025 wildfire season was compared to recent years.

Finally, he talks about the rebound of coho salmon on the Oregon Coast and the historic "dieback" of Oregon's Douglas fir trees in southwest Oregon and in the Willamette Valley.

In this episode, host Zach Urness highlights five Cascade Mountain lakes where you can hike and catch good-sized trout.

This shorter episode includes how to find the lakes, what you can catch there and how to bring them in. The lakes in question are all in the Mount Jefferson and Three Sisters wilderness areas and are home to rainbow, brook and brown trout.

In this episode, host Zach Urness talks with outdoors intern Rose Shimberg about backpacking the 40-mile trail around Mount Hood: the Timberline Trail.

In late August, Shimberg spent three nights backpacking the loop, journeying through terrain including waterfalls, high alpine landscapes, lush forests and deep canyons.

She reports on how to navigate the trail's notorious stream crossings and the status of the "blowdown section" that was closed for years by downed trees. Shimberg also talks about where to find cell service, find an amazing breakfast and spots on the trail to not miss.

In this episode, host Zach Urness talks with an Oregon ranger that saved hundreds of people from the path of the deadly 2020 Labor Day Fires.

Nikki Swanson, Sweet Home district ranger for Willamette National Forest, spurred a major evacuation and closure of the Mount Jefferson Wilderness just days before the Lionshead Fire burned the area and nearly 200,000 acres on Sept. 7-8, 2020. She is credited with saving a number of lives five years ago.

“She is a hero, not properly thanked,” Linn County Commissioner Will Tucker said.

Host Zach Urness talks about plans to reopen beloved Opal Creek, the five year anniversary of the Labor Day Fires and about traveling to Washington's North Cascades National Park.

Earlier this month, Urness reported that Opal Creek was likely to have a limited reopening in 2026 while also detailing the struggle of victims of the Labor Day Fires five years later. Finally, Urness talks about the beauty and challenge of visiting Washington's North Cascades.