-Good for beginners
-Only 18 hole course in Salem
-Multiple ace and birdie runs
-Hard to lose plastic
-Wide open layout flows well
-Large tapered, concrete tee boxes
-Concise tee and basket labels
-No poison oak
-Lock box to deposit found plastic

-Had to wait on most holes (by-product of a 50 degree day in January with no rain)
-Intermediate and advanced players will want more of a challenge
-Burnt out shed on hole #4 is a disc eater with no way to retrieve
-Trash and lots of it
-Homeless shanties amongst the briars
-Poop on ground, both human and goose
-Sketchy area with questionable looking characters (at times)
-Terrible port-o-pottie

Cascade Gateway is a good place to toss if you are a beginner or you live in the adjacent area. This is not the type of course that you drive from out of town to play as you will probably be disappointed if you do so. Because of the unsavory characters that tend to frequent the park during low use times I recommend group play around dawn or dusk.

Remember, always play the role of "Unofficial Park Steward" as this will invariably improve the courses we play and the image of our sport.

This course is a work in progress. It plays mostly through a field which borders a fairly large fishing lake. The field has some scattered trees and is mostly flat. The later part of the course play across an abandoned street into another seperate field which was once some kind of a small industrial or work area, it's not a real attractive setting overall. The Capitol City Disc Club is obviously working hard to make something out of this course. New teepads are being poured and usually seem to add about 25' to each hole. And the course doesn't play short as it is. There is a nice kisok at the start for club, course and tourney information. My favorite hole was # 5, a 243" shot next to the lake with the basket sitting about 25' from the lake on two sides.

I thought the Tee Signs were a great little idea and would work well at many courses in this area and probably everywhere. They are a 4" x 6" post inbedded in the ground (hopefully with a concrete base). They only stick out of the ground about 6". The top is sawed off at an angle for easy reading. Then bolted to that is a fairly simple, laiminated 4" x 6" sign with all the information you needed, distance, par, next tee, previous tee, etc. The beauty of these is when the local midnight punk population vandalizes them, they are so very easy to unbolt the old and replace it with a shiny new one. I hope the course designers made two or three of every sign for just such a reasons. Erwin Young Park in Newberg has very similiar signs. Because they are very non-intrusive, I think park dept. officials would allow them in parks where stand-up metal type signs are not allowed. I can quickly think of two neighboring courses which could greatly benefit from these type of signs, Timer Linn in Albany and Wortman in McMinville. Why doesn't someone from the club post a picture of one of these signs?

It's not a very pretty setting for a course once you leave the lake. Many holes were the same, 9-10 and 11, especially were all mirror images of each other. Beware of goose droppings everywhere.
Hole # 8, I like as a disc golf hole but I have some real concerns about the safety aspects of park users coming around the blind corner and jogging right into the tee off flight path.

Disc club members; please don't take this as a criticism. It's only a suggestion, and should be taken for what it is, considering you all are the ones doing the labor, not me. Concerning new teepad on # 9. I think this is your chance to really give this course a cool signature hole by burrowing back 50' into the blackberries and brush. Build a cool, shaded teepad back in that clump of brush/trees. Escape from the Salem heat in the summer months. It might spice up an otherwise pretty boring hole.