Back in 1962, Theresa Draper’s parents bought their 40-acre fruit farm, sight unseen. That’s how it was in the old days when buying out of state.

They moved up from California and made a core business of selling boxes of fruit and potatoes to Portlanders.

“They filled their cars for winter,” Draper explained on a recent sunny Monday. “In those days, that’s how it was. You prepared for winter.”

Their customers were bargain hunters rather than tourists.

“If someone asked (my parents) to buy one piece of fruit, that offended them,” she laughed. “They’d go, ‘Oh, here. Have a piece.’ Like they couldn’t afford it. Because they only sold by the box.”

Today things are different.

Tourists, retirees and others in search of the perfect fall fruit can drive out to Hood River. From there, they can cruise the 35-mile scenic loop around Parkdale, Odell and Oak Grove, visiting some 30-plus farms, vineyards, orchards and other businesses.

Different times of the year offer different attractions. In late spring there are fields full of violet lavender for the perfect Instagram shot. In mid-summer the berries are ripe. And in the fall, there are fresh apples and pears.

Over the years, the Draper Farm has diversified to keep customers happy every season. It’s now the Draper Girls Country Farm and U-Pick Orchards and the Draper Girls Cider Company. They’ve turned their old 1940s bus barn into a fancy store to sell not just fruit, but jams, cheeses, teas, sardines, and tchotchkes like a bag with three little pigs in red bikinis.

“People want an experience now,” Draper said. “We’ve had to expand to do hard cider and tastings … They want more things in the store because otherwise they’re leaving.”

In their farmyard, you can sit among the flowers and pumpkins, eating what you just bought, and soaking up the unparalleled views of Mount Hood. It is idyllic, if not exactly reflective of life on a working farm.

Draper added her goats and chickens in the 1990s for show, rather than to actually farm them. Although they are good for eggs at the farmer’s market.

Draper has managed to do what many other farmers dream about: selling directly to retail. Inside her store, she can charge $3 or more for a rare variety of apple. She’d only get a fraction of that price if she sold her apples wholesale.

But the loop is not just about fruit. This time of the year is also harvest season for the vineyards.

“It’s time to pick. We gotta get all the grapes off the vines,” said Benjamin Sowers at Wy’East Vineyards.

He was a little groggy in the morning because he’d been up until midnight crushing grapes from the harvest. But he was still welcoming visitors.

“Actually this is probably the best time to come,” Sowers said. “We love it when people see how the juice is made, how the fruit is made, how the wine is made.”

The vineyard’s winemaker, Petar Marshall, had cleaned his barrels using a sulfur smoke mixture and was tapping them to make sure they wouldn’t leak. He said the vineyard was still green and lush, but the colors were changing.

“We’re not quite to the fall foliage on the vines yet,” said Marshall. “But we’re coming.”

If you’re early for the fall colors in Hood River, there is an easy fix. Just drive a little higher up Mount Hood where it’s colder, so autumn comes a little sooner.

Further around the Fruit Loop stands the Old Trunk store, decorated with faded signs, rusty iron cookers and antique trunks filled with flowers.

Dan Platt sells everything from old pots and pans to vintage clothes and flowers. But his specialty is old records.

“People will come year after year specifically to pick through our vinyl,” Platt said.

He estimates 90% of his sales come from people traveling the Fruit Loop. But like a lot of other businesses on the loop, he’ll be closing up for the season when it starts to snow, probably by the end of November.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/10/18/hood-river-fruit-loop/