Day trip to Oregon coast

Beach at Washburn State Park

Since I will soon be relocating to Bend, I decided to take a day trip over to the Oregon coast.  This world class destination is an hour from Eugene, yet we seldom travel that direction.  Maria and I drove over to Florence and headed north to Yachats, stopping at the many attractions along the way.  The coast has never been my preferred geography, yet I will miss knowing it is so close by.  In the future, we'll have to take the camper over for weekend trips.  Perhaps I will gain a new fondness for it.  In the mean time, I am looking forward to living on the shore of the sagebrush sea!

Lakeview Mountain hike

Trapper Creek

My last Tuesday hike with the guys for a while.  It has been great having mid week days to get out and explore some new places near by.  This week we headed up Lakeview Mountain from Diamond View Lake after hiking 5 1/2 miles up Trapper Creek.  It was a great off trail scramble to the top of this 7000' peak overlooking Odell Lake.  We covered 16 miles and saw not a soul.  Great fall weather.  We also saw a number of additional places to explore as we gazed out in all directions. These will have to wait for another time.

Diamond Peak, with some snow!

Looking south from Lakeview Mountain

Kokanee Salmon heading up Trapper Creek

Hood River

Maria and Bob

We spent last weekend in Hood River.  It was a perfect fall weekend and this is a great corner of Oregon.  I need to spend more time in this area!

Main Fork Hood River

East Fork Hood River

Sawtooth Mountain

Sawtooth Mountain from approach trail 

I took advantage of another Tuesday off and took a hike on a beautiful day.  This time the goal was the Sawtooth - Cowhorn Loop from Timpanogas Lake, but a long road detour crimped the schedule. We instead opted for an out and back to Sawtooth Mountain.  Really beautiful hike; healthy forests, interesting terrain, and a great summit scramble for the view.  As a bonus we saw no other hikers and enjoyed near perfect fall weather.  

Sawtooth Summit

Looking down the valley of the Middle Fork Willamette

Dave on Sawtooth

Indigo, Timpanogas, and Summit Lakes

Cowhorn Mountain in the distance

Looking to the east from Sawtooth summit

Wildcat and Bunchgrass Mountains

Mt Washington from Bunchgrass 

October continues to offer summer weather so I went for a hike to the top of two untrailed summits in the McKenzie drainage.  Bunchgrass Mountain and Wildcat Mountain are on two sides of a saddle at the top of the Deer Creek watershed.  Great views of Wolf Rock and the Lookout Creek watershed were available from both summits.  Interesting to see the carnage of the 1980's logging frenzy start to fade in these hills, though there obviously is a long way to go.  Still, a lack of chainsaw song on a Tuesday afternoon is a sure sign of re-wilding on the Old Cascades - let's hope it continues well into the future!

Heading to the top of Bunchgrass

Wolf Rock

Waldo Lake

Waldo Lake looking south

While we missed out on the annual Labor Day weekend Waldo trip, we did spend a weekend camping with friends and family at Waldo in mid September.  Beautiful fall weather, a little snow in the higher peaks; very fall like.  The lake level is lower than I have ever seen it after our snow free winter of 2014-15, hope next year is better.

Waldo Lake from Waldo Mountain Lookout

In the north Waldo burn, fires are beautiful!