Sand Mountain Lookout via Santiam Wagon Road

 Well it finally rained. It had been a smoky summer as usual and we finally saw significant precipitation on Saturday afternoon. Probably about an inch of rain had fallen around the area, but still not enough to cancel the John Fogerty concert. We had a great time at the concert, so next morning I woke up refreshed and ready to get out on a trail somewhere. Everyone else was not feeling a 12 mile hike, so I went by my lonesome. I got to the trailhead a little late at 10:30. I decided to hike up to the Sand Mountain lookout. I've known of the existence of this place for quite some time, but had never made a trip. I studied the roads to get up there and many descriptions said that 4-wheel drive was required. I knew I could drive the long way around, but instead I noticed that the Santiam Wagon Road that left from the head of the McKenzie River Trail went directly toward Sand Mountain Lookout. I saw that another road, the 866 Road, went straight up from there, so I figured I could hike it. After looking at the map, I noticed that it was only 6 miles to the top. This would be a piece of cake. So I headed off up the wooded trail. The trail was looking very fresh on this morning. You could tell that the trail had received significant rainfall the day before as it seemed the water had used the trail as a temporary river.

The forest was cool and quiet. I really enjoyed the big trees and open feeling to the forest. It was hard to be here and not imagine the early settlers forging their way through the forest, camping with their wagons and horses. Which sites did they pick to camp at? Where did they get their grass and water? The trail went up for about 3 miles and then I crossed a road. The 866 Road was just a continuation of the Santiam Wagon Road. This road was now closed to automobile traffic, so it felt like just another hiking trail as no one else was on it. The topography started to change here with little bumps of volcanic craters starting to appear. The forest changed from predominantly fir to more pine trees and low bushes. The ground was not quite as smooth either with lots of volcanic rock ready to trip you up and sprain your ankles if you did not pay attention. Eventually Sand Mountain came into view. I could see with the map on my watch that the road continued until taking a nearly 180 degree turn and heading up the mountain. I decided that I could skip that 180 degree turn by just heading cross country until I met up with the other chunk of road.

This turned out to be a bit of a mistake. The bushes were so thick that my progress was slow and difficult. Add to that the steepness of the topography and it made for some very slow going. It did get me sweating a bit which wasn't too bad because up to this point the hiking had been quite easy even with the 2300 feet in elevation I would have to gain to make it to the lookout. I eventually came out to the road where I was happy to not be covered in ticks. Looking at my estimated time of arrival, I had saved 15 minutes of hiking by taking my shortcut, but it really had not been enjoyable hiking. Now, though, I was on the road again, that once again, was now turned into a trail leading to the lookout.

I was starting to get some incredible views to go along with it. I ran into a guy with 2 dogs coming down from the lookout. He was very friendly and we talked for quite some time. Always nice to meet a kindred soul out on the trail. The road/trail continued until I got to a large parking lot. This used to be the trailhead, but was now 1 mile away from the new trailhead. From here, the trail was only another .25 miles. 

The views out to Hoodoo, Three Fingered Jack, and Mt. Washington were fantastic. All three of them were right there in your face. When I turned a corner to make it to the top, I was greeted by a very friendly lookout attendant. His name was Tim and he was a professor at Portland State University. He had spent some of his summers since 2000 being the lookout at Sand Mountain. He had the outfit to prove it too as he was dressed in forest service apparel that seemed just about right for the 1920s or 1930s. I asked him about the previous night's storm and he talked about the thunder and lightning storm. We also talked about the Holiday Farm Fire storm. He let me go up in the lookout tower and we talked for quite some time. 

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One thing I learned from Tim was that the lava flows coming from this area were relatively recent, only about 3000 years old. The flows from Belknap were even younger as that lava is on top of the lava from Sand Mountain. I also learned that the lava flows from Sand Mountain actually created Clear Lake. He gave me lots of great information and I took a few pictures, but it was soon time to head back down. I decided that when going down, I was not going to take a shortcut. 

This took me too an amazing little field of cinders. I could tell that ATVs liked to use this area to drive around in, but after the rain it almost looked pristine. Our planet is pretty amazing. The non-shortcut route proved to be easy walking and I saw two other groups on the approach as I went down. As I got to the actual trailhead, some noisy ATVs came up the road and I was happy to be walking back down the other way with many miles of closed road ahead of me to walk. The only exciting thing to report on the way back was the only wildlife I would see on this day which was a horned lizard. He was a little guy, but I guess in this upper elevation semi-desert environment, this was good habitat for him. I continued on down the trail making it back to the car by 3:30. About 5 hours for a 12 mile hike was pretty decent. I was very pleased with the hike as most of it was really quiet with a nice big payoff at the end. I would definitely have to repeat this hike sometime in the future.

George Lake

Since I went to George Lake a couple of years ago, I had been trying to talk the family into returning with me. Given the difficulty of the hike, they were not all incredibly excited about it. Finally, we got a favorable forecast and Jacqueline agreed to make the trek. We drove up 242 to the PCT trailhead and began our hike. I expected a lot of PCT hikers on this day as mid-August is prime time for hikers in this area. It was actually pretty quiet in the morning though. The trail took us up through the two islands amongst the lava and then it was nothing but lava hiking for a couple of miles. Just an uphill slog without any tree cover and little baseball size rocks to step upon. We knew that a twisted ankle was likely with these conditions. We continued on up until we got to the junction with the Little Belknap Trail.

There was some disagreement amongst the crew, mainly from Jacqueline, but in the end we all took the short detour to the top. Zyla led the way and she scrambled her way to the summit. There was another person there, but he quickly left when our family of four made it to the top. We took some photos and enjoyed the view. Little Belknap is the place where most of the lava came from to make this big lava flow and there were places were you could see the fissures creating the lava tubes where the flow occurs. We did not stay long on top and we were quickly down the mountain and back on the trail. Here the trail leveled out and went into some trees for a bit before descending down into more lava flow. This we followed until we got to the very bottom of the lava flow.

We turned off the trail and started our cross country hiking. This required us to climb over some downed trees and loose soil. Last time I was here I made the mistake of going too far west. This time I made the mistake of going too far east. We did not have as steep of climbing, but we ended up adding an extra half mile or so to the hike. This made Jacqueline a little grumpy, but the rest of the family kept a good attitude, so we were happy when we finally made it to the lake. Here was the problem, though. The hiking was great on this day as we had cool weather and even a nice wind. I was hoping it would all disappear when we hit the lake, but when we got there, it was still cool. This lake was so amazingly clear and cool last time on a hot day. 

Now we would have to deal with a cool lake on a cool day. Still, I had prepared for an enjoyable lake day. I sat in my chair and blew up the cheap inner tube that I had brought. Everyone, except Jacqueline took it for a spin. It was actually pretty nice, but the wind was so strong it kept blowing us back into shore. The kids were troopers though as it took some guts to get out there on the lake. If we were lucky, the air temperature was somewhere in the low 60s with wind. It took a lot for me to jump completely in, but I had to make the best of it. Still it was enjoyable nonetheless, but we had to deflate the floaty and get back to the normal trail. It was making Jacqueline nervous to be so far away from the main drag.

I decided to take a more direct route back and it worked out pretty good. We were back on the trail in no time. On the way back we ran into a lot of PCT hikers. This is a common place for people to get off the trail and go to Bend, so many of them have to find a way back up in the afternoon. They were all cordial to us as they passed on by. I wished I would have brought something for them to hand out, but maybe next time. We made it back to the car a little bit after four. It wasn't quite the day that I was hoping for as I enjoyed swimming in George Lake so much the first time that I had been there that I hoped everyone could. Still we did our best to make it to this beautiful lake right under Mt. Washington and even got a 12 mile hike in because of it. Not a bad way to spend a day off.

Mt. Townsend

We were visiting my dad up in Port Angeles. We wanted to get out for a hike while we were there. I wanted to do the High Divide trail up above Sol Duc, but Jacqueline did not want to hike that far. My dad recommended Mt. Townsend, as he knew the mountain well since that is the place he scattered the ashes of one of his best friends, so we gave that a shot. It was not as long of a distance, but still a lot of elevation change. We got a good early start in the morning and were following our GPS. Unfortunately, the GPS took us on the wrong route. We ended up on a Forest Service road that dead ended. We had no choice but to backtrack to the 101 and take an alternative route that was actually the correct way to get to the trailhead. Since we did not have a map and did not know the area, we were really relying on the GPS to get us to the trailhead. 

The weird thing about it was that the actual correct directions to the trailhead were quite easy, we just had to travel on the 101 a lot further than we did. We chocked it up to a lost couple of hours and because of it, we didn't get our hike started until 11 AM. We parked at the lower trailhead. We were recommended to do this by one of the Forest Service employees at the ranger station that Jacqueline needed to stop at to go to the bathroom. This was strange because we were the only ones parked at this trailhead. This made Jacqueline a little bit grumpy because she wanted the hike to be shorter. I didn't think the little extra elevation would be a big deal. It took us by a trail shelter and a mostly dried up lake. The elevation change wasn't too much and the kids enjoyed munching on the huckleberries along the way.

We arrived at the upper trailhead where there was a bathroom and a big parking lot. The parking was completely full, so maybe it was a good choice to go to the lower trailhead. From here, the trail climbed steeply. It was a good workout for all of us except Conrad. He was still able to have a conversation while hiking uphill with very steep grades. I participated in most of it with him, but other times I was just dealing with the heat and climb. Jacqueline was not very happy with me for taking them on this hike and was even more grumpy when the trail started to open up more. To me, we were seeing beautiful meadows filled with wildflowers. For her, she was seeing potential places to go slip sliding away.

The kids handled the heights really well and honestly to me, every time it looked like it was going to get to a drop off, there was a switchback that took us up the hill. It was a wonderfully constructed trail and I just marveled at the workmanship involved in building this track up Mt. Townsend. We continued pushing on and eventually made our way up to the ridge. Here the views were spectacular. The top did not seem so far away and we could see a group of people having a break up on top. We continued on with Jacqueline in the rear. Eventually we all made it to the top and I just happened to have a fourth place ribbon from one of my races in my backpack. I gave that to Jacqueline for being the fourth person to climb the mountain out of our group of four and that lightened the mood.

From there on out, we seemed to all enjoy the hike. We even all had patience with Jacqueline as she worked herself up to be very nervous going down the switchbacks. The kids did fantastic as they have both become rather skilled at figuring out how to manage the risks. The other impressive thing about the kids was really just how great of shape that they were all in. The hike seemed like no big deal when we were climbing 3400 feet over 5 miles. They had been on a running program for cross country and I really think that this running program was working as they both seemed to handle this challenging hike with ease. We continued down eating as many huckleberries as we could. Conrad was the most excited about the huckleberries and often shared them with us.

Overall, it ended up being just around 10 miles. We did it in fairly good time, but were thwarted a bit by the driving directions. This meant that we were slowed down for what Zyla really wanted to do with the day and that was to get out to Glass Beach to find beach glass. We were supposed to meet my dad and his wife there.

By the time we made it, the tide was coming in and there was not too much beach glass to be found. We still got ourselves a pocket full and it made Zyla happy that we at least made the effort. Hopefully she will actually use the beach glass to make something pretty that we can all enjoy.

 

Kalaloch Tide Pools

 We took a trip up to Washington to go camping with my dad, his wife, and my sister. As kids, we went to Kalaloch nearly every summer. Now, it is hard to get a campsite reservation, so we were lucky we got one. We were on our last day there, but the morning provided a perfect opportunity to go see the tide pools. The low tide was perfect around 9:30, so we had an opportunity to get camp completely packed up before heading out to the beach. It was about a two mile walk down the beach from our campsite to the tide pools. All four of us were up for the hike, but also Laura was going to come with us. The weather was cool and overcast with a nice thick layer of fog hanging over the beach. Just another typical day on a Northwest beach.

We went down the beach to the north and our goal was to get to the first rocky area. This would provide us the best access to see the starfish, anemones, and sea cucumbers. We got there at just about the right time, but at the tail end of the lowest tide. We all wandered about on our own excited about our spots that we would see. We had a friend there to greet us also as a bald eagle was sitting on a rock above us. My goal was to get as far out as possible before the tide started coming back in. That meant that I broke away from the pack and walked out to the biggest outcropping out there. There was a natural arch closer in to the shore, but my goal was the biggest rock out there. I was glad I made it there because when I did there was the largest collection of starfish on the entire beach.

I tried to count them all, but there were far too many to count. I could tell the tide was coming in quick, so I tried to get the rest of the group to come with me out there before we lost the spot. It took a couple of minutes, but they were impressed when they made it out there and with no time to spare. Already the best spots were starting to get hit with waves. Tide pools are so interesting because they are a world that only exists each day for a short time period.

We had our fill of seeing the sea life, so we headed back the same way we came. Zyla was looking for beach glass and Conrad helped her. She found quite a bit which is surprising because this beach was definitely not known for its beach glass. The rest of us meandered on the sand until we made it back to the Tree of Life, which was a good landmark to tell us when we should go up the hill and back to our car. When we drove away from Kalaloch it did not take long before the world opened up to a nice sun shiny day, but at the beach I am sure that the ocean was still wrapped in a layer of clouds that would keep it nice and cool for the rest of the day.