John Day Fossil Beds

We awoke at Smith Rock and it had been a long night. I slept pretty well, but woke up a few times and could hear Zyla wheezing. This was not good because she had so many issues with her lungs anyway. Now she was sick and it was settling in. We pretty much made our mind up at that point that we were going to have to end our camping adventure early and head home after visiting John Day Fossil Beds. Zyla was still up for a trip to John Day, so we made it happen. We split tasks between packing up the tent and the car and getting breakfast ready. I drove the show, but eventually we were on the road. Our first destination was the Painted Hills. The drive out there was not bad as the snow was melting and the scenery was alive. The water was running swiftly through creeks that often probably did not have water. 

When we got to the Painted Hills unit, there were two hikes to do in the same area. First, we went to the overlook which was just a short trail. It had a nice view of colorful hills. It was the hike that everyone did. The other hike was across the road and not as many people did this one because it went uphill a lot. It was the Carroll Rim Trail. It was short also. That was sort of the theme for the day. We were going to do a lot of short hikes. We saw only a couple of other groups on this trail. The trail climbed uphill to the top of a butte and then dead ended. It was a nice view. We looked, sat on the benches which seemed to be a theme for this place, and then scampered on back down the trail. We were going to continue back on the road but instead had to backtrack to the bathrooms. There were like two public restrooms for everyone. 

It wasn't like this was a busy place, but there were people around. The next goal was the Painted Cove trail. This was probably my favorite. While short it had nice colors and a walkway. It was over really quick and soon we were on to the next short hike. This time we master the Leaf Hill Trailhead. Here the signs could tell us all about the fossils that we could not see. The last trail in the whole area was the Red Hill trail. This one was probably the most disappointing. What was my verdict? All of these trails were short and uninspiring. I thought that there might actually be some fossils, but not really. I am glad we did them, but probably one of those things only worth doing once. So we packed in the car again.

After a quick stop for lunch and a little time to throw the football, we were off on the road. It was a little over an hour drive to the next stop. This was the Sheep Unit of the park. Our goal was to hike Blue Basin, but it happened to be closed because of a rock slide. When they showed a picture of the rock slide, I was rather disappointed because it did not look like much. Instead, our only choice was to hike the Island in Time trail. This was an uphill hike through a canyon with a lot of bridges in the hot sun. We were enjoying the warm weather for the first time this year. The hiking was easy and the trail was in very good shape. Along the way, there were signs telling us about fossils in the area without there actually being fossils in the area. 

Zyla was getting worse and we knew that this was going to have to be our last hike of the day. There were other units of John Day that we were going to have to enjoy at a later date. She was a trooper, though, doing these hikes when she was feeling so cruddy. We made it to the end of the trail which was a nice view. There was a bench there and a sign to tell us that we were at the end of the trail. The goal of the hikes in John Day was to keep you on a very narrow path so that you did not explore. Not really my cup of tea. We headed back down the many bridges. When we got back to the car, we knew it was time to go home. Zyla was really struggling. In the following days, we would take her to the InstaCare and find out that she had RSV. The rest of our spring break was managing her symptoms. We even had a night where we took shifts staying up with her through the night. We watched her oxygen levels until we felt we had turned a corner. It was still nice to get out as a family on some hikes together over spring break, but in the future, we were definitely going to have to do more. 

Smith Rock State Park

It was my birthday and I wanted to do some hiking and camping. The family was all in, so we went to a spot that we had never visited before. That is always a great place to go. We packed up the car with way too much stuff and were on our way to Smith Rock State Park. It was only a couple of hours from our house. We drove over Santiam Pass, down to Sisters and then we took the road toward Redmond. The GPS took us on some interesting routes. Sometimes I think it does that purposely so you feel like you can't live without it. When we got to Smith Rock State Park, we immediately went to the campground. It was all tent camping and we got there just as people were starting to clear out. That meant that there were a lot of places to put a tent down. 

I let the family decide and soon we were putting up our massive 6 person tent amongst the climbing bums there to enjoy the rocks. The camping was expensive for a family of four costing $8 per person. We got everything carried to the tent and once we felt like we were settled there, we had a bite to eat. The picnic tables for eating were all located where the cars were parked as the site itself was a walk-in site in the middle of a big field. We had ourselves some lunch and then left for the trail right from our campsite. The trail took us to incredible views of Smith Rock. It was this large volcanic plume but it almost looked like red rock out here in this more arid environment. There was a river that wound around it called the Crooked River that made it seem even more inviting. There sure were a lot of people around and I realized why as this was an easy spot to experience nature, but there were many different interest levels. There were the casual hiker, the serious hiker, the casual climber, the serious climber, and even the stop for 5 minutes and take a picture tourists. We followed our trail which was the Rim Rock Trail. It was there for the viewpoint. From there it took us down to the one big bridge that crossed the Crooked River. From there we headed right up the Misery Ridge Trail.

I had been training for a marathon, but perhaps I was a little overtrained. My body was starting to reject the training, so on this hike I had taken a couple of days off of running. Still, the hiking was getting to me. Yes, this was a steep trail that went quickly up the mountain side, but I should be able to handle it without my body rejecting it. My heart rate was steadily increasing and I was having issues breathing. The other person that was struggling was Zyla. She had issues with allergies, so when we left on the trip, we were assuming that was what she was experiencing. Instead, we could see that she was steadily getting worse. This was probably not allergies, but instead, cold like symptoms. She was doing her best to tough it out for me on my birthday, but the hiking was sure getting to her as well as me. Soon, though, we were topping out on Misery Ridge with a lot of other people. We did not stop very long to look because of too many other humans, but the view was still good as we kept walking. A few other hikers pointed out bald eagles perched on a tree in front of us and as we continued going we got to enjoy the climbers finding their way up Monkey Face. I can tell that the youth in me is slowly dying because looking up at the climbers, I just saw that as super risky. 

I guess a lot of the thrill seeker attitude in me is gone and now it is just really trying to appreciate this stuff. The trail went back down almost as soon as we were up. We went down to the river right by Monkey Face and were soon headed around Smith Rock. We came to a junction and we left a portion of trail unhiked. Smith Rock only had about 15 miles of trails, but we were going to have to leave some of those unhiked on this day. Continuing on our way, we were now spending time right by the Crooked River. It was very high and I am sure uncrossable. You could tell that at other times during the year, the river could be crossed as some portions of trail ran right to the river. We could see a rescue team preparing to practice swift water rescue, so we were not about to put a foot in the river. 

Still it was super enjoyable and incredibly pleasant just hiking along the river. We could look up to see the climbers and the birds enjoying the cliffs. We took a side trail and had a snack by the river and then continued on our way. Unfortunately, we were finding ourselves back at the big bridge too soon. There was more to the trail and we continued on that rather than going back to camp too early. This section of trail was called the Wolf Tree Trail. It was really just a continuation of what we had just done, but much quieter with less climbers and hikers. We took that all the way until it dead ended at the Summit Trail. That trail climbed quite a bit more and considering that my heart was racing just doing a fairly moderate climb, I worried what that would do to my body. 

My hiking companions were not about to do that with Zyla getting steadily worse. Instead it was time to start heading back. When we got to the big bridge, though, I took another trail back to camp. This worried both Zyla and Jacqueline, but given that I had a trail map on my watch, I was not too concerned. We made our way to what seemed like practice cliffs for climbers. Here was a spot that a climber could top rope and practice for something bigger. Our trail wound around this and soon I found the right path. It took us right back to our campsite. We still had a good portion of the day as it was just late afternoon. We spent the rest of the day reading books, playing games, cooking dinner, and enjoying each other's company. I had a great crew of people to spend my birthday with. In the evening, we walked out to the Rim Rock trail again to see the view. It was beautiful at night also. We enjoyed the view and then we went back to the tent. Here we were greeted almost immediately by the smell of marijuana smoke, one of the drawbacks of staying in a campground with a bunch of climbers. We settled in for the night and we all slept pretty well. I could hear Zyla wheezing in the middle of the night, so that was not a good omen for tomorrow.