Yapoah Crater

It was my half birthday and I need to get a hike in. The weather was not cooperating, but this was my day, so it was time to make it happen. I had been wanting to go up Yapoah Crater since last summer and after walking by it on the PCT it renewed my interest. This was a day when a long hike would mean exposure to wet weather all day. So Yapoah Crater it was. The trail out to Yapaoh Crater was the Scott Trail which went right by the Four in one Cones. I should have realized I was in for it when the trailhead was almost completely abandoned except for one other car. At first the weather started out good, but it changed rather quickly into a blustery, rainy day. I had researched Yapoah Crater last summer when Conrad and I went to Yapoah Lake. Ya-po-ah was the Kalapuya Indians name for Skinner Butte which is located in Eugene. It means the High Place. 

I liked that. So my goal was to make it to the High Place today. I followed the trail until it took me to  the PCT. I did not stay on the PCT long, but did head north for a short stretch. I went to about the highest place that I could find and then headed out to the woods. The route took me uphill and eventually I ran into a trail. This took me past one challenging obstacle, but mostly it was just hiking uphill. The terrain was a bit challenging but nothing too difficult. The goal was to make the ridge and head north from there. I picked my route carefully and soon I was topping out on the ridge. This is where the wind really picked up. I was staying on the west side of the ridge to avoid the big winds, but there were times when I had to top out. Given that this was the highest thing around, the winds had nothing to stop there path and they were tremendous. When I finally got to the base of the peak on the ridge, I considered turning around. It was sort of foolishness but I was here, might as well finish the trip. I started up the rocky slope. Here, it was just volcanic rock as Yapoah Crater is one of the youngest features in Oregon being only a few thousand years old. The wind whipped as I tried to keep my balance charging up the steep volcanic slopes until I hit the crater proper. It was hard to tell what was the high point of the crater, so I decided to just circumnavigate the entire summit. The wind and the rain just whipped at we coming out of the west. All my clothes were pointing east as the wind tried to rip them from my body. This would have been a great day to wear rain pants as I was soaked from the waist down. My rain jacket kept my upper portion dry, but the rest of me was nice and soaked. I kept my balance the entire way across the summit. I can't say the view was spectacular and I did not have the energy to take pictures for long. I quickly made my way back down, happy to be out of the driving wind and rain. Following the ridge and steep slope down was relatively easy. Soon I was back on the PCT and then the Scott Trail. The hike back was a piece of cake except for the fact that I was a little chilly. As long as I kept moving, I did not get cold. Besides, this weather was great for finishing off the fires. Nothing like a good soaking to cool the flames as this would mark the end of fire season in Oregon. I am not going to lie, I also enjoyed the hike a little more in the weather. There was literally nobody out there except for me and it made what would have probably been a fairly easy scramble a little bit more exciting. It turned out to be a great day even in the driving wind and rain.
 

Berley Lakes

Saturday and school had begun. That meant that I would probably get one day to get out and go hiking. I thought that I should definitely take that. As usual it was still quite warm down low, so I headed up the road to Santiam Pass. Conrad and I hiked into Santiam Lake from Duffy Lake in June and I figured I would hike to it from the other direction. I was back on the PCT again to start out. It was amazing how easy the elevation change seemed without a heavy backpack on my back. The area was so dry and I was lucky today because the smoke was pushing off in a different direction smoldering from the Lookout Fire. The PCT took me uphill until I took the trail to the left that would lead me to Santiam Lake. Once I was on the trail, I knew that I had been there before.

The last time I had hiked this, though, was many years ago in May when there was still a significant amount of snow on the ground. I also did not have my GPS watch, so at some point, I just lost the trail and scrambled around on the little hills for a bit. This time, there was no issue with snow and I hiked the trail right to Santiam Lake. I stopped at the same spot Conrad and I had stopped at. The lake was lower and much warmer than the last time I had made it there. After a bite, I was heading down the trail. I saw on my watch that there was an old trail that led to Lower Berley Lake. I decided to take it. It was obvious that people went this way, but I would not describe it as an official trail. It was not too difficult to find, though, and so I was on the shores of a beautiful lake.

There was one campsite by the lake and I decided to take a dip. The water was much cooler than Santiam Lake but very refreshing. I brought swimming shorts and a freezer size ziploc bag for this exact purpose. I got myself changed back to hiking clothes and then I decided to try to find Upper Berley Lake. This took a bit of bushwhacking as there were some pseudo trails in places, but the quickest way was to go through the trees. Here was an amazing lake with a great view of Three Fingered Jack. I imagine if I came out here in the summer time, I would still have the place all to myself. This would be a great place to camp and just hang out at the lake all day with the kids.

From here, I found what used to be an official trail complete with signs that probably had been there for 50 plus years. This trail took me to the far side of Lower Berley Lake which had a fantastic view also. I continued on the trail and at times it was faintly still present and at other times it was required for me to hop some blowdowns in the burnt section of trail. Eventually, though, it sent me right back to the trail. Here I ran into a student of mine with his family. Always a little bit awkward, but they were nice people. The rest of the way back to the car, I listened to the Husky game as I had good enough service to get the game. They were creaming Tulsa, so not much of a game to listen to, but still fun since it was my team that was winning. I made it back to the car having seen something new and a pretty enjoyable Saturday if I should say so myself.

Tahkenitch Creek and Siltcoos Lake

 We were all so sick of smoke and fire. The two fires less than 10 miles as the crow flies from our house had been burning for two months almost now. Everyday we had to wake up and figure out what to do with where the smoke was today. The kids and I were running for cross country and some days that would mean that we had to go early before the smoke settled down and other days it would mean we would  have to wait for it to leave. Either way, it was not healthy to have to fill your lungs with wildfire smoke every day, so we needed a break. We had not been getting out for hikes because most of the forest was closed. Also, we did not want to leave our house. Now, things finally seemed stable enough that we could leave for a day or two and have a mini vacation.

We found ourselves a campsite at Jessie M. Honeyman State Park so we headed out to Florence and the Oregon Coast. There were lots of hikes that we had not done before there, but I zeroed in on Tahkenitch Creek. Driving to Florence was not that big of a deal. It was only a two hour drive. Nothing too remarkable on the drive and soon we found ourselves at a quiet trailhead. There were a few cars there at the trailhead, but not many. There were a ton of bees by the bathroom, though, so everyone was a bit nervous going near them. Soon we were on the trail. It was a flat trail with a forested walk that went right by a quiet creek. We hiked this for a mile or so before Jacqueline realized she was missing her sunglasses. 

We spent way too long looking for the sunglasses going back and forth looking very closely. We never did find them, but at least Conrad and I got a little bit of a jog in. We continued on. The trail was very sandy as this was an area of dunes known as the Tahkenitch Dunes. We took that route that sent us toward the ocean. That was obviously the goal as we could not hike on the coast without seeing the ocean. It was only a few miles to get there and the trail took us right down to the beach. We spent the next mile or so hiking the beach. It was a cool day as usual on the coast, so there was no reason to get in the water on this day. Still it was fun and very relaxing. There was an enormous sign by the beach, so Conrad and I got a race in to the sign.

I was still faster than him for the time being. We had a decision to make. There was another trail that created a loop. This would mean we would have to leave the beach. It felt premature, but it gave us a chance to make a loop out of the hike. We left the beach and were now back in the dunes area. The trail took us to a lake called Three Mile Lake. It was amazing. How awesome would it be to hike a kayak into there for the day. We enjoyed it from high above taking a little break to look down on the lake. Then it was back through the dunes. Conrad got a little running down the sand hills in. We took the trail through the dunes that quickly dissipated. I was lucky to have my GPS watch because it told me I was on the trail when one did not exist. 

The watch did its job and the trail came and went as we walked through the deep sand. Eventually it brought us back to the trail we started from and the loop was complete. We walked on back through the woods until we got to where the sunglasses could be. We looked for them again, but we also completed the Tahkenitch Creek loop trail which was pretty short. The sunglasses were never found. We were back at the car and they were not there either. Now we were able to head to our campsite for the night. It was a quiet campsite in a very busy campground. I made a mistake and grabbed the wrong tent which meant that we had a two person tent for a family of four. We improvised and I cleared out the back of the car.

Conrad and I ended up sleeping in the back of the car while Jacqueline and Zyla enjoyed the comfort of the tent. Camp was fun. We played some games and ate food that was really unhealthy for us. The night ended up being okay. It was tight in the car but nice and cool which is hard to find. We slept in as long as we could and then were back at it. We got ourselves all packed up. We were definitely the abnormal ones in this campground with our simple setup. Some people had these amazing, elaborate setups. It looked like they were just going to stay in the campsite as long as they could. We were using it as a means to get another hike in during the morning. This time we were heading out on the Siltcoos Lake Trail.

This trailhead was not too far from camp. I saw it the day before when we were heading out to Tahkenitch Creek. When I looked it up, it seemed like it would be a good short day hike for the morning. The trailhead was pretty quiet with just a few cars there and only one sketchy looking one. It was always a risk to leave all of your gear in your car, but that is what we had to do to get out on a hike. This hike started out in the thick forest. We were moving away from the beach out to a very large lake. The trail was in very good shape and we enjoyed the thick forest. Eventually the trail came to a junction. We went to the right to go around the loop. The loop took us toward the lake but when we tried to get down to the actual lake, we ended up in someone's campsite. We said our pleasantries and then were off with one more shot at finding a place to enjoy the lake. We went down a steep hill until we were right there at the lake. There was a really nice spot with a picnic table right on the lake. We sat down and enjoyed a card game while we looked out at the lake. Jacqueline felt guilty as usual for taking the best spot, but since no one else was around, it was not a big deal. We could still smell the smoke from all of the fires even this far removed from the McKenzie area.

Ours was not the only fire around, but it definitely was the biggest. Jacqueline was paranoid that there was another fire out on the coast, but it did not seem that way to me. Just a lingering smell of smoke in the air, nowhere near as bad as we had been dealing with at home. Eventually it was time to go. We finished the loop through the deep forest and our hike was over a little sooner than all of us were wanting. From here, it was just time to pile back into the car and drive the 2 hours home. Still it was a nice little getaway before school started.