Blow Lake - Oregon Cascades - with Shane and Nico

It's magic when, out of the blue, your teenage son says "hey, let's go backpacking". You drop what you're doing and go gather gear to head out. Shane had the brilliant idea to just get out and so we did. It was 45 minutes of driving from Bend, Oregon up to the Six Lakes Trailhead, just south of Elk Lake. An easy 1 mile hike in and we were searching for a camp site at Blow Lake.

Here's the other thing that's amazing about this simple trip. Shane torn his ACL a few weeks back. He'll have surgery soon. As part of the prep, he needs to build his strength. He can't do much. A little too much movement side to side could be really bad. A short flat one mile hike with a 100 foot gain would work.

We had a very mellow, fabulous time.