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.

Six Lakes Trail - Headwaters of the McKenzie River

Black Butte Father's Day Hike with Drake

There's nothing like the simple times. The singular focus of a hike. The experience when you do it with someone you love. The memory that'll always be there.

Drake, knowing that I'd really appreciate all of the above, offered to take me on a hike up Black Butte on Father's Day. We'd done it before. It was just over 10 years ago when the six year old boy and I climbed the Butte in snow and cold and camped on top.

2007

2017

Now he's a young man and the joy is still great.

Dad, Nico, and Mt. Jefferson

Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Hood

Mt. Washington

Three Fingered Jack

Tumalo Mountain area-unnamed caldera butte

Sledding on Butte with South Sister & Broken Top in back

We needed an overnight and the mild winter weather provided. Lows were set this weekend for about 30 overnight. We figured that might be about 20 where we planned to be camping just shy of 6,800 feet. No snow remaining in town so in order to get some decent sledding it's up to the Cascades.

full of stoke at the TH at Dutchman Flat

Broken Top on the left, Ball Butte on the right-hiking along Dutchman Flat

The hike is along a snowmobile trail. We anticipated that there wouldn't be much traffic due to the thin snow pack and there were only a few machines. Once we broke away from the trail and started gaining elevation we followed a creek bed.

Sunrise over Tumalo Mountain

 We set up camp a few hundred feet below the unnamed butte (we are calling it caldera butte) and hiked up. Check out the map above and you can see the depth of the butte bowl. We hiked up the steep side to do some sled runs, but the other prize was the view!

Sunset over Mt. Bachelor from Butte

The crew en route back to the TH

The short film:

Hike Length: 4 miles Hike Duration: 2 days

Hike Configuration: out and back Blaze: mostly on Flagline Trail, some x-country

Start Elevation: 6,348 feet Highest Point: 7,145 feet Elevation Gain: 797 feet

Hike Rating: easy to moderate, some postholing in the snow, slick areas.

Trail Condition: On the trail, packed down by snowmobiles

Starting Point: Dutchman Flat 

Trail Traffic: a few snowmobiles around Dutchman Flat, no one else on Butte.

Access:  Oregon Snow Park pass required for TH parking. 

How to Get There:

From Bend, County Road 46 (Cascade Lakes Highway) about 20 miles to Dutchman Flat TH. 

Broken Top

 

Summit of Broken Top

23 August 2008

 

Three Sisters Loop

Oregon 36 project

Hiking the highest points in all of Oregon's 36 counties

#5-Deschutes & Lane Counties-South Sister-10,358 feet

This trip was intended to be a 40 mile jaunt around the Three Sisters peaks. While I did complete the summit of South Sister in crazy winds, the rest of the loop proven to be a bigger challenge to complete.

Tumalo Creek-Farewell Trail 2008

An early summer hike up Tumalo Creek west of Bend, Oregon to lesser seen upper falls

Cline Falls

Cline Falls provides a decent trip into nature very close to Redmond. It's very accessible, yet feels remote.

Unfortunately, the state park along the Deschutes River has been used to a point of where it's been degraded heavily. The area feels more 'urban' than any other place I've been to in Central Oregon that is considered a park/wild/natural area. Trash is pretty common, ruderal vegetation dominates and the river has been over manipulated in the area. I am guessing that the challenge is that the park is often forgotten by the community. I know of no 'friends of Cline Falls' group. State Parks (notoriously short on resources in Oregon) doesn't seem to have the capacity to keep up with the damage in the area. We picked up some trash while we were there, but the area needs some major love. A sad story.

That all said, the trails in the area provide an nice look into a canyon of the Deschutes River. The whole family ventured out and had a good afternoon. Mostly we ran around and played monster.

See & hear the falls...

Dry River Canyon

An ancient river cut the canyon in which now "flows" the Dry River. Once draining ancient Lake Millican, the Dry River's course can now be traced through the Oregon Badlands Wilderness north to the Crooked River. The drainage area of Dry River extends eastward to Hampton Butte and southward to the east flank of Newberry Volcano and all of Pine Mountain. During ice ages, Newberry Volcano hosted large glaciers. Runoff from these glaciers contributed to the flow of Dry River.

A hike up the Dry River Canyon trail reveals hints of the energetic river which once flowed here. Rounded boulders, or grounded holes in bedrock caused by churning rock and water, and gravel at the bottom of the canyon show evidence of its watery past. Geological evidence is not the only clue to the canyon's past environment: several large Ponderosa pine trees linger on the canyon bottom, relics of a past ecosystem which prevailed during cooler times. (BLM website)

Dry River? That's like a quiet hurricane. Well, it exists and it's about 20 minutes east of Bend, Oregon in the Badlands Wilderness area. Makes a great hike with the kids in late fall (area closed in winter to protect habitat).

Meadow Picnic Area - Deschutes River

The Deschutes River south of Bend, Oregon flows beautifully. It is said that the porous lava rock drains one million gallons of water out of the river and into the groundwater table every day. See the vid' below to get the vibe on the water in this area.

Shane and Drake on the river

Drake on the Deschutes River

Cascades-Green Lakes w/ Shane

Shane and I had a great opportunity as young son and wandering dad-a get away with just the two of us. An adventure for the lil' 23 month old.

A chance to play in the Three Sisters Wilderness.

We piled up our gear and headed up Fall Creek. The creek runs from Green Lake, a glacier run off lake from Broken Top and South Sister, down to Sparks Lake. This is the upper most watershed of the Deschutes River-one of the largest watersheds in the state. This spot is exactly 20 miles directly and I mean dead west of Bend.

Fall Creek.

The dramatic change of the conifers and other flora combined with the obvious effect of more rain in this area compared to Bend, is very demonstrative of why climatologists are so interested in this area. From the High Cascades to the 20 miles east to Bend is one of the largest precipitation gradients in the world. From the spot of this photo the mountain town of McKenzie Bridge is 20 miles to the west with it's 70 inches of annual precip' while Bend, 20 in the other direction receives just 11 inches. Okay, a little wonky/nerd like, but it really shows how varied Oregon can be and the different climates that you can hike thru' in a day-pretty wild.

Waterfall on Fall Creek.

So when I mentioned us piling up our gear, what I really mean is me packing our small tent, sleeping bag, food etc AND shane on my back. All in all, not too heavy of a load. The cool thing was that along the several mile hike along the creek the lil' guy was anxious to get out of the backpack and run along on his own. Dang that kid is fast!

The key to keeping kids happy and engaged on what seems like LONG drawn out events like a several mile hike is to make many fun stops. Making each stop an event gets them psyched. Every bend turns into another discovery and not an endless drudge along the trail. Here along Fall Creek we threw rocks and played in the water for quite a while. You get your kids to love the outdoors when you absorb yourself in the moment and don't get so destination oriented as we tend to do as adults. If the journey means splashing for a half hour then that's part of the destination.

The slope up to South Sister.

Sometimes the average photo only serves to joggle your memory not be a great photo. This one is so excellent for me. We stopped by this waterfall to check it out and have a snack. Baby Shane is getting sleepy as indicted by the pacifer and I could use a break. So moments after this photo, we sat by the falls and snacked.
The bees that lived where I sat down didn't think that was a good plan. Luckily, I was only stung once. Every mishap in the wilderness is always a great lesson so just as long it doesn't get you into serious trouble. In this case, I did not have an allergic reaction, but the incident made me later shore up my emergency kit to include Benedryl-something I HIGHLY recommend to keep in your small kit that you take on every excursion into the wilderness. At some point in this blog I'll detail my kit which weighs just a few ounces, is the size of your fist and can provide me fire, shelter, food, first aid, light and more for a couple of days if I'm stuck.

Cool falls. I know, crappy picture.

A few miles in, vistas of South Sister, the Central Cascades highest peak at 10,358, come into view. This shield volcano (I'm pretty sure it is) erupted "geologically" yesterday @ the time Buddhism began-1,900 years ago. The eruptions started just as the eruptions on the adjacent Middle Sister subsided a few thousand years earlier. The volcano is still active and has had several recent movements with cone said to be growing a few inches a year.

I turned around from South Sister and took this photo. Broken Top at 9,175 feet is of my favorites. This volcano behind Shane and I is so dang gorgeous and as you might expect, I'm gonna geek out here on volcano talk-sorry.


South Sister being a shield volcano means when it erupts, lava flows are more like the relatively slow oozing that well known in the volcanoes around Hawaii.

Four miles away-peak to peak-is Broken Top, a composite volcano. This means when it erupted about 9,000 years ago, you REALLY did not want to be around. Composite volcanoes are drama queens. They ERUPT. Some examples include Mount St. Helens (Washington), Mount Fuji (Japan), Mount Shasta (California), Mount Rainer (Washington), Mount Cotopaxi (Ecuador). Funny they are all along that angry ring of fire the earth seems to keep telling us is so dangerous.
Composite volcanoes also look different because they are usually steep sided and built up with alternating layers of lava flows, ash, cinders and my fav-bombs-yes lava bombs that fly out of the ground. And yeah, they can range from the size of a stick of butter up to the size of a car. The geologic magic there is one central vent or a tight cluster of vents that pipes the flow up rapidly.
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Broken Top, forest and Green Lake. One of the top 10 favorite photos I've ever taken. In full resolution, this photo really shows the drama and contrast of the site, its landscape and color.

Oh and just to close it out. We hung at Green Lake splashing in there for hours. After we camped at Green Lake, I explained to Shane, who can't really talk, that much as I love it out here, it was time to head home. The biggest challenge with hitting the wilderness with a 23 month old is managing the dirty diapers. Ugh. Great motivation to get home so I don't have those things carrying on my pack anymore.
Really though. Camping and backpacking with wee ones just isn't really that hard. Kids are just so flexible and can get engaged so easily if you just jump in with 'em.