Kelly and Abbie were down in California, so the boys went away to play for the weekend. I had picked this book up from Costco earlier in the year and figured this would be a good opportunity to pick out a weekend adventure trip.
Our destination was the Gearhart Wilderness area. See this map below of Oregon - its in the extreme south central/eastern part of the state.
On Friday we drove after work south and stopped and camped at a campground just off the 97 just North of Chiloquin.
Saturday we got onto the route - basically a circumnavigation of Gearhart mountain on fire roads. This was true eastern Oregon back country driving. Very few people (even though we were in the heart of tourist season). The driving was beautiful and being a little higher in elevation made for perfect warm days (not hot) and cool nights. One of the neat spots we hit Saturday morning was an old fire tower still standing and accessible but no longer in operation for what looked like many years.
After the fire tower we continued on to our next stop Campbell lake where we cooled off, had some lunch and tried fishing. (no luck).
For our evening camp spot Saturday we have a few options but we ultimately chose a campsite called Sandhill Campground. We had it to ourselves - not a soul besides our group for the afternoon and evening and not even a car drove by. It had the Sprague river bubbling through the campsite giving us our own private river beach. A magical place. (I have heard it gets busy in the fall for hunting season).
The campground also had water accessible by an old fashioned hand pump. Boys had never seen a working hand-pump so Noah decided he wanted to get his water that way.
A warm, but not hot day for early July so we decided to try a water hole in the desert called Alder Springs deep in a desert Canyon. north of Bend. It was a rough drive in and very desert dry at the parking lot so we weren't sure what to expect. We hiked in and down into the Canyon for a couple miles and found this beautiful hidden spot on the creek where we swam and played for the afternoon.
The hike into the Canyon
Swimming and playing in the creek
Noah has wanted a sleep over ever since I can remember. We decided to be brave and let him have a few friends over for the night. The boys came over and had pizza, swam, biked, watched a movie on the deck and ended the night sleeping out on the trampoline. Noah said it was he best birthday. It was a great night and everyone had fun.
PJ and Abbie were the first two to brave its fresh cold water although they are staying on top of the floaties.
Wet Spring producing wildflowers
While staying at Black Butte this weekend, we did a half day exploration close by to visit Wizard Falls fish hatchery with Lunch in the hamlet of Camp Sherman. The fish hatchery was really fun - Felt like something out of the 1960's. While there we did a short hike along the Metolius River. The river here is amazingly blue, as its only a couple of miles from its source.
We kicked off Summer Vacation 2019 with a Weekend trip to Black Butte. One of our favorite places close to home. 69/70 degrees with sun and cool evenings. We did some swimming, biking and exploring. Our first evening - we celebrated the summer solstice with dinner at the main pool.
Some pictures from the rest of the weekend.
We are celebrating the first day and first official weekend of summer in Black Butte Ranch, Oregon
