Donaldson Crew Adventures

One of the most popular hiking trails in the central Cascades near Bend is the Green Lakes trail.  You follow a creek with lots of waterfalls up to beautiful alpine scenery with lakes surrounded by mountains, all with minimal uphill grade.  The hike is 8 miles total but you only gain a modest 1100 ft over the 4 miles to the lake.  Plus the trail-head is only about 25 minutes from Bend signed just past Sparks lake on the right.  

I had never hiked it before and Hunter was game to go and see if he could do the 8 mile trek, so we arrived at the trailhead a little before 1 pm.  It was crowded as one might expect for a nice summer weekend but even with all the cars it still felt very peaceful.  

Here are a few pictures of the hike in:

A few pics of the main lake:

These lakes are beautiful but are fed by surrounding snow melt so are known to be frigid most of the year even on the hottest days but maybe because this past winter was low snow, the water today was cold but still bearable!  I tried it first and then Hunter made the plunge as well! 

Kelly left for California today with her dad and the kids for the week.  I will fly down next weekend and drive back with them, however with no family today, I decided to go out for a hike today in the high cascades.  My destination was the Matthieu Lakes (North and South) via a 7 mile loop hike.  I departed from Dee Wright Observatory about 15 miles southwest of Sisters.  This starting point adds an extra mile each way from the standard trailhead but the views from the lava fields are great.  The weather was warm with a slight breeze, and a perfect day for a walk.  I brought Red with me to enjoy the lakes.  He love the swimming but is not in as good a shape as he was in his younger years.  He was suffering near the end and I had to carry him off and on the last 1/3 of a mile.  

View of North and Middle Sister at the start of the hike along with the snow barren Mt Washington while hiking along the lava fields.

The hike takes you up to around 6000 ft.  Here are some pictures along the highest point of the hike and South Matthieu lake that has North Sister poking up in the background.

After enjoying the sun at South Mattieu Lake, we headed down hill to the slighly bigger North Mathieu Lake.   Red got out and did more swimming at this one. 

From here it was back to the car for a cold beer waiting on ice.  

With today off for the long weekend, we drove up to the Cascades with no particular target in mind.  As we drove by Devils lake there was a nice area by the water that was available so we stopped.  Water was very cold as it drains right off the mountain but the kids had fun in the kayaks and catching frogs along the shore.  The pictures don't do it justice but the lake almost glows green due to the mineral content in the water.

I took the Older Boys on a hike up Tumalo Mountain this morning.  A good starter hike in terms of distance and difficulty but with amazing views of Mt Bachelor on the hike up.  Then at the top you get treated to views of the Sisters mountains and Broken top.

While Bachelor usually stays open until the memorial day weekend, it will likely melt out at the bottom before that point this year due to the lack of snow.  It was very thin near the bottom today, but up high it was great so we spent out last day out near the top of the mountain.  Really nice and warm today making the snow super soft.  We had a great day and a pre-celebration of Hunter turning double digit birthday tomorrow.  

Some Video footage from today:

This past weekend, I climbed Mt Hood - Oregon's highest mountain, with a couple of friends from work - Matt H, and Zak C.  Last time I was up it was 2011 also with Matt H about a month later in May of that year.   The weather this time was spectacular, however with the low snow year, the climbing was much more difficult.  We left Bend about 12:30 AM friday night, and left the parking lot at Mt hood at 3 am.  We hit the summit in 5 hours around 8 am.  We were back down by 11:30 for lunch at the lodge before driving home.

In the pictures, if its not obvious, I am in the red jacket (blue in one sitting), Zak has the green jacket and Matt has the brown jacket.  Notice in some of the pictures how blue the sky is.  No camera filter - just shot with my iphone.  

Today we had another spring skiing day at Bachelor with temps in the 60's and no wind.  I convinced the boys that we could do the Summit today.  We ended up doing it about 5 times.  Boys loved it.  It was the first time for both of them to get to the Summit runs.  

Hunter wanted to hit the park today so we spent most of the day there. Unfortunately Noah wasn't feeling well so he couldn't make it. Here is one of his jumps. He doesn't quite stick this one but he was landing and sticking others.

Have had good luck with weather at Mt. Bachelor recently.  Last Saturday with Noah, and today with Both Noah and Hunter.