PJ's first time at the climbing gym. Plus Hunter and Noah trying routes on the bouldering wall.
Complete with an original cider press from the late 1800's. A great event put on by our friends Jeff and Nikki. Makes you appreciate the work that used to go into food production. I went with Hunter and PJ. Kelly had other birthday parties to attend with Abbie and Noah so we split up.
Just a few pictures of picking out our pumpkins, a Halloween party at the High Desert Museum to pumpkin caring and making our annual acorn squash. Fall is one of our favorite times of year.
September now has a tradition of a Donaldson boys fall camping trip. First trip was in 2014, where we canoe camped on Sparks lake. 2015 we did a backpacking trip to Benson lake which was the first backpack for Hunter and Noah. This year in 2016, we backpacked again - this time up Tam MacAurthor rim above 3 creeks lake in the 3-Sisters wilderness. We have been to 3-creeks lake in the summer as a family but this time our target was to camp out on 'The Prow' - a high point cliff that overlooks the 3 creeks basin at 7732 ft elevation. (The parking area at the lake is at 6550). The hike to the Prow and back is about 5.3 miles so this would be the longest backpack for the boys to date. As they will tell you - a big difference when you have a pack on your back vs just a day hike.
We left Bend about 2:30 Saturday after the last soccer game and got on the trail about 3:45. Here are a few shots on the way up. You can see the prow clearly in the second photo.
Here are some shots from the top and the cliff area around the prow.
We set up camp about a 100 yards back from the prow in some trees. While this is high fire season we set up a very small fire to take the chill out. Noah got inventive and started toasting fig newtons on sticks. After fire was out we watched the stars for a while - amazing since it was so dark.
Sunday morning I got up to enjoy the sunrise and after breakfast, we decided to do a hike over towards broken top to see if we could see the lake in the crater as well as get some sweet views of the 3 sisters. I had been to broken top crater back in August from the other side and wanted to see if we could link it up from this side. Hiked for about 1.5 miles to a point where we could see it but the scrambling got a little dicey so we decided to turn back to camp. Boys had fun building cairns on the way back as well as sliding down a snow slope still around from last winter. Got back to camp just before 11.
After packing up camp with slightly lighter packs we had a quicker (downhill) and relatively uneventful hike back down getting to the car around 1:30. Enjoyed dipping our feet in the lake looking back up at where we had been. Of course we stopped in Sisters for an ice cream at snow cap before driving home.
It's that time of year again for soccer. A fun filled fall of soccer has started for the Donaldson kids.
Just like that summer is over and a new school year is on its way. The kids were excited and a little bit nervous this morning as they made their way to their new school. This year we decided to put all the kids into Morning Star Christian School. It is preschool through 8th grade with small class sizes. It will be wonderful not having to drive in 3 different directions for schools in the future. Can't wait to see what this school year will bring. It's going to be a great year!
I managed to get a quick picture before we left the house and a couple at school. Hunter is at that middle school age so I stood back and snapped a picture and watched him walk in the doors.
Hunter 5th grade, Noah 4th, Abbie 2nd & Preston JK
We heard the ice cream truck and Kevin who has a sweet tooth ran down stairs to catch the ice cream truck. Great way to end the summer.
I took Hunter and Noah on a day hike today as they wanted to try something longer. Hunter wants to to South Sister so I thought this might be interesting practice, plus the books said it was very unknown but beautiful. It was a lot of off trail hiking and scrambling with approx 11 miles of hiking completed and 2300 ft of vertical taking up up over 7700 ft in elevation.
The trail was pretty uneventful moving through the Pole Creek burn area for the first 2 miles with filtered views of the surrounding mountains.
From here we scrambled up further to see if we could find this supposed lake... I was not hopefully but the guide book said it was there if you just scrambled up a little more. Then Boom - as we crested the moraine it came into view.
On the way down - we followed the creek properly and what a treat. Green lush valley, bubbling stream, tasty water.
