Noah skied both green and blue runs today! He did awesome.
This year since Pat and Sue (Kelly's parents) were coming to visit after Christmas we decided to get them an 'experience' gift of a snowshoe and bonfire tour through Wanderlust Tours. This is the same company we went with this summer when we did the moonlight canoe trip on Sparks lake with some friends. This time it would be a snowshoe hike at night with a bonfire waiting for us! We were in for an extra special treat last night as it was snowing like mad up in the mountains making for a real winter outing with fresh powder to snowshoe through! Waiting for us was a carve snow seating with seating pads, a fire, treats from sparrow bakery and warm drinks with your choice of spirits if you like. I selected the crater lake hazelnut vodka by Bend distillery with my hot chocolate!
Great fun and highly recommended by all of us.
I took the kids up today (Nov 1) to see the snow in the mountains near bend.
The first picture is Mt Bachelor (the ski hill). The second photo is South sister poking through the clouds. The third is snowy broken top through the trees.
Second week in September... Fall is in the air, but the nice weather is still holding. It was expected to be in the low 80's in Bend this weekend, so I figured it might be a good to try a last camping trip in the mountains with Hunter and Noah before the weather turned. I expected it to be cool at night since the lake is at 5400 ft - almost 2000 ft higher than Bend. My plan was to take them out in the canoe to a wilderness camp site at the far end of Sparks lake. (Kelly and I did a moonlight canoe on Sparks in early August) Its impossible to get a camp spot here in the summer time but I figured September would be fine, and it was. This would be their first non car camping trip! They both did their soccer games in the morning and we headed up to the cascade lakes around 2:30 Saturday. We probably got on the lake around 3:30.
Here we are launching and going to the camp site. Also note, it seems to be frog season at Sparks. The shores and water was covered in these tiny frogs - see the bag full the boys collected.
We found a nice spot on a bluff at the far south east end of the lake with a view of Mt bachelor in the background. Lots of lava for the kids to climb and and explore while I set up camp. Hunter remembered slicing hot dogs like a squid from our trip to Canada 3 summers ago so we did that again this weekend.
The night was cold but not as much as I expected. There was only a slight hint of frost the next morning. In the morning we dressed warm initially but once the sun came up, it was really nice. We hung out, ate, played, read some devotionals about the outdoors and set out for our return journey.
We stopped for lunch and some scrambling on this neat uplifting of lava not far from the return point. It was great fun to scramble up the narrow fins of rock. Also being late season the water in the lake was super shallow in parts - you can see it in some of these pictures.
A short but super fun night out. The boys loved it. I think we will try and make an annual trip of this each September!
If the above video does not display - click this link
On Sunday (Aug 24) my friend and work colleague Matt decided to climb to the summit of Broken Top (9175 ft). Broken top is one of the local volcanoes in the 3 Sisters Wilderness. Broken top is mostly class 2 with a small section of class 4 low class 5 scrambling/climbing near the summit. We did the Northwest Ridge route, that starts from Broken top trail head. The drive to the Broken top trail head is an interesting drive to begin with that you can likely get up with a 2 wheel drive BUT you will need high clearance. Its about 8-9 miles off the cascade lakes highway by Todd Lake and takes you up into some beautiful country with high country meadows and forest.
The hike from the trail head starts with approx 4.5 miles of relatively flat hiking to the Green lakes. It is some great hiking with views of the BT crater, high country meadows and views of Mt. Batchelor and sparks lake.
Just before arriving at Green lakes we headed Northeast cross-country up towards the northwest ridge of BT. The first picture in this set - you can see a view of the northwest ridge (coming up from the left in the picture) taken from the South sister trail (Moraine lake in the foreground) by one of the hikers in our group a couple weeks prior. As you head up to the NW ridge you get great views of South Sister. The last 2 in the set are from the lowest saddle when you ascend onto the NW ridge
Here is a great pano shot I took looking Northwest from the ridge (Matt in the shot)
Here are some shots of the ridge and summit
Some shots of the cross country descent and a great view of the Sisters and Green lakes that most people would not get since its not on the standard trail
The Three Sisters are a series of Volcanoes near Bend. South Sister is the highest of the three, closest to Bend and generally the least technical making it idea for those wishing to try a real mountain without technical climbing. It's still a good hike though at almost 5000 vertical feet of climbing and over 12 miles round trip. I was up it in 2011 almost to the day and this time doing it again with a group of eager guys from work. We left the Devils lake trail-head at 7 am. We made summit in about 4 hours. It took just over 2 to descend. Matt brought some ice cold beers for the parking lot when we returned. It was a little smoky on the way up due to the fires but it cleared up by the way down with a change in wind direction. Great time but everyone is going to be sore for the next couple days.
This weekend the weather was warm so we decided to head up to the Cascade lakes to cool off for a swim with our neighbors - the Rice family. Our destination was the beach at the south end of Elk lake about 38 miles from town. To get there you pass elk lake resort, pass the campground and look for the sign not far past the campground indicating the day use area on the left.
We stopped and picked up sandwiches at Subway and then we were off! We arrived around noon and we were not the only ones looking to enjoy the nice weather. The beach was full but due to limited parking (we got one of the last spots) it keeps it from getting too crowded.
Elk lake like many of the cascade lakes has the mountains as a backdrop. At this beach South Sister dominates the backdrop. The water was actually pretty warm as well considering it is still only mid-July.
Here is a short movie Kelly shot from the beach: