This weekend Abbie and I did a fall hike to the glacial lake at the base of broken top. Beautiful weather.
Interesting fact. Since living in Oregon we have never been to Crater lake at least in the summer time. Hunter and I winter camped there a few years back in 2022, but its just been one of those things where its been a bit of a drive for a day. Anyhow with Addie - Hunter’s girlfriend here we decided to make a day trip and it was great to see it.
Great weather and great views of the Lake!
We also parked (along with the masses) and hiked down to Cleetwood cove - the steep (and only) trail that takes you down to the waters edge and took a swim in the frigid waters. Helped that the weather was hot. To be honest, it was cold but not the coldest water i have felt before - it felt good given the temps.
2nd half of October and weather looking like it might pop into the 70’s in town we decided to head out for a short fall getaway to one of our favorite family spots - little crater campground at Paulina Lake. It’s the latest we have been there in the year and the campground was almost empty with only a few locals there. The hot springs were almost empty on a sunny Saturday afternoon!
Dinner, smores, fire and a sunset made for a good evening and we also got to see the comet again after dark.
Sunday morning was cool and windy but warmed up nicely and we went to the obsidian flow for a quick hike.
We took Abbie and PJ for a trip to north Idaho for the labor day long weekend. Our destination was the Sandpoint/Bonners Ferry area. Our goal was to scout some properties with a real estate agent. The weather was great/warm so we were also able to get some swimming in as well!
We travelled up to the Schweitzer Ski hill near sandpoint after arriving around noon on Friday. Great views of the lake from the village.
We went swimming twice at Sandpoint city beach.
One of the properties we liked along the Moyie River
Exploring different spots along the Moyie River
Bonners Ferry is a cute town (about 3600 pop)
This is Trump Country!
We were very close to the Canadian border so PJ wanted to go step foot across the border.
Hunter, Preston and I went for a day hike on the west side of the Sisters mountains. We did about 10-11 miles on a loop that took us to some mountain lakes and to the top of Scott Mountain (6116 ft).
Hand Lake - first lake on the loop.
This is called the wagon trail. Before there was a road over the pass a trail was hacked out through miles of lava in the late 1800’s that you can still see today - only sparse vegetation growing.
The summit of Scott Mountain. Great views of the sisters slightly subdued due to the smoke in the air.
Benson Lake is a beautiful swimming lake in the mountains. I took Hunter and Noah here on an overnight backpack when they were younger in 2015.
This year we headed up to Elk Lake for July 4 to best the heat in town. It was an amazing relaxing day.
It’s been a while since we have been to Sparks lake so decided to head up. Still patches of snow but great weather. Boys got in to swim. Hunter, Preston and his buddy Caleb from the neighborhood.
We were able to sneak in a quick weekend camping trip to Paulina lake and Little Crater Campground the second weekend of September. The weather was perfect early fall weather. Warm in the day and cool at night. Two nights of amazing sunsets as well.
Friday night.
Saturday Fun with friends
Saturday Sunset
We just got back from a week to Montana dropping Hunter off at Montana Wilderness School of the Bible. This is a 9 month program to set him up for a solid life foundation.
Abbie couldn’t make it on this trip with us due to here high school cheer training schedule so we missed having her with us.
To break the trip up on the way there we drove a little more than half way to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho and spent the night. Weather was hot so we spent the following morning at the lake before traveling on.
We stopped briefly in Missoula to check out the University of Montana and got huckleberry shakes in St. Regis, MT.
Day 2 ended arriving in Montana staying at an off grid airbnb near Craig Montana.
Day 3 we stayed relatively local going to Great falls and visiting the Lewis and Clark center along with a state park - Giant springs. Great falls is where the Lewis and Clark expedition had to spend a month portaging around 5 waterfalls.
I’m the evening we explored more around our cabin.
Day 4 we went to the east side of glacier national park. An area called two Medicine Lake.
Day 5 was drop off day for Hunter. The schools is in such a beautiful setting tucked back at the end of a canyon road (Dearborn canyon) with no cell service making it the perfect location to study and fellowship with the 65 other students there.
We are hoping the other kids want to go as well. Here are some videos I took to show Abbie some of the campus grounds since she couldn’t make it.
We feel really good about this school for hunter.
Abbie really wanted to do a canoe camping trip this year so this weekend I took her to Waldo lake. We have camped there a few years back but there are some dispersed wilderness sites on the other side of the lake that you have to search to find.
The weather was spectacular this weekend, especially given it was the last weekend in September
We launched from Islet boat ramp. The water was like glass most of trip across the lake
We found a great spot on a point on the far western side of the lake with the tent spot hidden up in the trees but still with a view of the lake and lots of rocky beach to explore. Waldo does not allow any gas engines and with no people anywhere near us to was amazingly quiet. It actually sounds strange to hear no humam-made noises.
We had a great time sitting around the fire and making dinner together. We made pizza and salad for dinner with campfire cones for desert!
We rose when the sun got up- had coffee and hot chocolate followed by a breakfast of egg burritos using eggs from Abbie’s chickens!
Our trip back across was not quite as calm once we got out on the open water so it was good practice for abbie.
