Friday, August 19, 2011

Paulina Lake Backpacking with the kiddos




Paulina Lake is one of two beautifully clear rain filled lakes in Newberry Crater, the largest peak in Oregon; by volume anyways. This low and wide volcano makes for a fascinating hiking and camping spot. The crater is located about 20 miles SE of Bend. There are several car camping spots and a little resort with cabins. There are also several backpacker sites along the Paulina lake trail. We stayed at one of the spots at the North Cove backpacker site. It was a luxurious backpacker site, with picnic tables and all. We started out at the the trailhead at the end of Little Crater campsite, which only required a NW forest pass for payment. On the 2.5 mile hike to the campsite, we passed through stinky reed-filled wetlands, amazing forests, the 5th largest obsidian flow in the country, and over the "red slide," where there is a large section of the crater consisting of red lava rock and the red dust that much of it has become. The obsidian flow is a crazy shiny black rock that resembles glass. Halen said at one point, "there's all this glass on the trail."
At the campsite, we set up camp, applied more bug spray, and started the business of throwing rocks in the lake. Halen learned how to skip rocks on this trip and it is his new obsession. His best skip consisted of 4 jumps! Not bad for a 5 year old. On day two, I hiked back to the truck to get the blow up kayak and paddled it back across the lake. We all played in lake, which isn't as cold as a lake over 5,000 feet in elevation should be, due to all the thermal activity. Late afternoon brought in a quick hail storm where we all headed for some reading time in the tent. After it passed, Halen was antsy to get back out of the tent in order to "leave no skipping rock unskipped."
On day three, we headed out. On the way, we stopped at the hot springs on the beach of the lake. These weird hot springs are holes dug into the sand on the lake shore. Their temperatures supposedly can vary from comfortable bath water temps to scalding hot that needs lake water added to cool it off. On the day we visited, the water was a comfortable temperature for the kids to play for a couple of hours and not overheat. I dug my own little hole nearby just to watch the phenomenon of it filling with hot water. The trick is to dig the hole deeper than the level of the lake and it'll fill with hot water. Totally weird and fascinating stuff!
The perks of this site where that it was easy to get to with kids, only 2.5 miles. Halen carried his own water and sleeping bag. Liam hiked the whole way back himself. He did get a little shoulder ride time on the way in. The lake was absolutely beautiful, clean, and swimable. The backpacker site was huge, had picnic tables, and we were the only ones there. The downside of this trip was that motorized boats are allowed on the lake. The max speed limit is 10 mph, so nobody is going fast, but it's such a remote pristine place, I wish the forest service would have opted to keep motorized boats out. There were also lots of mosquitoes. We went in early August. I imagine that spring and fall could be better for bugs.

Halen helping Liam paddle around in the kayak. He's the best big brother in the world!
Three little hot springs all in a row. Halen is cooling off in the lake. Liam is peeking out from the third spring.
Green hairy rocks.
Obsidian flow.
View from our campsite!
Stinky wetlands




Sunday, August 29, 2010

Badger Creek Trail Backpacking Trip 2010

Our second backpacking trip of the season (I'm out of order, I know, but my brain just works that way) was at Badger Creek, on the eastern slopes of Mt. Hood. The hike to the first camp site was just a couple miles in, along the beautiful creek. Our campsite was gigantic and shady, with the cool soothing sounds of the creek rushing by. The boys enjoyed throwing rocks in the creek. They could do this all day. It baffles me how entertaining this is, but I'm not complaining.
We didn't see any badgers, but we did see Bear Scratches! on a tree! The scratches were down the trail a bit. Dan spotted them on day two, when we were out exploring. On day three, on the way out, we spotted a bear paw print too! So, black bears are around, but they didn't bother us.






Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Silver Falls State Park


IMG_1507
Originally uploaded by crustychristy
What a beautiful park!

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Beavers Baseball


We got some cheap tickets to some of the best seats at the stadium, so we went to see the Beavers play. They whooped the Sacramento Rivercats, and we all had fun. We ate popcorn and $5 veggie dogs loaded with kraut.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Monday, March 08, 2010

Liam Gets His First Haircut.


Wednesday, November 25, 2009