A Day at Blair Lake

On the Fall Equinox, we headed up into the mountains outside of Oakridge for our annual Blair Lake huckleberry picking trip. Typically this has been a big weekend campout, but with how busy life has been the Fall (and you will notice the Fall Equinox was some weeks ago, and I’m just posting about it now) we decided to make it a day outing with friends and head back after dinner around the campfire. Huckleberry picking is a family tradition of mine that goes back generations, as far back in my knowledge as my Great Grandmother who hauled all her kids up into the mountains to pick every summer. It might be that it’s in my genes, but this is definitely my favorite fruit. There is nothing quite like it that you can grow in your yard (unless you live at high elevation in the mountains). It is a truly wild food.

But alas, there were no huckleberries this year. Picking in this part of the Cascades can be hit or miss, depending on the season. I could tell the plants were drought stressed, and likely hadn’t had enough rainfall to develop fruit. I remembered too that it was like this six years ago, and the following season I picked 24 quarts. Since there was no productive berry picking to occupy ourselves with, we decided to make it a play in nature day instead. I still hold that this is a great spot to hang out and pick berries, and you can read about one such adventure in past years here: Camping at Blair Lake 2010.

Karen wasted no time getting serious about relaxing. The warm September sun was perfect for basking in, and there were plenty of big, warm rocks on the hillside. 

We headed from the fruitless huckleberry field over to the lake at lunchtime, and found that aside from one group camped by the parking lot, we had the lake all to ourselves. Our picnic lunch was hardly finished when the kids began splashing into the warm, clear water.

They mostly spent the day playing in the lake, just enjoying being out in the warm mountain air and sunshine.

The boys set about acquainting themselves with every last orange bellied newt of Blair Lake. big and small.

Followed by admitting them to Salcatraz for observation. Fortunately, the guards were very distracted and there were jailbreaks all day.

Karen and I spent the time hiking around, relaxing and chatting, playing around with nature photography, and watching dragonflies and butterflies flit around the shore.

It was good to spend a day soaking in the world around us and not being busy doing anything. I really needed to take the time to simply watch fireweed seeds float off on the breeze.

At the end of the afternoon, we roasted hot dogs, corn and s’mores over the campfire before heading back for home. While we didn’t come home with buckets of berries, we did gather a day filled with invaluable experiences enjoying nature. Particularly for the kids, it will not matter one day whether or not we had huckleberries in 2012, and they probably won’t remember. They will simply remember a day at Blair Lake.