With all the adventures and shenanigans this Spring and Summer, it's taken a little while to settle in to the new homestead, but now that the settling in is more underway, there has been some serious exploring for me to do in my new surroundings. One of my favorite things about my partner, Corey is his love for hiking. Over the last several years he has hiked the trails all over the McKenzie River ...
Hiking
A Black Canyon Wilderness Day Hike
I had been noticing the Black Canyon Wilderness Trail in William Sullivan's Eastern Oregon hiking guide for quite a while, so it worked out beautifully to stop for a short morning dayhike on our way back from Fall Mountain Lookout Tower. This 13 mile trail is supposed to be fairly difficult, but makes for an excellent summer hike criss-crossing back and forth along a creek to it's confluence with ...
Fairy Slippers
This week while hiking on the McKenzie River trail, I encountered a delightful treat. These delicate pink orchids were just coming into bloom on the forest's mossy carpeted floor, interspersed with the white Trillium and Yellow Violet. It was quite lovely. I wasn't familiar with this orchid, but it occurred to me that I hadn't been hiking the Cascade trails this early in the ...
Snowshoe Backpacking at Maxwell Butte
One of the things I enjoy most about living in the Willamette Valley is the ability to be up in the mountains or down by the ocean all within an hour's drive. It keeps a good balance of snow and sand in one's life throughout the year. Upon returning from our week long Redwoods road trip to the coast, my partner and I headed out for another adventure with some friends to spend the night in a ...
Spring Break Shenanigans: A Redwoods Road Trip
My first favorite song I can recall from childhood was "On the Road Again" by Willie Nelson. Maybe it was the fine country guitar playing, or perhaps Willie's awesome braids, but those lyrics "On the road again, going places that I've never been, seeing things that I may never see again, I just can't wait to get on the road again" were very formative in my early years. I have always enjoyed a good ...
Sunday Mornings on the McKenzie
I've been fortunate to spend a good amount of time getting to know the McKenzie River lately. After living in the Willamette Valley for so many years, you would think I would have headed up this way more often, but the Coast Range, Willamette Pass, and Southern Oregon have been the primary areas of my expeditions, reserving the McKenzie River watershed as an unexplored gem. On the weekends I have ...
Daylight Savings
The best part about daylight savings; descending Mt. Pisgah with my guys on a warm March evening. ...
Brandenburg Snow Shelter: A Saturday Snowshoe Trek
Finding new adventures in the snow has been a fun theme this winter, and last Saturday's visit to Brandenburg Snow Shelter up Santiam Pass was yet another excellent excursion. My partner and I took off after a hearty home-cooked breakfast with our snowshoes, snacks, map and great sense of adventure to explore the South Loop of the Ray Benson Snow Park. We were expecting it to be crowded, but ...
Snowshoeing Maxwell Butte: A Backcountry Snow Shelter Excursion
This weekend's adventure brought me to an intriguing destination that I had long heard tell of, but never made it out to see for myself; a backcountry snow shelter. I knew from books, maps, and friends who get out in the snow much more than myself that there are cabins with woodstoves scattered around the backcountry of the Cascades that you can access by skiing or snowshoeing for a nice warm-up ...
Snowshoeing Proxy Falls
This Winter has seen me getting out into the snow a good deal more often than I have in past years, enjoying some snowshoeing treks in the Cascades. I had been on snowshoe adventures several times in the past and loved it, including a burly climb up Moscow Mountain in Idaho with a friend during college, but somehow each Winter season came and went with many trips to the coast, and none up to the ...