Gorge Dog & A Double Mt. View

Last night, we hiked up Tom McCall point and enjoyed a spectacular sunset view of the gorge, Mt. Adams & Mt. Hood.

Coop & Adams

Coop, Vicki Lee & the Gorge

Coop & Hood

Pondering life's adventures. :)

EARN it then EAT it

I'm working on a new writing/design project for Rediviva. Last night my buddy Andrea and I climbed to the top of the peak you see here—Hamilton Mountain. This shot was taken around 1,000', about 2 miles into our 4-mile climb and 7.75-mile loop. The trailhead is located at Beacon Rock State Park and is AMAZING! More to come…

And Good Morning to You, Sir

We had a nice visit this morning from a big smilin' friend. The "mountain out" days are fewer and farther between this time of year, so we were especially appreciative of the amazing view. good start for a monday. ;)

Fishin' Bench Lake

On a summer Friday during June, we took off from Hood River after work and drove up to Bench Lake near Mount Adams. The near two-hour drive to Bench Lake includes a crazy 45-minute ride up a dirt road on Native American land. We spent the night camping with friends and woke up to a beautiful Saturday morning. Time to try our luck with the fish. :)

Meter, Karl and Bucket rockin' a morning coffee, I mean PBR.

We had a nice morning out on the water. I caught a nice rainbow trout and a brook trout. We took those and Tom's brookie home on ice and grilled them up when my sister was visiting.

Yum!

Off-Roadin'

Since Tom brought his truck out to Oregon, we've been doing a lot more off-road exploration. We have shuttled the biking trails at Post Canyon a few times this season, so in regular Tom-fashion, he took it upon himself to see how far he could go. Little Tommy came home super-excited one day after finding the top of Post Canyon, at a hilltop clearing called Binn's Hill. This hilltop offers great view of the Hood River Valley, the local volcanoes and even a sliver of the Columbia.

The wind was really moving the layers of clouds. A big cloud would slide out of the way to reveal the view and a moment later a group of poofy little clouds would come sliding in, covering it up again. Especially spectacular from Binn's Hill are Mount Hood and Mount Adams.

Majestic Mount Hood to our south.

Mount Adams is always smilin' to our north.

From this angle on a cloudless day, you can also see Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainier off in the distance in WA. Good find, young man. This is a great place to enjoy a sunset and a few cold ones.

Join the PBR Snowshoe Club!

After dealing with the overcrowded trail at Trillium Lake last week, I was on the hunt for something with a little more solitude for this past weekend. I searched around online a bit and decided on the Ice Cave/Natural Bridges loop, which begins at the Atkisson Sno-Park near Mount Adams in WA.


My smallest friend in Oregon, Carley, got herself a shiny new pair of snowshoes for Christmas and this was her first time out!


After about a mile on the trail, we arrived at an intersection with the short spur trail to the Ice Cave. The crampons on the bottom of our snowshoes were key to descending the snow-covered stairs to the mouth of the cave. We de-snowshoed and got our headlamps rolling. Below is Carley posing pre-exploration. You can see her little snoot on the left.


The Ice Cave is filled with stalagtites and stalagmites of ice! Despite the slick footing, we made it pretty far back into the cave. It was fun to turn all of our lights out and let our eyeballs adjust.


After playing around in the horror movie set, we climbed back out of there to go shoosh around in the snow some more. The snow at this elevation near Mount Adams definitely isn't as nice as the snow at Government Camp, but having the place all to yourself is definitely a decent trade.


Carley climbs out while Tom shoes-up.

We went off-trail for a bit to make some fresh tracks and headed for the Natural Bridges Loop Trail. When we reached the natural bridges, we were starving and in desperate need of a rest. I'd say that a mile on snowshoes is at least two miles on your regular old feet.


We enjoyed some hot soup and flask action.


Carley was bootless so we had to rig up her sneakers.

Tom decided it would be fun to roll a giant snowball down the hill next to one of the natural bridges.


Tom starts small and Carley poses on the bridge.


Everyone is having a ball, hardy har har.


If you think this is big and funny...


Just look at the effort here. :)


1-2-3-ROLL! The grand finale included a giant snowball at the bottom of the snow-covered trench and a round of PBRs at Logs in the little town of BZ Corner.