This was my (more or less) annual backpacking trip with Carly. This was trip #21. This year, since she is in Utah for school, we did a very different trip, one that was very “Utahy”. It was in the southern
… Read the rest 4/22/2025 – Fanton Trail to Squaw Mountain
Today’s hike was one I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I wasn’t sure how much snow we’d encounter so I didn’t know how far we’d get, but things worked out pretty well. I usually hike the Fanton trail
… Read the rest 4/15/2025 – Dickey Creek Trail – 553
Today’s hike was one of my first post retirement hikes. Originally I was thinking about hiking old BOTW, but since it was mid week and I figured no one else would be there, I decided to hike Dickey Creek. I
… Read the rest 4/3/2025 – Riverside Trail
Today’s hike was to celebrate my first full day of being retired. Since I can go out mid week now, I thought the Riverside trail would be a great trail to hike. I had wanted to hike it since it
… Read the rest 3/29/2025 – Alder Swamp
Today’s hike was a “return to the woods” hike. I had eye surgery a couple of weeks ago and was required to take it easy for 2-3 weeks. I haven’t hiked Alder Swamp since last year and I’ve been curious
… Read the rest 1/25/2025 – White Iris Trail – Old Baldy – 502
Today’s hike was kind of “get out and enjoy the nice weather” hike. We’ve had REALLY nice weather for January, although it has been cold. It is supposed to continue for part of next week and then it sounds like
… Read the rest 1/19/2025 – Cripple Creek – 703
Today’s hike was a bit shorter than usual (although we still did 5 miles – and the first couple were REALLY, REALLY hard!) – we decided to hike on Sunday afternoon – Kirk had a memorial to attend and I
… Read the rest 12/31/2024 – Tamolitch Falls – Blue Pool – 3507
Today’s hike was one we had been trying to do for a couple of weeks. Nicholas and I had the last part of the year off work, so we wanted to do a hike with Sadie somewhere. We decided on
… Read the rest 11/16/2024 – Shellrock Cache Meadow Serene Lake Loop
Since I’m going to be having cataract surgery this week (which means I will be down for a week or two) and because I didn’t get out last weekend, I wanted to make sure I got out this weekend. My
… Read the rest 11/6/2024 – Baty Butte Trail
Today’s hike was to take advantage of some gorgeous November weather and to burn a vacation day. Zack and I had been thinking about heading up to Baty Butte the weekend before but it looked AWFULLY wet so we decided
… Read the rest 10/19/2024 – Thunder Mountain/Skookum Lake – 542/543
Today’s hike is a milestone – if I’ve done my statistics correctly, today’s hike is my 500th hike/trip! That is pretty crazy! Wonder how long it will take me to get to 1000? It took me 22 years to get
… Read the rest 8/24/2024 – Cottonwood Meadows – 705
Today’s hike turned out considerably differently than expected. The plan was to hike the Cottonwood Meadows trail from the southern trailhead – go up the trail to the northern trailhead and turn around and come back down. We encountered a
… Read the rest 8/15/2024 – Rho Creek – 569
Today’s hike had one simple purpose – to enjoy a beautiful old trail. Little did I realize that it had been COMPLETELY cut out end to end, which only made the day that much better! I haven’t taken much vacation
… Read the rest 7/20/2024 – Fish Creek Mountain – 541
Today’s hike was intended to complete the recon of the Fish Creek Mountain trail post fire. Kirk and I had attempted to complete this trip a few weeks ago but ran out of time. Since the gate at the 4620
… Read the rest 6/30/2024 – Camp Sherman explorations
This was kind of a spur of the minute hike. We were on our family vacation at Lake Creek Lodge in Camp Sherman. There are a variety of trails thru the property that also connect to various trails on Forest
… Read the rest 6/22/2024 – Fish Creek Mountain – Side Door
After hearing that there was a way to get up to the Fish Creek Mountain trail relatively easily, I’ve wanted to explore this trail after the fire. Today was the day. We headed out a bit early since I needed
… Read the rest 5/25/2024 – Huxley Lake from North Fork Trailhead – 521
Today’s hike was to kind of expand on the hike I did last week. After hiking part of the Huxley Lake trail last week, Kirk noticed some comments in the old Trail Sheet talking about a campsite and an old
… Read the rest 5/18/2024 – Huxley Lake 521
Today’s hike was going to be a relatively short one since Kirk had to get back early for an event. I’d been looking for trails that were opening up since the snow levels have been rising. I hadn’t hiked the
… Read the rest 5/11/2024 – Bissell/Old Baldy 502
The weather today was supposed to be sunny and unseasonably hot. I wanted to get up into snow somewhere, and decided to either do the White Iris trail or the Bissell trail, depending on which we could get to. It
… Read the rest 4/27/2024 – Rho Creek – 569
The plan for today’s hike was to see how far we could get up the Rho Creek trail. The modeled snow depth maps showed no snow at the trailhead and then about halfway up the trail, the snow quickly getting
… Read the rest 4/13/2024 – Fanton Trail
Today’s hike was intended to be a snowshoe trip. The plan was to take the Fanton trail (a favorite snowshoe destination of mine) as far as we could. Kirk had to get back for a family event, so it was
… Read the rest 2/11/2024 – Mosier Creek
This hike was a quickie “hiking light” day – before the Super Bowl. I haven’t hiked since New Years day due to weather and being sick, so I decided to do a quick trip up Mosier Creek before the Super
12/16/2023- Rho Ridge North – 564 – SNOW!
Today’s hike was a spur of the minute hike. I had originally intended to stay home and work on a Christmas present for our granddaughters. The weather was supposed to be beautiful and some recent snow had mostly melted. I
… Read the rest 12/9/2023 – Burnt Granite – SNOW! – 595
We’ve had some cold weather and a bunch of rain, so higher elevations have gotten more snow. Looking at the modeled snow maps, I was hoping we might be able to get up to a last of the season higher
… Read the rest 11/24/2023 – Burnt Granite
The weather forecast was for beautiful sunny weather. I keep thinking that the high country is gone – we’ve had a few snow storms which seemed like they would stick, but the snow melted, and higher elevations have still been
… Read the rest 10/21/2023 – Rho Ridge North End – 564
This trip was just a “get out in the woods” kind of a trip. We were dog sitting the “grand dog” for the weekend, so he joined Thor and I on this trip. I had several ideas on where to
… Read the rest 10/9/2023 – Horseshoe Saddle and Ruddy Hill
Sorry for the small map above – I wanted to make sure I captured the waypoint of the tread I recalled being shown years ago – more on that later…
… Read the rest Today’s trip was planned to be a pretty quick trip
9/10-9/14/2023 – Necklace Valley Backpack
This trip was my annual backpacking trip with Carly – number 20! These are all the backpacking trips we’ve taken:
… Read the rest - 2002-Duffy Lake – Mt Jefferson Wilderness
- 2004-Red Lake
- 2005-Shining Lake
- 2006-Big Slide Lake – Bull of the Woods Wilderness
- 2007-Doris
9/4/2023 – Schreiner Peak
Today’s hike is one I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Kirk suggested we do it on Labor Day. I will be doing my annual backpack trip with Carly next weekend and needed to do some conditioning anyway, so
… Read the rest 8/26/2023 – Rho Creek Trail – 569
Today’s hike was one where I wanted to hike a trail I hadn’t hiked in a while. I was thinking about doing the north end of Rho Ridge but it was forecast to be kind of warm and I thought
… Read the rest 8/18/2023 – Thunder Mountain and Skookum Lake
Today’s hike was a “take Friday off” hike – I planned a short day since we normally babysit the grandkids on Friday. Thor and I headed out early so we could get back early and I decided to do the
… Read the rest 8/2/2023 – God’s Thumb
Today’s trip was a totally unplanned, last minute trip. We were on our family vacation in Lincoln City and we were kind of in-between “things”. Abby stayed at a house in Lincoln City a month or so ago and had
… Read the rest 7/22/2023 – Memaloose Lake and South Fork Mtn Trails – 515
Today’s hike was originally going to be a work day on another trail, but that fell thru. I decided to do an easier hike today after the last few hikes. On the last hike I had kind of wanted to
… Read the rest 3/4/2023 – Half Creek Waterfall Explorations
Today’s hike was spurred by some info I got from a friend last week at a meeting of the Trail Advocates. A new waterfall had been found after the fires opened things up. It was a pretty tall waterfall and
… Read the rest 2/11/2023 – Bagby Trail Explorations
Today’s hike was different than many I’ve done recently. The weather on Saturday was forecast to be really nice, which turned out to be very accurate. I wanted to get out, and after some discussion with Kirk, we decided to
… Read the rest