Last year Bobbe and I began trying to get out and see as much of the PNW we have never seen. There is so much to be seen BEFORE we retire. Life is good, we love our jobs, but are limited on about of time we can travel away from our home in the Central Oregon Cascades.
This weekend we drove to Silver Creek drainage on the Freemont NF. From Bend we drove south on hwy 97 just past LaPine, Oregon and then continued Southeast on hwy 31. It always takes a little longer than Google maps says but well within our 4 hour travel time. We parked our rig at Silver Creek Marsh CG. It is only 10 miles from hwy 31 all paved but the last 3 miles was rough. For some reason there was shrinkage cracks in the asphalt across the road every 40 to 100 feet and the cracks were 9 to 12 inches wide. It made for a bone jarring 3 miles at 15 mph. The campground was nice, many large pines and the marsh to the east. Three Travel trailers were set up as we entered the campground and one tent showed up later in the day. Lots of room for everyone.
Part of the adventure is Geocaching. We choose a home base and then find geocaches in the area. Our first geocache was near Thompson Res. Before searching for the cashe we had to check out the campground, not bad, lots of tent sites. Most of them would have been too small for our rig (61 feet long from front of truck to back of trailer and generator). The reservoir was looking a little low for the end of May. Most of SE Oregon has been having several years with very low snow pack and it shows. Without summer rains wild fire season will be something else. Lots of overtime for the firefighters. We found the first cache under a large rock over looking the base of the dam and the roaring creek. Lots of wild flower in bloom, choke cherry, bitter cherry, and service berry.
Then we were off to find the next cache on the summit of Hager Mt. We drove across the dam, and up a very rough road. I put the little Suzuki in 4 wd to keep from spinning out, but we did make it. Near the end of the road to Hagar Mt we saw more wild flowers, bright red paint brush, wild strawberry s were also in bloom. The road ended a few thousand feet (elevation) below the summit and we walked the last mile or so to the summit. Very steep, hot, and mosquitoes, Did I say mosquitos, lots of them and no bug juice today, we left it in the trailer. We will not do that again. It took a little over an hour to make the climb to the summit. Every now and then we could hear a grouse in the forest near by but could not see him. He was searching for a girl friend and we did not want to interfere. Bobbe relaxed at a nice picnick table just below the summit while I climbed into the rocks in search of the cache.
After a short search I found it over the side of the cliff. Views were great and photos just do not give the area justice. A couple of hours later we were back to our trailer, a beer, dinner and OH, the sofa. A well earned rest after a long day.
Sunday mornig we did not get up too early, this is our holiday right! Nice breakfast including rubarb sause from my garden and toast. Toast over an open flame, much better flavor than the stuff make in an electric toaster. After breakfast we jumped into the suzuki and began to search for a cache we had missed on Saturday. After several wrong terns we found the cache on the East bank of Silver Creek about 2 miles from our camp, but a 15 mile drive. We saw lots of new country and many other great camping sites. We now have an excuse to do a return trip and check out so much that we did not get a chance to explore more complitely.
We returned to the trailer, packed up and hit the road to our home. We took our time picking up 3 more geocaches on the way, Thanks to all of the other geocachers for the geocaches we found and have yet to find.
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