We don’t usually make reservations in advance, but after stopping on a whim at Goblin Valley State Park on Halloween a year ago, we suspected that if we ever wanted to stay at this small and quirky campground, we’d better plan ahead and book some dates (October 25 – 27, 2016). A year ago, there […]
After departing the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park on Monday, October 17, we restocked and cleaned up in Blanding. The Edge of Cedars State Park Museum is located there, which has an extraordinary collection of ancestral puebloan pottery and artifacts as well as a restored mesa-top ruin with a kiva that’s accessible to visitors. […]
The next stop on our six week Fall escapade was the Needles District, one of four distinct areas within the Canyonlands National Park, in Utah’s southeast corner and the furthest from Moab. It’s known by its iconic, white-topped red spires of Cedar Mesa Sandstone. When we visited Needles a year ago, we hiked all of […]
After spending almost a week Canyonlands, it was time to restock, clean up and fill up our water jugs in Moab. We returned to Ken’s Lake Campground south of town. David also needed to get some work done so we spent Monday, October 10 in Moab’s wonderful library. On Tuesday, we were ready for a […]
It took us three long days to drive from Glacier National Park just shy of the Canadian border in Montana, to southeastern Utah. We spent a night along the west side of Flathead Lake south of Kalispell, then just outside Missoula, and finally in Idaho Falls before the final push to our favorite Utah headquarters, […]
We’d been talking about going to Glacier National Park in Montana and watching the weather closely before committing. When we departed Coeur d’Alene on September 24, and the weather report continued to improve, the four-hour drive to West Glacier made sense. After biking the Hiawatha Trail on Saturday afternoon, we boondocked that night along a […]
The 5.5 mile (one way) hike up to Grinnell Glacier is one of the most popular in the Glacier National Park. Indeed, the parking lot at the Swiftcurrent trailhead was just about full when we arrived at 10:30 am. Just cars though, no humans. Earlier that morning, I’d been reading online reports about grizzly bear […]
We made time to do one more high altitude hike on Mount Hood before departing for a six week camping trip that will swing through Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. Compared to last week’s Mazama trail, the Elk Cove trail is slightly less challenging but longer trek It departs from the Vista Ridge Trailhead […]
It’s been a while since we hiked in our own backyard, which in our case is Mount Hood. One of our favorite trails was up to Cairn Basin on the northeast flank so we thought we’d approach it from a different trailhead, a little further up Lolo Pass, instead of from Top Spur. We arrived […]
With temperatures forecast to be over 100 degrees in Portland, we decided to escape to the Oregon coast for a week. We had no specific destination in mind, other than to camp at Cape Lookout State Park for the first night. Having gotten a later start then planned, we weren’t completely surprised that all 205 […]
July 20: Departed Sandy first thing in the morning, and stopped to stretch our legs at White River Falls, Tygh Valley, Oregon which is an hour and a half from our house. From there, we turned north, setting our sites on Palouse Falls, Washington for the night. July 20-21: Overnight stop and hike at Palouse […]
After taking a horse-packing trip through eastern Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains in late July of 2007, I knew we’d return someday and try to cover the same territory on foot. So that’s what we set out to do in June. We’re also frequent users and contributors to an online camping resource called Campendium, and very few […]
What has been so enjoyable about our road trips is that we rarely have a destination or duration in mind when we set out. Equipped with a Delorme Road Atlas, our iPhones and a responsive touch on the steering wheel and brakes have allowed us to discover some pretty great locations. April 30: We were […]
We drove south on April 23, intending to check out the community of Sunriver which is about 15 minutes south of Bend, Oregon. This was our “shake down trip” since the purchase of a 12 volt ARB refrigerator— we needed to find out what the drain would be on our batteries. While we didn’t much […]
With five days of rain headed our way, we decided to get a hike in while the weather held. We decided to try Angel’s Rest again which is less than a half hour away from our house. The temperature hovered around 50 degrees with overcast skies. About half the parking lot was full when we […]
The following are just a few highlights of where we went and what we did during our sojourn around the southwest in February and March 2016. We put 6200 miles on the Ford Transit, filled up with gas 22 times and stayed in 30 different camp sites over the course of eight weeks. Joshua Tree […]
We took a different route north to Moab on this trip, and decided to take a detour to Hovenweep National Monument which straddles the Utah and Colorado state line. Since the Visitor Center and campground is about 30 miles east of the main road, few people take the time to explore this area. Once home […]
We’d been waiting for a month for road construction at the Chiricahua National Monument to be completed before visiting. With time running out, we took a chance that a spot would be open at Bonita Canyon, the monument’s campground. Arriving at 8:30 am Monday morning did the trick, and we scored the only open spot […]
We camped for a few days at Oliver Lee Memorial State Park near Alamogordo, NM. It’s a beautiful campground at the base of Dog Canyon in the Lincoln National Forest. The trail head departs directly behind the Visitor’s Center and climbs steeply to a series of plateaus, one of which grew a happy grove of […]
While camping for two nights at a great BLM site called Indian Bread Rocks, we visited the Fort Bowie National Historic Site in southeastern Arizona. The fort is unusual in that visitors must hike a couple of miles in from the parking area. Walking through the valley approaching the fort threads you past an old […]
We spent an expeditious Tuesday night at a very generic RV park in Page, Arizona. Our primary mission was a hot shower, and after five days there was no putting it off any longer. Trust me. Having accomplished that, we ate a decent pizza and salad at the Canyon King Pizzeria. The next morning we […]
We arrived at Natural Bridges National Monument by mid-afternoon on Sunday and checked in at the Visitor’s Center to flash our colorful America The Beautiful Pass at the peculiar rangers on duty. (We’ve noticed that each set of rangers is unique to each national park, and Natural Bridges did not disappoint). We were interested in […]
On Sunday, we finally managed to extract ourselves from Moab’s magnetic pull so we could continue to explore southern Utah before returning to Oregon in time to take care of little Margot on November 12. We drove south again on UT191 then turned off into another of the three Canyonland National Park zones. With the […]
We signed up for the last ranger-led hike of the season in Fiery Furnace, one of the permit-only areas inside Arches National Park. This complex sandstone labyrinth is unmarked and can be difficult to navigate both logistically (GPS signals do not work in there) and physically. Many National Park rangers are furloughed for the winter […]
We decided to check out the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park for a few days, a two hour drive down UT 191. The drive to the Needles is round-about, heading south then veering sharply north through a long steep walled red rock canyon. We pulled over at Newspaper Rock to see the many centuries […]
Devil’s Garden Trail is the longest of the maintained trails in the Arches National Park. It leads to seven impressive arches, with several more visible from the trail. We chose a day with perfect hiking weather— 55 degrees at the start, warming up to 65 by the time we were finished. The initial mile to […]
We spent a second night at Granstaff Campground, only three miles from Moab along Utah 128. In the morning we were delayed a bit while we watched fellow campers take off, fly around, and land their powered parachutes from the parking lot a few hundred feet away. They swirled and curled high above the Colorado […]
After an all-to-brief exploration of Arches National Park on Thursday (see previous post), we spent our third and likely final night up at Fisher Towers Campground, savoring our amazing spot. A deluge had just come through the canyon prior to our 7:30 pm arrival in the pitch dark. David drove gingerly through the water and […]
We spent three days in Arches National Park. This post is about our first visit, a very brief three hours late in the afternoon, with a storm approaching fast from the east. Read more about our forays into Arches in our Devil’s Garden post the following Tuesday, and then Fiery Furnace on Friday, October 30. […]
Monday was spent as a “going to town day”. We took $4 showers at the beautiful new Moab Aquatic & Recreation Center, then spent a few hours at one of the nicest libraries we’ve ever been in. It was also new and very much set up for out of town visitors who may be in […]
It rained a lot last night while we were camped in the Green River State Park, which introduced some welcome humidity into the air. We departed around 10 for Dead Horse Point State Park about 50 miles away to the southeast. It’s on another glorious road, this time FR313 deep into the top of a […]
When our Tucson friends Lisa and Dan said they were planning a camping trip to Bryce Canyon in October, we invited ourselves along. I’d been to Bryce for two brief hours exactly 14 years ago when my siblings took our dad to Zion National Park to commemorate his seventieth birthday. This time, we had six […]
The City of Rocks has over 22 miles of trails. We put our own together by combining several, winding up with a more than seven mile “figure eight” loop. We departed at the Flaming Rock trailhead near our campsite (#22) and ended at the Box Top trailhead. The Bumble Trail was our first leg which […]
We first learned about Bruneau Dunes from a post on Wheeling It. After a day of walking and cycling around Boise, we decided to camp at the Dunes campground and see the tallest, single complex natural sand dune in North America. It’s only about 65 miles southeast of Boise. The Wagon Wheel campground was arranged […]
On the return trip from Idaho, we took Hwy 12 west of Yakima to check out some new territory. After 4 hours of driving, we passed Rimrock Lake and started to look for a likely boondocking spot. We pulled into tiny White Pass Campground at about 6 p.m., just opposite the White Pass Ski Area. […]
On our way to northern Idaho, we stopped overnight at Big Pines Campground along the Yakima River Scenic Byway (Hwy 821 between Yakima and Ellensburg). Late in the afternoon, we scored what appeared to be a nice spot along the river bank: Unfortunately the old-school diesel motor home in the next spot decided to run […]
We packed up relatively early (for us) on Saturday morning with our goal of the summit of Black Butte clearly laid out before us, but still cloud-covered after the night’s rain. That’s it on the left of the panorama below. There were only two other cars parked at the trailhead which was just a few […]
After yesterday’s challenging trek through the lava flow at McKenzie Pass, we thought a low-elevation stroll along the West Metolius River to the Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery and back was in order. We headed north along the river’s west bank to the Wizard Falls Fish Hatchery from the trailhead at the Canyon Creek Campground. After […]
We got a late start for a “pre-Labor Day” excursion because of a delayed roof replacement project at home. After looking at the weather for next few days, we decided on central Oregon as our destination, and focused on the Sisters area. That’s as far as our planning went. We had a full cooler of […]
2014 was a year of big changes. Sorely missing our little whippet, Willow (she died in 2012), we finally felt ready to find another sight hound. Enter the newest member of the Beyond family, Prospect. Prospect is a 3-year old brindle-colored retired racing greyhound from Kansas. After arriving in Portland in August 2013, he spent […]
Wow! This first part of our hike, Lookout Mountain Loop is a keeper, featuring the most dramatic views in the shortest distance for the least effort. True to form, our arrival at the High Prairie trailhead was straight up noon. On the dot. That left less than six hours to get back to the car […]
This eight mile, scenic loop trail starts at Tumalo Falls, 14 miles southwest of Bend. The parking area was small and full when we arrived, but we found a spot along the road. From the number of cars coming and going, we got the impression that most of the people were there for the viewpoint […]
We headed to central Oregon to enjoy the gorgeous fall weather, intending to hike around Smith Rock State Park and then drive south to Tumalo State Park to camp overnight. Unfortunately, Smith Rock was packed full of people (an archeology event and lots of other like-minded hikers/climbers). To avoid the crowds, we thought we’d hike […]
Since both the school year and the rainy season started three weeks ago, our weekly hikes have been on hiatus. September set records for rainfall throughout much of Oregon. When the clouds cleared over Mount Hood in early October, we were surprised to see it completely blanketed in white. Saturday dawned bright and clear so […]
We thought we’d switch it up from our recent Mt. Hood hikes so we focused on the Columbia River Gorge, settling on the Herman Creek Trail to Indian Point. The trailhead is a few miles east of Cascade Locks and, being relatively early on a Monday, parking was readily available. The trail immediately starts climbing […]
After camping overnight at Elk Meadows, we got an early start on the day and returned to the Hood River Meadows Trailhead where we ditched our packs. We thought we’d travel light to checkout the Umbrella Falls after not quite making it that far last week when we hiked from Timberline Lodge over to Mt. Hood […]
We thought we’d try an overnight on the mountain by starting at the Hood River Meadows Trailhead. Before departing, we each weighed our packs and came out pretty even at 27 pounds. In addition to our clothes, sleeping pad and bag and three liters of water, David hauled the tent and I carried the cook […]
In typical fashion, we got a late noon start from Timberline Lodge. This time, our goal was to head east on the Timberline Trail #600 from the lodge and get over to Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Area where Umbrella Falls is located. To do so, we’d have to drop about 1300 feet down to the […]
After a donut run to Joes Donuts in Sandy to fuel up and a pit stop at the handsome new Zigzag Ranger District Office, we arrived at the Top Spur trail head at noon Monday. On the weekends, the parking spills out along the road for a long way in both directions, but today we […]
We vowed to get an early start for Sunday morning’s hike from Timberline Lodge. Which means 10-ish. Expecting the parking lot at Timberline Lodge to be sparsely populated at that hour, we were surprised to see it nearly as full as during a prime winter skiing day. Apparently for many, July 14 is also a […]
We had made plans to climb Mount Saint Helens in Washington and reserved climbing permits months ago. With the climb less than a week away, we double-checked our equipment and did more online research in preparation. Recent reports included words such as “ice ax”, “crampons”, “snow field” which really got our attention. We read that […]
While we were in Sun Valley visiting relatives, our nephew Tyler left to visit a friend near Jackson Hole, taking Hwy 20 heading east. Shortly after, he called to highly recommend that we take a road trip to see Craters of the Moon National Monument, only about 70 miles from Sun Valley. We didn’t have […]
We finally found Pup Creek Falls, after two unsuccessful attempts earlier this year. Once, we ran out of time when approaching from the west via the Fish Creek trail head. On the next attempt, we started from the east at Indian Henry trail head, but the water was too high to make the final 1/3 […]
The forecast for the Memorial Day weekend was nothing but rain so we headed to central Oregon for a spur-of-the-moment excuse for a meeting with David’s client, Kara Wilson Anglin of Wilson Ranches Retreat in Fossil. The bed and breakfast was full up, so she graciously offered us the use of an unfurnished house on […]
We’ve been hearing about the Dog Mountain hike for a few years (a friend of ours said “it’s the hardest thing she’s ever done”). And now that we’ve had a solid week of 80 degree May weather (unheard of in Oregon), we figured the spring wildflowers that this trail is known for would be spectacular. […]
Trail #791 – Salmon Butte Trail. We haven’t been up to the Salmon Butte trail since the winding mountain road leading to it was converted to trails-only in late 2010. That summer, Chris and nephew Tyler got part way up the trail when he got the itch to burn a few calories with his off-road […]
Today was a beautiful Spring day so we decided to head up to the Salmon River Trail for a hike. It’s an easy 30 minute drive to the trail head just south of Welches on Salmon River Road. We’ve been on this trail a few times, but never all the way out to the Goat […]
We started out the day intending to hike up McIntyre Ridge to Wildcat Mountain, but encountered the true meaning of “snow line” 5 miles before the trail head. Stymied by sudden deep snow on the road, we changed direction and headed to a lower elevation to try the east end of the Clackamas River Trail […]
Cougars and skunks and smelt oh my! Well not really, but Wednesday’s weather looked like the usual Spring Break mixed bag— partly cloudy, imminent rain showers, possible sun breaks. With that in mind, we thought a quick stretch-of-the-legs was in order to break up another day at the computer prepping for spring term classes. The […]
Alarms on both iPhones woke us up at 4:15 am. We downed a quick breakfast of granola and a cup of coffee while gathering supplies for the day hike. Thinking ahead, David filled the Platypus with 2 liters of water and popped it in the fridge overnight. It would still sweat, but everything is vaguely […]
On the way back from two nights at the Pickett Butte Lookout, we took the scenic route home via the Rogue-Umpqua Scenic Byway. One of the features along this three hour road detour was the dramatic Toketee Falls which is invisible from the highway. It flows out of a graceful columnar basalt formation that frames […]
We began our hike at the Fish Creek Trailhead to get on the Clackamas River Trail which would take us to Pup Creek Falls. The trail roughly follows the south shore of the river for miles and miles. It’s a beautiful 7 mile out-and-back hike, with many opportunities for a swim in the warmer months. […]
We arrived at Cape Lookout just before dark and checked in with the camp host. We had reserved the “Nestucca” Deluxe Cabin online a few days before, a steal at $56 a night. The path from the parking lot to the cabin was lined with small lights mounted on wooden posts. The cabin itself was […]
Portland’s been under an inversion this week with dull gray skies, very cold freezing fog and and high of 30 degrees if we’re lucky. So David and I decided to follow the sun and head to the coast where it was bright and sunny with temperatures in the 60s. We found brand new “deluxe cabins” […]
This trail is one of our favorites because it’s only a couple of miles away from our house, and we rarely see other people during our monthly hikes. The footing is soft and well-maintained. This particular post documents our Christmas Eve hike down to the river. We follow the equestrian trail, which starts out at […]
Central Oregon offers landscapes that contrast greatly to what we’re used to in the Portland area. Smith Rock reminds me of Arizona in so many ways— from the smell of the stunted Junipers to the wind-carved sandstone pillars. While it’s known around the world as a destination for rock climbers, it also has some challenging […]
This Columbia River Gorge hike is extremely popular, so it’s best to get an early start to beat the weekend crowds or choose a weekday. Either way, it’s a worthwhile, relatively easy hike with tremendous scenic payoffs throughout the journey. Many PCT through-hikers take this route north from Mount Hood to reach Cascade Locks and […]
Originally, we headed to Bend for a hike around Smith Rock, but changed our minds as we drove through Sandy. Instead, we decided to check out a more local destination, and if we could make it to the trail head (the guides say the road was ‘difficult’), we’d do the Burnt Lake hike instead. The […]
Another one of our favorite hikes on Mount Hood. We started at the crowded Top Spur Trailhead off of Lolo Pass Road. We’ve done parts of this hike before which included Bald Mountain. This time, though, we decided to extend the hike by adding a loop on the Timberline Trail down to Ramona Falls which […]
We needed to escape the heat of the valley so we headed up to the east side of Mount Hood, where it was still hot, but bearable in the forest. It was our first time hiking out to Tamanawas Falls. The first part of the trail parallels the highway. The view wasn’t bad, but the […]
We finally managed to get down to the Bend, Oregon area for three days of sightseeing and hiking. We stayed at a surprisingly authentic adobe pueblo style house we found through AirBNB. Our first stop was the High Desert Museum where we enjoyed lots of interesting historic displays and wildlife. Next up was Lava Lands […]
Silver Falls State Park has an extensive, well maintained trail that can be hiked in several different lengths. The full loop is 6.9 miles and features 10 waterfalls and the trail even passes behind Silver Falls. We decided to do a shorter loop on this Mother’s Day outing with daughter Hannah. The trail’s beginning is […]