As has been our custom the last few years, we make at least two trips a year to the Sisters/Bend area. We were there earlier this year in late May/early June (see the post of that trip), and found many of the hikes we wanted to do impossible because there was too much snow to even access the trailheads.
Cottage in Sisters, Oregon
This was the cottage we rented—pleasant, nicely decorated, but jammed in among others so that you only see walls out most of the windows. And, while it had wired internet, it did not have wifi. I solved that by setting up the MacBook Pro to share the network over wifi, so I could also use my iPad. The same owner has an upstairs condo nearby that we now know we like much better.
Spring came late this year. The lupines were profuse.
The first hike we did started at Jack Lake on the eastern slopes of Three Fingered Jack. I think we may have hit the wildflowers at their peak. The huge winter snowpack made for a late spring. We hiked up to the lip of the moraine so we could see the pond at the base of the glacier/snow pack. I’m not sure this is still a glacier—photographs show it used to be much larger. On our way back down we should have hiked through the lupine-filled meadow but we just retraced our steps. We debated a side trip of a couple of miles to go to Wasco Lake, but decided we had hiked enough (6.5 miles).
Of interest to me is that we bumped into a couple of on-duty state police officers back in the wilderness area. They said they were assisting fish and game with a survey but I’m skeptical. It reminds me of an encounter last year with two armed forest service guys at a check point near Mt. Shasta who said they were checking wood cutting permits. Right… so what were the six other armed officers for?
Links
—Three-Finger Jack hike 2011
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