May 28, 2005, 8:40 pm Today we drove from Bend to The Dalles by way of Mount Hood. We went off on the old Barlow Road and hunted the cache at Pioneer Lady on the Barlow. This is the gravesite of an unknown pioneer woman who was traveling the last part of the Oregon Trail over some of the roughest terrain. Heavy tree cover made this one hard to find. Even using the hint I wasn’t finding it. Finally, I went out into the clearing and took a couple of bearings and paced off the distance. Turns out if I just watched the GPS, it wouldn’t take me far enough into the woods. Found it at 11:25 AM.
We drove up to Mount Hood and spent some time looking around Timberline Lodge and then got a good taco salad in Government Camp.
On the way to The Dalles, we stopped and found Polallie Creek at 3:35 PM.
May 27, 2005, 8:34 pm One of our favorite hikes in the Bend area is the trail to Green Lakes at the base of South Sister. We hiked in about a mile until the snow began to get pretty rough to walk on and then decided we’d try something else.
That something else was a series of caches in the Sparks Lake area. But first, we looked for Central Oregon Art Gallery. This is an interesting area of big lava boulders with some pictographs, which we never did see, and lots of graffiti, which we did see. The obvious way down into this little meadow was on a steep, slick, icy snow field, so we found another way. My GPS, or the coordinates, were a little off, and I wasn’t finding anything. Couldn’t even find the hints. Karen finally walked around the rocks a bit and found the hint. I made a quick find after that at 12:41 PM.
HD Cachefinder is just off of Cascade Lakes Highway and easy to get to, but we didn’t find it easy to find. It’s hidden in a pile of rocks, with nothing to distinguish it. To me, it’s like an ivy hide. I found it because my boot hit a rock that hit the ammo can and it thunked. Found at 1:21 PM.
I’ve always bypassed hiking around Sparks Lake because the south end near the Green Lakes trailhead looks so marshy. We were pleasantly surprised in the hike for the next couple of caches (surprised by the mosquitoes too). In an area of collapsed lava tubes and jumbles of lava rock we found Western Exposure at 2:24 PM.
We carefully bush-whacked it over to Davis Canyon Surprise, which we found at 2:43 PM. This was near the lake shore, and the mosquitoes were thick.
After dinner in Bend I found By The Bridge at 7:04 PM. The wind was really whipping, maybe from micro-bursts from the thunderheads that were around. I walked across a dirt field to find this one and got sand in my eyes.
May 26, 2005, 5:27 pm  Little Three Creeks Lake Looking for a good long hike, we drove up to 3 Creeks Lake to check out hunting for Tam McArthur. After just a few steps up the trail and post-holing in over my knees in snow we decided that wasn’t a good idea. We hiked up to Little 3 Creeks Lake, a pleasant walk (even though we took one wrong turn and had to backtrack some). While there we heard a roar and looked up to see an avalanch in progress across the lake. Got a sequence of pictures of the end of it.
On the way back to Sisters, we hunted Vista View, which we found at 1:37 PM. This cache sits near the top of a vertical lava cliff. Very pretty area, but I stay away from the edge.
Next, we made a side trip and hiked, mostly cross country, to find Peterson, Lookout! at 2:38 PM. For part of the way we did find an old road. From the cache location on Peterson Ridge there are great views out north towards Sisters.
Finally, I hunted Eagles Crack. Had to scramble up a rocky hill and search in an area with some vertical faces. Karen stayed down at the bottom. I saw plenty of cracks, and looked in them, and wedged myself up in them, but couldn’t find it. Discouraging.
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Consider this:“Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.” 1 Thessalonians 4:9 |
