Hiking – Page 3 – Occidentalist

Rock Creek Weekend

Post author:Occidental
Post published:2021-09-22
Post category:Hiking Truck Camping
Post comments:0 Comments

Ever been to Rock Creek? I think it’s right next to Deer Creek, right? We originally planned to be up in the high Cascades, but as the weekend approached and inches of rain or snow with wind looked likely we shifted plans to the east and headed to the Ochocos and found a quiet spot to spend the weekend next to Rock Creek. By the time we arrived on Friday night it was getting dark, the moon, Jupiter and Saturn were all scrolling across the sky.

The next morning it started raining just about breakfast time. It’s hard to complain, as we’re in severe drought so we sat back and enjoyed our coffee and listened to the rain on the roof. It quit about noon which gave us plenty of time to venture out on a hike.

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Escape to Goat Rocks

Post author:Occidental
Post published:2021-09-17
Post category:Hiking Washington
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As mentioned in the last post, it’s been a pretty smoky summer. Oregon and California have been on fire since June. Labor Day weekend took the smoke to a whole new level. Hazardous air quality with smoke so thick there were times we couldn’t see the shore while out fishing Odell.

Fishing anyone? Odell Lake, Memorial Day weekend.

Sunrise, with a bit of smoke, Odell Lake

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Columbia River Gorge, 2021

Post author:Occidental
Post published:2021-03-25
Post category:Hiking Truck Camping
Post comments:2 Comments

In our continued spring tour of Oregon our next stop after Sunset Bay was the Columbia River Gorge. The wildflowers are usually out early and reliably in the Gorge and this year did not disappoint. For this trip we stayed on the eastern end of the Gorge and camped out of Memaloose State Park. It served as a good base when higher elevation camps further out were still mostly under snow. From there, we were up Saturday morning and off to find a trail to hike. Our first planned stop had an already overflowing parking lot at 9 a.m. Further up the road we found space at the Lyle Cherry Orchard Trail and started up the hill. I still don’t know where the cherry orchard was, but we were successful in our search for flowers.

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