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A while back now, while perusing some guidebook or other I ran across a list of scenic drives to take in Oregon. A lot of them were your standard (yes, scenic, but still standard) state highways. But one in particular caught my eye as it linked together some very developed but a bit more out of the normal flow of traffic roads to create a route up the western side of the Cascades in Oregon from Oakridge to Estacada. Portions of it have been closed by landslides and wildfires ever since. Until July 1 that is. It just so happened we didn’t have any other plans for the following weekend, and off we went.

We didn’t quite make it to the byway on Friday night, but we did make it just to the west side of the Cascades, and spent the night at Gold Lake. The mosquitoes were still alive and well, but not as bad as our trip to Miller Lake a couple weeks back.

We were up and off early the next morning, starting our ‘official’ tour just out of Oakridge.

Our first stop was the Office Covered Bridge over the North Fork of the Willamette. Then we worked our way upstream in the Willamette drainage and stopped for a hike to Erma Bell Lakes. The flowers, including the rhododendron were in their full spendor.

It was still fairly early in the day but we started looking around in hopes of finding a campsite with a view. We ran across a (spotted? or barred?) owl, sort of a rare mid day sighting.

Then we eventually took the right turn and knew we were going to spend the rest of the day watching the mountains. We’ve only run across one camp in the Cascades to rival this one in my opinion.

The next morning we moved along north, stopping for a soak at Belknap Hot Springs before moving on, leaving the Willamette National Forest behind in exchange for the Mt. Hood. We deviated from the official route of the West Cascades Scenic Byway when we reached the Mt. Hood, opting to have a look at the Olallie Lakes Scenic Area. I thought we might stay, but the chilly windy cloudy weather and the hungry mosquitoes kept us moving north. We continued to admire the wildflowers, and the beargrass seems to be having quite a banner year this year as well.

After our deviation along the crest of the Cascades we didn’t ever make it back to finish the rest of the official route. I guess that drive is still on the list for another day. We finished up our tour of the west Cascades with a night at Timothy Lake and a quick tour of the iconic Timberline Lodge the following morning. It seemed a fitting end to the tour with the great view of Mt. Hood and the gaze back down the spine of the Cascades from whence we came.