Catherine Creek - April 2014

On our most recent visit to see Mickey and Joan in Portland, we were joined by their friend Kashala for a day hike at Catherine Creek, a couple hours east along the Columbia River gorge.

It was a beautiful spring day and we had some panoramic views of Mt. Hood on the horizon above the river and the orchards on the Oregon side of the river.

I loved the derelict old corrals along this trail and took several pictures of them.

We had a nice picnic at the top of the trail and some people even had a little lie down. The tough looking guy in the hat is brother-in-law Mickey...

We saw lots of wildflowers, some in great swaths sort of "flowing" down the mountain.

 

The drive back along Hiway 14 was pretty. The Friday afternoon traffic on I-5 coming into Portland was not!

Tumalo Historic Canals Trail - April 2014

I have decided to start using this blog to post pictures of our activities around Bend as well as our travels further afield. I may do a little retrospective posting, so these are not necessarily going to be in order. Joined Bend Parks and Rec group, led by tour leader extraordinaire Leslie Olson, on April 14, 2014, to hike on the trails located between Hiway 20 and 97 that were once slated to be irrigated developments. The whole thing with the canals, and later with the dams, did not work so well, however--seems that porous lava rock does not hold water very well. In spite of an early April snowfall, this trail was already dusty and dry, but fairly level for the 4 miles we covered. Some nice views of the Sisters and Broken Top from several spots along the trail.

I learned from our volunteer assistant that lichen is a combination of algae and fungus and saw several brightly colored examples along the trail.

Some amazing old junipers were to be seen including one which had grown up through the rocks and carried a piece of rock up into the branches. Also saw some really beautiful twisted old stumps like this one.

 There was also a ruin of a small stone building--not sure if it had been intended as residential or just for hunting.

I think this would be a good trail for winter hiking, but not for summer as it would be too hot.