Jefferson Park Hike and Camp

First of all, wow it has been a SUPER long time since I last wrote in the blog.  Whoops!  I have three more blog posts on my to-do list from various events/photo subjects over the past few months.  I just need to find time to edit all the photos.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed I find time within the next two weeks!  In the mean time, I've managed to find a few hours to edit photos from our camping/hiking excursion last weekend!

My first experience camping was not a good one.  It was in Indiana and involved driving right up to the campsite with a group of friends, setting up our tents and hanging out for the evening.  That could've been fine had that been the extent of the experience.  However, once we went to sleep, the sky unleashed its wrath on us, pouring buckets and buckets of rain, thundering and lightning right overhead.  It was rough.  Our carpool buddies decided to pack up and go home, which forced us to wake up our friends (if they managed to still be asleep at that point) to figure out a new ride home the next morning.  Everyone was soaked, tired and grumpy.  It.  Sucked.

So when a couple of our friends invited us to go hiking and camping with them, I was hesitant but willing to give it another shot.  Weather in Oregon is most likely to be dry and sunny this time of year, the scenery is beautiful, and I love hiking.  All we needed to do was borrow some backpacking gear and buy a few camping supplies and some freeze-dried meals, and we were set (this was going to be serious camping, not drive-up camping!).

We hit the road Saturday morning.  Destination: Jefferson Park via Park Ridge Trail Hike.  Most of the drive was through the Mt. Hood National Forest, with sky-high evergreens and winding roads.  The turn-off to the trail head started out as a gravel road and quickly devolved into a rocky/boulder-y rutted dirt path.  Eventually we got to the point where we would be risking major damage to our vehicles if we continued on, so we backtracked to an open spot to pull off and park our cars for the night.  Then it was just a matter of hiking the rest of the way to the trail head.

The hike was awesome!  Of course the scenery was breathtaking and the company was fun.  If you are in the Pacific Northwest and are looking for a great adventure outdoors, I HIGHLY recommend Jefferson park and the Park Ridge Trail hike.  We were sore and tired by the time we got back to our cars on Sunday, but we were happy.  Such a great experience!  Feast your eyes:

Several years ago there was a fire in the area.  Many dead barkless trees are still standing.

See that straight line of tiny trees?  That is the ridge.  We climbed over that and down into the valley.  Jefferson Park is on the other side.

More after the break...

Miscellaneous December

It's almost Christmas!  How has the year gone so quickly?  This past year has been such a blur.  Nick and I have fixed up and sold two houses in Indiana, searched for and found new jobs in Oregon, moved across the country, bought a new house, made new friends, reconnected with (my) family, and even done a little bit of traveling.  Major life changes all in a short span of time.

This time of year tends to be hectic, and I'm sure many of you would agree.  I'm writing this post to share a few photos that are sort of from miscellaneous subjects.  It's going to seem like a very disconnected post since the photos aren't really related to one another.

One of my favorite parts of Oregon that I'd missed while I lived in Indiana was the fog.  In the colder months, the clouds sink low and cover the hills in a fuzzy white blanket.  Sometimes it's so thick you can't see more than a few yards in front of you.  Sometimes it's just enough to blur objects a few hundred feet away.  Last Sunday morning, we woke up to a thick blanket of fog.  As it began dissipating, it was still blurry but the sun was able to poke its way through a bit, too.  It made for a cool effect on our giant oak tree:

Creepy Oak

One of my favorite things about Christmas is the cookies.  Every year (with few excptions), my mom and I bake Christmas cookies.  I went to my parents' house and made a few kinds of cookies last weekend.  We're making more tomorrow, so I'll post photos of the cookies later.  But while I was there last weekend, I got to see Mt. Hood in the waning evening light, as the sun set and also after, as the light gradually disappeared.  The snow on Mt. Hood made an eerie glow while everything else was getting quite dark.  Here are my two favorite photos:

Mt. Hood, during sunset

Mt. Hood, post sunset

Earlier in the afternoon, when the sun was low enough to reach far into the house through the window, I took advantage of the bright window light to photograph my mom's blooming Paphiopedilum.  I love bright window light because it highlights whatever object is directly in the light, while everything in the background fades to black as the window light drops off very quickly.  About the Paph, I don't knwo what kind it is, but its blooms are this beautiful lemony yellow with a cute splatter of freckles across the petals.  Purely guessing based on what I remember from last weekend and not using an actual ruler, I think the blooms are about 6-ish inches across. 

My mom's Paph!

Table Rock

One of my favorite outdoor hobbies is hiking.  Thankfully, Oregon is an incredible place to hike, with a vast network of trails, most (if not all) with breathtaking views.  In mid-September, my husband and I hiked Table Rock.  This is a fairly moderate hike with views of Mt. Hood, Jefferson and Three Sisters.  It was a gorgeous day to hike, with the end-of-summer weather that I love: sunny, breezy, warm but not hot, "jeans and t-shirt"-type weather.  Nova, our super-agressive, killer pit bull (kidding, she loves people as long as they pet her and give her treats; she'd make a terrible guard dog) was a trooper and completed the hike with us and was completely oblivious to most of the wildlife along the way.  Here are a few photos from the hike.

Pika - Ochotona princeps

Nova

Spider Web

Mt. Jefferson

After seeing pikas in the wild for the first time on this hike, I decided to look up some information about them.  I was surprised to learn that they are lagamorphs, not rodents, due to their second pair of upper incisors.  This grouping means they are related to rabbits and hares, which are also lagamorphs.  Who knew?  Pikas are such cute creatures and they emit this adorable little "eeee!" sound to alert each other of the presence of a potential threat (predator or territory trespasser).