wirednoodle's wanderlust: camping

Went up Thursday morning with a friend to try fishing Harriet Lake again. Well it wasn't just me before, the lake was just too cold. It was so nice that I had to go camping for the weekend! I jetted home and packed up. I called Dad and invited him to come up.

I didn't want to deal with the people at the lake, so I chose to make camp at a spot that my friend pointed out that was on the river upstream a ways. Nice spot!

Had about an hour or so of clean up before I could think about setting up camp. Yet again people are slobs! This time was even better. They did some target shooting there at some point. Did they shoot at cans? Sure, a few. Mostly they used beer bottles for targets. IDIOTS! UGH! I picked up a bunch of it, but know there was a lot I missed.

Got the new tent set up. I think I made a good choice with it. It is a Kelty Gunnison 4. I really like the fact that the poles are aluminum, the rain fly is so heavy, and there is so much netting on it. It will be really nice in the summer.

Dad showed up Saturday morning with his dog Max. Max had us throwing the ball fairly often. We both took a lot of photographs and talked a fair bit. It was nice reminiscing about camping trips when I was young. Sunday morning we had a GREAT breakfast. I brought up some ok coffee cake and dad brought eggs and sausage. We decided to bin the idea of eggs. Better yet Dad cooked the sausage on the hot dog skewer. I think that that will now be a staple on my trips. Damn that sausage was good! Totally changed the flavor.

Dad hung around until noon-ish then headed for home. I stayed till about 2pm waiting on some friends that said they may come up for the day. Turns out I missed them by about 45 minutes. I couldn't handle the skeeters any more. They chewed the hell out of me!

I stopped and watched and took photos of the boaters and kayakers on the Clackamas River on the way home. I will definitely be on the river in the foreseeable future! It looked like a LOT of fun!!

So this was a really good trip! Can't wait for the road to open up to get higher and explore some serious back roads and "hidden" (read less traveled) lakes/rivers.

(remember that you can click on an image to enlarge it if you can't see it well)

Me checking out the river.

A gnome was watching over the camp.

Dad and Max.

Have to have a campfire shot.

Waterfall across the river.

How would you like to run into this on the river?!

My favorite photo of the weekend.

Taken on the way out Sunday. I like the textures and colors on this one.

A "yakker" going through the motions.

His buddy was right behind him.

I didn’t expect another adventure quite so soon, but sometimes you just get lucky! Tye texted me around 9:30pm and asked if I wanted to go camping. I asked where and after hearing Rock Creek and a chance to meet the infamous Matt and Jeff (friends of his I have heard some wild stories about), I said I was game.

A quick packing of stuff and I was ready when Tye picked me up at 10:30pm. After a brief stop at a friends house to grab Tye’s card for his camera we were off. Well sort of, we made a stop at the Wal-Mart in Troutdale. Grabbing some snacks and a few essentials we headed up to the counter. It was then that Tye realized he had forgotten his wallet in the car. Oops! Paid for the stuff and off we went.

It was fairly windy in the gorge, but all in all it was an uneventful trip from I-84 to I-197 then south to Rock Creek. Tye had heard that Jeff had gotten his truck stuck, so we were to look for his truck on the side of the road (buried apparently) and then a sign to find camp. We arrived later then we had originally shot for, but rolled into camp at 2:30am.

We arrived in camp to see 4 trucks and a fire burning low.

We no sooner got out of the truck then out pops Spencer from his truck to say hello. Then from off in the trees we hear Matt saying “YOU’RE LATE!”

They had just settled down for the night 5 minutes before we pulled in. Tye was not real happy being the last one up to camp and said some rather unsavory things about working swing shift as opposed to graveyard (Last year he worked grave and was the first one to be at camp).

After 10 minutes of chatting, Matt proceeded to get up and came to say hello. It took me a few minutes to realize the guy was friggin barefoot. Let me catch you up at this point by saying it was around 23 degrees. Yes it was cold!

We gravitated to the fire pit and threw a couple logs on the fire. After chatting for a few hours, everyone headed to grab some sleep at about 5:30am. I wasn’t tired so I sat up by the fire and listened to my Zune (I work graveyard and had woken up at 7pm so I was wide awake).

After 20 minutes of listening to Carlos Mencia, I heard some movement and then a tent opening. Out pops Mike, a co-worker of Matt’s. Mike is originally from Minnesota and has the accent to prove it! He grabbed a chair and we sat and enjoyed the fire with some low key conversation thrown in every now and then. About the time the sun came up I tried for a few pics of the heavy frost covering everything and the view looking out of camp.

Jeff's truck after getting out of the hole he was in.

Later in the morning folks started getting up. Matt popped out first followed by Spencer and Jeff. Jayden, Matt’s son, made his appearance shortly thereafter and said he wanted breakfast. Matt told him to stay out of the mud puddles. This was shot 5 minutes after he was told! HAHAHA!

So shortly after some morning chat, we all piled into the rigs and headed down the road to the only restaurant in the area. Jeff and Mike were a bit late. They showed up in Mike’s truck and then Jeff mentioned he had set his emergency brake and it was now frozen. Oops!

We headed into the restaurant and ordered breakfast. While ordering, one of the waitresses asked if we were camping. After telling her we were, she said oh I love that wood smoke smell! Try getting that comment anywhere in Portland after standing around a campfire for several hours!

After a GREAT breakfast and a Jager Bomb (thanks Tye!) and a Malibu-Pine for me, other mixes for the rest, we headed to the general store. What an amazing place! They literally have everything you might want. Good thing, as Jeff needed to grab a couple things to thaw out his rear end to release the e-brake. I could have spent an hour and a couple hundred dollars in there easy, but I managed to force myself out the door after 10 minutes with a new pair of gloves (which I think are still in Tye’s truck).

Back to camp for some fun with the quads and to set up my tent. On the way Tye and I cruised through the Sportsmen’s area and the Rock Creek campground. Managed to find a good size log that we manhandled into his truck. I managed some time on the 80 (little quad that Tye brought) which was a blast. Before I went on a quad, Tye wanted to take advantage of the large mud hole near camp and get some action shots.

Then Jeff wanted in on the fun!

Spencer showed off with the little bike he brought.

The rest of the time was fairly low key. I was getting tired, but was having a good time and didn’t feel like hitting the hay yet. Spencer and Amanda decided to leave to watch the UFC fights, so I had everyone line up for the obligatory group shot.

Around 5pm or so we talked about eating again. After some discussion between hot dogs or real food, it was agreed that we should head back to the restaurant. It was then that Jeff and I had the best milkshakes ever! We ordered vanilla shakes with a shot of butterscotch schnapps. Oh hell yes! After a few minutes Jeff gets up and gets a couple extra shots of butterscotch schnapps (thanks again for that extra shot Jeff!). Two shots of butterscotch schnapps and a large vanilla milkshake will definitely set you right. Damn that was good!

Matt made arrangements for us to go over to Gary’s place after eating. This was an eye opening experience! Gary has a grand slam on big horn sheep and turkey. He has them all mounted in a huge room. That isn’t all though. There are several bear, numerous deer and elk (including a stag from Mongolia), cats, a wolf, and the list goes on. My jaw literally dropped. Here is a cell phone pic taken on Tye’s phone to give you an idea.

After we left we headed back to camp. Upon pulling in Jeff told us about something strange we had to see, so we loaded up again and headed off into the woods. We pulled into a clearing to find some sweat lodges.

Then the strangest sight, a huge arch structure built in a circle that had to be over 100ft across. The pics aren’t great, but if you look close you can see the arch bending to the left.

On the way out we found an outhouse that Jeff decided to get a close look at.

Then it was back to camp. I was totally exhausted at this point,but had to try for a good fire photo.

I was about 27 hours without sleep so off I went to the tent and some sleep. Not a bad night, but I woke up a few times cold. Could have used an extra blanket, but all in all it was ok.

The next morning I woke up about 8:30am. Everyone started stirring within a half hour. After some chat everyone started breaking down camp. Mike was the first to leave, but called saying the road was slippery. With that news Tye wanted to get going. Off we went.

We had to stop and take a few pics of Tygh Valley (this pic is a lousy stitch job, but you get the general idea).

Once we got to the turn to head back to town Tye mentioned a place that a co-worker had mentioned that he enjoyed, Mack’s Canyon. It wasn’t far, but I did have to work that night. What do we do? After looking at each other for a second, we turned right instead of left and headed for the Deschutes River.

A short stop in Maupin and we were headed north following the river. We hit the end of the road to find a bald eagle. The eagle landed for a minute in a tree right in the Mack’s Canyon campground. Tye managed to get a couple good shots, but as soon as I made to get out of the truck he took off. Here is one of Tye's photos.

The campground.

On the way out we stopped to look for the petrified wood that our co-worker had told Tye about. It was there alright! I had never seen that much in one place before so it was cool to see.

We also discovered the long lost origins of trailer trash.