Saturday was sadly our last full day in Oregon but we made the most of it! We started off with a 90-minute horseback ride from Black Butte Ranch. Amy and I did this together during our last trip to the area and wanted to give the kids a similar experience. We ended up having a […]

The guidebook in our townhouse rental gave two options for this hike. The first was shorter, but only after a longer drive on forest service roads; the second longer — anywhere from 12-14 miles — but no such drive. The forest service roads called for a four-wheel drive with high clearance, code for “don’t bring […]

It may have been the wrong season to hit up a ski resort, but Mount Bachelor’s summit was too close for us to ignore during this hiking season. We arrived in their expansive, mostly empty parking lot shortly before 1 p.m. We opted to cut out some of the lower flanks of the butte by […]

We chose to take it “easy” today. We opted for Green Lakes: it’s a hike we’ve done several times before that has a big payoff for less effort. After spending the morning in Sisters going for a run, reading and enjoying the pool and hot tub, we headed south to Bend with a carful of […]

We kicked off our week in central Oregon with a hike from Pole Creek Trailhead to Camp Lake. Amy and I had hiked this ourselves in 2015 while the kids were at ski camp. It was definitely a highlight then, so we wanted to share it with the kids. We were staying in Sisters, and […]

It’s a 12-mile drive up the access road to Cloud Cap on the eastern flanks of Mount Hood, but it takes a strong stomach and about a half hour of careful driving. We debated who among us should get the cherished front seat, the place least likely to induce carsickness (you can check out a […]

We wanted to get a far earlier start on this hike than we’d had the prior day at Kings Mountain. We arrived at the trailhead just off of Mt. Hood Meadows Nordic Center at 9a, after a bit of confusion after mistakenly pulling into the main Meadows driveway. It’s clear that we have to update our […]

We had intended to hike Saddle Ridge for the first hike of our summer trip to Oregon, but found out en route that it was closed due to a dried washed out creek. Since we were “in the neighborhood” we decided to re-route to to a familiar peak a short detour to the south. We’d […]