Clear Lake and the Metolius

Let me start by saying this is by far the best picture of the weekend:

Aaron gets eaten alive by mosquitoes and grabbed the first hat he found. I wanted to make sure to document the ensemble.

We both left work around 2:30 on Friday, but because of many unfortunate events and lack of planning we didn't actually leave until 6:37. We waited until the last minute to figure out the timer for the garden, and since it was going to be hot, we had to make sure it was going to work. I think it took us 2 hours and 2 trips to the store by the time we were done due to the fact there are 4 plots spread around our property. The good news is nothing died in our absence.

We did make it finally though, and got very, very lucky to find a camping spot at 8:30 pm on only the second campground we checked. We camped right by Koosah Falls:


And decided to stay two nights at the same place and not push our luck since most campgrounds were full this weekend. I have to say, it might have been the quietest campground I've ever stayed at...and it was full. We had great neighbors! The next day we headed to Clear Lake. I wanted to rent a row boat and see the 3,000 year old forest that was submerged beneath the lake. Aaron suggested we do the loop around the lake first. It was a 5 mile loop and it was nice because it had quite a bit of variation in terrain, especially since the lake is long and skinny. We went through both forest, lake edge, and lava fields. I got my fill, and got to see the trees under the lake. This is a popular spot, and there were too many people there for our liking, especially out on the water. There must have been 30 boats out on that little lake...so seeing it from the ground was a less crowded option. The water is beautiful:


I took my Oregon Moon book and read about an ice cave near us. We set out looking for it, it wasn't marked, but we saw some people parked off the highway and asked them if they knew about it. We got lucky and they pointed us in the right direction. We found this small cave first and thought it was Sawyer's Cave, but we found the much larger cave after and figured that must be it. This little cave was neat though, the floor was solid ice, it was extremely treacherous, but we escaped without injury and enjoyed the ice stalactites and stalagmites. The larger cave had less ice but different lava formations on the floor and a much larger cavern.


These guys were EVERYWHERE:


Today we did the Western Metolius Trail, just over 5 miles round trip. A third of a mile in there are these springs just coming out of the rock into the river. This picture doesn't do it justice.


The hike's half way point (before heading back the same way) is a really nice fish hatchery. We walked around for a bit and bought some fish food to feed the trout.


I'll put the rest of my pictures up on picasa tomorrow.
We are already planning next weekend. Quartzville Creek, or somewhere else? We are trying to think of some place less popular as it's going to be hard to find a vacant site.