Backpacking in Oregon

Remember when I bought a sweet sleeping bag to complete our set of backpacking gear?  Remember how I said that I would be using it in Oregon.  Well, the time has come to tell you about backpacking the Eagle Creek trail.

I totally got a picture of the sign so you know i'm not lying about the name of the trail.

Eagle Creek is a trail in the Columbia River Gorge outside of Portland.  It's a beautiful area hiking through a rain forest.  The whole trail is about 13 miles long and ends at a lake.  We decided we weren't quite hardcore enough for that entire length.  I decided the destination I wanted to hike to was Tunnel Falls, which is a little over 6 miles one way.

But truthfully, it's all about the journey as much as the destination.  We really enjoyed the experience of travelling along that trail and seeing all that there was to see.

Look at that cute backpacker.

That is a less cute backpacker.

Just posing in front of the wilderness.

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am not a huge fan of heights.  Most of the trail was just fine.  Even though the trail was often pretty high above the river, I'm fine as long as it's not a sheer dropoff and I don't have to be close to the edge.  However, every once in a while the trail would get relatively thin and it would have chains you could hold on to.  This usually meant there was a fairly steep dropoff.  Even if I didn't notice the dropoff the chains were there to notify me that I should be terrified.

The trail itself doesn't seem that scary.  But you're supposed to be terrified.  The chains tell you so.

Look how not scared of that dropoff Robyn is.

More cutenes

The trail follows the river, and though we were hiking to a specific waterfall, there were a number of really pretty ones along the way.

I don't even know the name of this waterfall.  But it's pretty.

We saw several of these birds along the way.  I'm not sure exactly what it is, some kind of grouse I'm guessing.

This was a common sight.  Robyn is much faster than me.

I think the destination of Tunnel Falls was perfect.  By the time we got there, I was tired and ready to quit, but it wasn't so far that I was dying.  The first view of the waterfall is through the trees.

Robyn makes the waterfall look precious.

The waterfall makes me look precious.

The trail is super cool, it wraps around until you actually go through a tunnel underneath the waterfall.  (Hence the name Tunnel Falls.)

I'm pretty sure this is Shelob's lair.  But the good news is that I was eaten by zero giant spiders.

This is what it looks like coming out of the tunnel.

This is what I look like coming out of the tunnel.

Looking back on it from further up the trail.  From here it looks less like Shelob's lair, and more like a hobbit hole.

It's important to get both of us in a picture.

After finding tunnel falls we decided to head back to one of the campsites we had seen on the way up.  It was about 3/4 miles back.  We setup our tent, and more importantly our hammock.  My back was super tired, and I was way excited to lay in the hammock.

The view looking up at the sky from the hammock.

That's what I look like in pure happiness.

Robyn took a turn too.

There was one negative to the hammock.  I had changed into flip flops when we got into camp, and I had kicked off the flip flops while I was in the hammock.  Robyn looked over at me and said, "There is something moving on your flip flop."  I looked at it and there was a 6 inch slug crawling over it.  I picked up the flip flop and shook it to get the slug to come off, but to no avail.  I finally had to get a stick to pry it off.  (Because clearly I wasn't going to touch it with my hands.  Gross!)

Neither of the slugs below are the one that crawled on my flip flop.  I didn't have my phone on me in the hammock because I left it in the tent.  But I took these pictures the next morning of a couple others I saw.

Ginormous + slimy = gross

My encounters with wildlife in the hammock weren't over.   I settled down to read some more and then this spider was crawling on my hammock.  I don't mind spiders at all when I know what kind they are.  I'm always uncomfortable when I can't identify them and don't know if they're dangerous.  I just flicked this guy off my hammock and all was well.

 After resting for a bit, I had to go gather us some water.  We have a little filtration system that filters out the dirt and then we have a little lightsabre that you stick in the water to kill all the germs.

She is a Jedi, like her father before her.

That evening before going to bed we put our food up in a tree.  We didn't want any bears visiting us in our tent to get at our food.  We also didn't want any squirrels chewing through our tent.  In the middle of the night, Robyn woke me up because she heard something she thought was eating our food.  She told me I needed to take a look so that if it was dangerous it would eat me and not her.  I poked my head out of the tent, shined the light on the food and saw nothing.  I showed her that we couldn't see any animals.

The next morning we looked at the garbage bag that was also outside our tent.  It had a hole chewed in it.  Robyn used that as evidence that she really had heard something.  I conceded that point, but I did point out that she strongly implied that she heard something larger than a chipmunk, which was the likely culprit of the tiny hole.  But who knows.  Maybe it was a mountain lion that chewed the quarter inch hole in the bag.

The next morning, we made breakfast, relaxed a little more and then headed back down the trail.

Robyn took this selfie to show how gross she was.  I thought she looked precious.

More evidence of preciousness

The bridges frightened me, but look how brave I was.

After backpacking, we headed back into town and checked in to our hotel.  We showered, which was glorious, and then went out to eat at Giant Burger.  It was the perfect meal to end our backpacking adventure.

After a backpacking trip there is pretty much nothing better than a good hamburger, and The Giant served us well.  My sister, who is a Portland expert, had suggested that we eat there, and I'm glad she shared her wisdom on this issue.  She had sent me a picture of her in front of the sign, so naturally I had to emulate her picture.

I know I did such a good job of copying her picture, that you can't tell the difference, so I'll just let you in on the secret.  The first one is me.  The second one is my sister from Christmas time.

Donut Falls

As you know, (or at least should know) I recently had a birthday and turned very old.

My BFF Jared W generally doesn't get me a gift for my birthday.  Instead, he usually gives me an adventure.  We had planned on a longer hike to Lake Blanche but he wasn't feeling super well so we did a little bit shorter hike to Donut Falls.  I'm super glad we did!

I had only been to Donut Falls once before, and we had done a night hike so I couldn't experience the full coolness of the falls.

The thing about this particular waterfall is that to really experience the coolness of it, you need some light and you have to be willing to get a little wet and cold.

The hiking part of it is only about 3/4 of a mile each way, but to get to where it's really awesome you have to do another couple hundred feet of climbing through the river.

Jared striking a pose in the water

Just clambering up some rocks.

When you get up there, you can see that the waterfall is pouring through a whole in the rock that looks like a donut.  (Hence the name.)

Sometimes it's important to look precious in front of the donut.

However, the really cool part is that you can crawl inside the donut and see it from the inside.  However, doing so requires wading through 1-2 feet of pretty cold water.  It's way worth it, though.

Jared and Breanna were way precious next to the entrance of the donut.

After stepping inside, Breanna realized it was way too cold for her, so she fled back down the river to where Robyn was waiting (she realized it was way too cold for her before we even began climbing through the river.)

The donut from the inside

The donut being eclipsed by my preciousness.

With no womenfolk, Jared and I had to be the cutest couple in front of the falls.

But lest you think the womenfolk weren't having good time while we were getting really cold and wet, there are selfies to prove of the good times they were having.

Look at all that gladness.  (This picture also shows how many people were climbing up to the waterfall at the top.)

Ever since doing this hike at night, I had added "See donut falls during the day" to my bucket list.  So I got to cross off another item.  It was a great adventure.  Thanks be unto Jared W for a fabulous time!

Oh, and since Robyn was underrepresented in some of the pictures, here is a picture of her on the hike up standing in a meadow filled with preciousness.

A Valentine's Waterfall

I had a fantastic Valentine's Day.  Of course, the best part was the person I spent it with, so I'm pretty sure it would have been great no matter what.  But I did enjoy the activities that were associated with Valentine's Day this year.

It all really started the night before, on Valentine's Eve.  Robyn and I generally don't like to go out to dinner on Valentine's Day because it's super crowded.  We usually go out that weekend, but since Valentine's Day was on the weekend we figured both Friday and Saturday everywhere would be packed.  So Robyn volunteered to make us a fancy dinner Friday night to celebrate.  She made Shrimp Scampi with some asparagus and mushrooms.  It was fantastic!  I'm pretty sure Robyn makes better food than most restaurants so I will never complain about a home cooked meal.

Robyn is modeling the delicious meal she made.

Since we weren't going to go out for dinner, Robyn told me I was in charge of taking her out for breakfast on Saturday.  That was basically the greatest idea known to man.  I got a delicious home cooked dinner and then I got a delicious restaurant cooked breakfast.  I took her to Callie's Cafe in Orem.  I had killer hash browns.  (If you've never had killer hash browns, you need to.  They are basically the greatest thing that ever happened to breakfast.)

After breakfast, we wanted to go on a hike.  This time of year is fairly difficult to find a good hiking spot, because most of the best ones are covered in snow.  We found one that wasn't completely covered, but it certainly wasn't snow free.  We did a little hike in Bell Canyon.

It started out snow free, at the trail head.  We got to wander through some beautiful woods, and hike next to a beautiful river.

Well hello there, river.

As we started to climb into higher elevation, we encountered snow.

Luckily, Robyn looked totally cute in the snow.

As you can see in the picture above, the snow wasn't deep, and since it's a high traffic trail, it had all been packed down anyway.  But that was part of the problem.  All the snow that had been packed down and frozen was super slippery.  It was fun on flat areas such as the picture above, but other areas weren't so flat.

This is an example of a not flat area.

Whether you were going up or going down, there was difficulty with the ice.  It was also difficult because sometimes it just looked like mud, but it turned out it was ice covered in mud.  Luckily, there were plenty of trees to hold onto.  I never actually fell, but I definitely slipped a few times and did one of those moves where you run in place as you're trying to get your feet back under you.

It took us a lot longer than we had originally anticipated, but we eventually arrive at the waterfall, which was our destination.

It's important for Robyn to do her pose in front of the waterfall.

Also important is my hands in my pocket pose.

Selfies are the most important.

After our photo shoot, Robyn made sure to go stand on a rock in a way that looked like she would fall to her death.

Good news: she didn't fall to her death.

It was a great experience.  We had a lot of fun, and I'm glad that I got to see an icy, snowy waterfall.  We went to Bridal Veil Falls last week, which is an annual winter tradition, because I love to see it all frozen.  Unfortunately, winter didn't show up for that visit, so I was glad that winter decided to make an appearance.

All in all, it was a great Valentine's Day.  Beautiful food, beautiful waterfall, beautiful girl.  What more could I ask for?

Yellowstone 2014

This past weekend we had the opportunity to head up to West Yellowstone, Montana.

The primary purpose of this trip was to visit my little brother, Justin.  He is in the cast at the Playmill theater there.  The theater has 3 different productions that they are doing this year.  They are doing Les Miserables, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Beauty and the Beast.  There were very few weekends where we could go and see all 3 shows on 3 consecutive nights, but last week was one of the weeks where that would work out.  So we headed up on Thursday, and saw his shows Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Of course, the secondary purpose of the trip was to see some beautiful nature in Yellowstone National Park.  We spent some good time exploring nature while we were there.  Here are a few of the things we experienced while there.

You can't go to Yellowstone without seeing Old Faithful.  It was both old and faithful.

Mom was standing next to the sign and said, "They should have a sign that says when it will erupt next."  We may have mocked her at that point.  Here Justin is showing us the sign that they should have.

Justin doesn't have a spouse, so he is cuddling with the sign.  But aren't we all so precious?

It's important to smoke the geyser.

In Yellowstone, the women's bathroom is primarily for robots who have one wheel instead of legs.

Justin likes to photobomb precious river selfies.

We found some waterfalls.

The shady side of this rock was nice and cool, so it was important to cuddle with it.

Quake lake is a lake created when an earthquake broke the dam.  It is filled with creepy dead trees.

Clearly I needed a selfie at quake lake.

"Selfies with wolves" sounds like a good movie title.

I even played patty cake with a bear.

Don't worry, we didn't forget to see Justin perform.  Look how precious he is!

They don't allow pictures during the show, but he was singing while people were coming in to be seated, and no one told me I couldn't get a picture of that.

During intermission he was selling concessions.  He even gave me free popcorn.

Of course, we didn't spend the whole time playing in nature and watching great drama.  Mom made sure to put us to work.  Since the cast of the Playmill is super busy running the theater, Mom thought it would be really neat to feed them all lunch on Saturday, in between shows.  It was a super neat idea, but it was also very ambitious.  She made five lasagnas, a giant salad, and a billion cookies.

She put us to work frosting all the homemade oreo cookies.

The finished product was a mighty pile of cookies.

At the theater, we all formed an assembly line to put together plates and plates and plates of food, for over 30 people.

Since we were there serving and feeding everyone, we got the chance to explore some of the backstage.  That was kind of a fun experience as well.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip.  Justin's performances were great, and mother nature's performances were just as awesome.  It was also great to spend time with family staying in a condo together.  The trip was a smashing success, but it was sure nice to sleep in my own bed last night.