Week 35 - Wahtum Lake, Oregon - August 28 to September 3, 2023
This week was the last "Birthday Hike" for this summer - it was Shelby's turn, and Travis came with us. Tyler didn't make it this year...he went with Jessica.....taking Camille, Bjorn, and Evan back to BYU for the next school year.
How do you start any trip that begins on Highway 26 near Sandy? At Joe's Donuts!
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We had two choices for a route to get to Wahtum Lake....we chose to take the Lolo Pass Highway that turns north off of Hwy 26 at ZigZag. It was a great road and a fun drive. When we got to the parking lot this is what it looked like.
And off we went. It was only about a mile to get to the lake (sounds like a good place with young grandchildren next year).We came to a trail sign that said "short cut trail to lake". Well, it may have been shorter in length, but the trail was a series of steps all the way down...it was brutal. Note to selves, don't come back this way.
We checked out campsites along the lakeshore, and none of them looked big enough for Travis' tent. Then we came to the junction with the Eagle Creek Trail (about 16 miles to the Columbia River)
Our campsite!
Shelby is pretty comfy
Our water source was the outlet from the lake, just a few steps from our tent. Travis spent a lot of time improving the access to the water....actually he just obsessed at being a facilities engineer.
Tuesday - the blue sky had disappeared overnight, and we woke up to cold weather, a cloudy sky and persistent mist.
We were calmly eating dinner around our Jet Boil when the rain finally arrived. We quickly (very quickly) transferred to the tent where we discovered that there was a small river flowing through the tent - granted the water was under the ground cloth.
Travis was fantastic - with one of his big knives he dug a trench around the tent and diverted the water away so we could sleep peacefully.
Wednesday - we woke to more clouds and mist....time to go. You can see the dry footprint of the Tipi.
Heading back. Maybe some fishing.....maybe some exploring.
Travis is trying to catch some fish in this spot.
We ended at Dairy Queen
Friday September 1 - my 77th birthday. When asked where I wanted to go for breakfast or for lunch, I decided on Sector 2 in our woods. We set up the round wooden picnic table, and Jude took down a bunch of chairs. Dad and I went to Albertson and got two bags of fried chicken, and W & W got two A&W root beer floats for us. Everything was going perfectly - good chicken and good pizza and good Wendy's. Unfortunately a hungry hoard of yellowjackets got wind of the picnic and barged in. Equally, unfortunately, I ate a yellow jacket along with a bite of chicken and the enraged insect stung me under my tongue. Honestly, it was awful. It felt like a pinch by red hot tweezers. Then another yellowjacket banged my upper lip. I was out! The photos don't really do justice.
Friday evening Abby came over and brought me a birthday cake she'd made herself! And she had some fried chicken with us.
Gotta have some kitten photos.
Jack checked out the truck - getting ready for his first trip to Canada.
The two kittens show their different styles of taking a midday nap.
I heard about this bee incident. I think picnics outdoors can't have meat or it's there are too many bees
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