Slow Road from Az to N Id, indirectly…

[AbleGuy]

A hike on a hot day in the Cascade foothills​

First we got detoured house sitting the cabin on the island, then we got detoured house sitting a small place out in the woods south of Bend, Oregon…and now we’ve detoured again to stay in this tiny house (@325 sq ft) while we work on repairs and some necessary landscaping improvements on a couple of rental homes here.



But today was Sunday, so no rehabbing work. Instead, we decided to do a little exploring. Driving a bit west towards the Cascade foothills on a way too dang hot day for this generally cool area (it was over 100° in the open sun), we found a place to pull over and park by a small, noisy clear stream and headed out on a well marked trail through the woods.




Distracted immediately by an impressive variety of pretty but past prime wildflowers, we simply wandered off ill prepared into the forest on a ‘supposed to be short, leg stretching walk’. About an hour and a half later, mildly dehydrated, hungry and well bitten by mosquitoes, we arrived back at our rig happy to head back to town for dinner.



When I write ill prepared, I mean that we had only grabbed one water bottle, had no bug juice and I had worn my crocs, not my usual hiking boots. Normally I would have grabbed my always well equipped day pack that I keep ready to go sitting on the back seat of the rig, loaded with 2 rain jackets, a compass and whistle, some power bars, 2-3 water bottles, a small first aid kit, mosquito and tick repellent, binoculars, bear spray, etc…



It was the flowers’ fault we meandered off thoughtlessly Anyway, all’s well that ends well, right? But we did find an amazing variety of wildflowers including: purple lupine, orange Indian paintbrush, red and yellow columbine, yellow sticky geraniums, purple-maroon pea vine, yellow salsify, pink Alberta roses, while and pink clovers, white yarrow, white northern bedstraw, pale pumpkin orange mountain trumpets (collomia), blue eyed grass, aster daisies, Oregon checker bloom, hoary alyssum and a few others I wasn’t able to id yet.

 

[AbleGuy]

We also saw purple Oregon grape and red wild currants, and one especially interestingly odd looking plant called woodland pinedrops (a root parasite that’s a member of the Indian pipe family). Most of the flowers were too faded and well past their prime to be worth photographing.





We walked along the clear cold, fast moving stream the whole way,

going through patches of fat, tall ponderosa pines (the most widely distributed pine species in North America) and small groves of quaking aspen.





Ponderosa means ‘heavy pine’ in Latin but I always tell people it means ‘red face’ because of its reddish orange bark! We also tell gullible tourists that the best way to id this huge conifer is to walk right up to it, lean forward and stick your nose into the bark (watch out for ants!) and sniff the tree.

If you do this on a hot dry day and detect the scent of vanilla, it’s a ponderosa! And when others nearby laugh at you for doing that, you’ll probably be embarrassed and have a ‘red face’ (hence my definition of ponderosa).

 

[AbleGuy]

A big fire years ago killed some of these majestic big trees, and even though they usually will survive a fast moving fire because of the protection from their very thick bark, some did eventually succumb to that hot blaze.



Staying along the stream gave us much more comfortable, lower temperatures to enjoy, with the moister air in the shade probably making it 20° cooler than being out in the full sun.


We stumbled across this weird fairy worshipping circle off the main trail 😳


The next generation of ponderosa refilling the forest years after the last big conflagration roared through here

 

[AbleGuy]

I hope these pictures of the cooler forests in the Pacific Northwest offer a bit of inspiration and encouragement to some of you guys living elsewhere who are suffering through the brutal heatwave currently afflicting folks in much of the rest of the states today.

Just keep in mind that here in the west the unparalleled beauty and uncrowded, raw wild of our mountains still offer sweet relief and call out their siren song to you, all the frustrated adventurers weary of urban strife and oppressive heat…

 

[84FLH]

View attachment 783274
Childhood home of Butch Cassidy, Utah north of Panguitch, Sevier River Valley

View attachment 783276

Good ole' Leroy Parker! Awesome pics. Keep it up, AG!

 

[AbleGuy]

A late post celebrating our nation’s Independence Day and one local enduring display of our flag. It always fills my heart with love for this country when I see Old Glory fluttering in the wind so prominently and so proudly.

 

[AbleGuy]

Still stalled in central Oregon working on rental homes. A cold, clear shallow river runs right through the center of town. Here’s what others are doing here on a hot day like yesterday

 

[AbleGuy]

Here's what nature rewarded us with yesterday on our long daily hike in the early evening along along this river....a hummingbird moth!



This clear picture is from the web. The one hovering by the purple petunias is from my phone



We watched this small bird sized moth hovering in the entrance to these flowers as it unrolled its long, curled up proboscis and inserted it deeply into the center of the flower, taking long gulping drinks of nectar

All this wonderful drama played out at ankle level, once again reminding us that much of the beauty and awesome experiences of the natural world often are missed by hikers walking in a hurry or those only scanning the horizon in front of them.

 

[AbleGuy]

Pictures we shot on a hike along the river of the mesmerizing, strange foamy natural artwork created in back eddy’s of swirling green water.

Beauty is ever present in nature in so many ways…one just has to keep an eye out for it also in odd, unexpected places.

 

[AbleGuy]

It’s cooler down by the river today. Otherwise, forecast is nasty…97°. Hot everyday these days. But not down by the river.

 

[AbleGuy]

Sorry, but there’s not too much exciting going on to share right now. We’re still not back on the road to northern Idaho at the moment because we’re still detoured and stuck in central Oregon working on rehabbing a rental home.

But hey, life is still good…it was Sunday yesterday right? So we took a break on another too hot day, returned to the river again and got in @ a two hour hike along its cooling waters.

So here are a couple of pictures of that beautiful river around sunset last night.

 

[AbleGuy]

A couple more pictures of cool water for those of you sweltering elsewhere:

 

[Pacific Northwest yetti]

Thanks for sharing, I don’t know how I missed this thread earlier.

Wallowa lake is great! I agree, a lot to do up that way. The dog sled race from there is great, I also spent a few years taking horses into the backcountry from there.

Oh Bend, I do not miss you per say. Great location, as far as geography and adventure though.

Last time I was there, only a few years ago. You could float all the way through it, AND uber eats beer and tacos right to your float tube!

 

[Cummins_expo]

This got bummed for me as well - Enjoyed reading and viewing the photos

 

[AbleGuy]

Thx for your comments, guys. I ran out of steam in updating this thread…mainly because we were suddenly called back to continue house sitting on a small island in the Puget Sound. That launched a completely different adventure…

Eventually we returned to Central Oregon and hung around there until the smoke from numerous wildfires drove us homeward towards cleaner air.

I got so wiped out from the too many days of breathing bad smoky air that I had a cough that stayed with me for 6 months…didn’t go away until early this March!

When I get some time I’ll post a photo dump of the return route along the entire west coast…