Gans River Creek Park, Columbia, Missouri 20 March 2014

Andrea, Carolyn, and I - plus Kovi went to Gans River Creek Park, Columbia, MO for a beautiful warm spring day hike.  The woods were completely brown and there was not a flower blooming yet, but it was still beautiful and the views were unobstructed by leafed out trees.  The limestone creek beds were inviting to Kovi who enjoyed wading in up to his belly.

the eastern cedar is an invasive species

open understory

creek

heading up to a bluff

view of trees as far as you can see

cool limestone bridge

Crater Lake 24 March 2014

A sunny, warm, weekday Spring break day required a drive to Crater Lake.  It is a long drive, but I had wanted to see it in the snow.  Southern Oregon is at 40% of snow pack for the winter, so the visit wasn't what a typical March day would look like.  It was still pretty and because it was Monday and we got their at 10:30a, there weren't many people about.  We headed in the direction of Garfield Peak and snow-shoed until it got too steep.  Then we turned around and snow-shoed down the road past Discovery Pt until we had to turn around in order to get back home at a decent time.  The grade is enough that, with the altitude (7000ft), going uphill is a good workout.  It was a beautiful day.  Our Creator God is amazing!

heading towards Garfield Peak

looking south

the snow on the roof was melting in the warm sun

heading back from Discovery Pt

our lunch spot

cool rocks

Smith Rock State Park 14 March 2014

Smith Rock State Park is an amazing place! Apparently rock climbers come here from all over the world.  I can see why.
It was raining everywhere but Smith Rock so I headed east.  Drove through 2 hours of rain, fog, snowy hillsides to come out to the desert to find beautiful dry skies.  The clouds were nice for adding drama to the lighting. An hour into the hike the wind picked up and was quite gusty at times.
I didn't see too many people and the ones I did see were running the trail. The grade on most of the trails was pretty much straight up/down and on top of that there are rocks on the trails that make them very slippery.  Not sure how anyone runs them.
I had wanted to hike the Chute trail to Misery Ridge, north on Mesa Verde, continue on Summit Loop to Burma Road, then take a trail Sullivan called a steep switchback down to the river, over to Wolf  Tree to the River Trail around to Mesa Verde again and back up and down Misery Ridge.  After going up Misery Ridge, I didn't think I wanted to do that again, so I considered just going around to Mesa Verde and then turning around.  But, all my photo stops meant I was going slower than usual and I was concerned it was still raining in the pass, so I just hiked a short ways on the River Trail.  Enough to see the climbers!  No rain on the way home.  A super day!

Smith Rock and the Crooked River

heading up Misery Ridge

looking down from the top of the Ridge (north east)

more from the top

heading across the top of the ridge and looking southwest

Monkey Face and Crooked River

a user trail off of Summit Trail Loop took me to this view

from Summit Trail Loop looking southwest (Black Butte)

taking that little steep switchback trail led to being in a canyon surrounded by interesting rocks

climbers on the River Trail

from the River Trail

Angel's Rest 8 March 2014

Becky, Bethany and I head out in the rain at 9:30a for a Gorge hike at Angel's Rest.  The weather report said 10 % chance of rain by 11a, but apparently it was starting earlier.  It was not bad.  Silly me, I expected the lot to be empty and to have the whole place to ourselves because of the rain, but no!  The lot was overflowing and people were parking everywhere.  Only in Oregon!  We set out, enjoying the rushing creeks and Coopey falls.  The trail is short with an option for a longer loop, but since it was raining and only supposed to get worse, we decided to just make our destination Angel's rest.  It is a 4.6 mil RT hike with  1500 ft gain.  All along the way we passed people on their way down, and getting to the top we saw people end to end on the "mesa".  It was raining harder by this time, but we braved the elements and found a nice rock with a view for our snack.  Took some final photos and headed down the, now, quite wet and muddy trail.  Some parts were little streams.  Despite the clouds and moisture, it was a beautiful day.

Coopey Falls

Looking northwest over the Columbia River

lots of folks enjoying the view

the 'mesa'

the mesa in pano

heading back

looking towards where we had lunch