Beach walks 30 January 2016

Rain, snow, wind, off and on sun...what is a person to do? So I went to the coast. It rained a lot while I was in the car but not a drop while on the beaches. I visited several, most new to me. It was a beautiful day - the clouds and rainbows were gorgeous!  The waves were quite impressive too. My first stop was the pullouts on the Otter Crest Loop, Devil's Punchbowl (tide wasn't low enough to get to the punchbowl), Yaquina Head Lighthouse, Ona State Park, and finally Yaquina Bay State Park.

from Otter Crest Loop

a pull out after Otter Crest

Yaquina Head Lighthouse

Cool rock beach at Ona State Park

Ona 

Ona eventually turned to sand again

Ona rocks

The rocks had rocks inside of rocks

Beaver river emptying into the ocean at Ona

Yaquina Bay State Park

nice view of the bridge in Newport from that park

Three Creeks Sno Park 18 Jan 2016 (day 4 of 4)

Monday - sun!  It was in the 20's when we started out - lots of ice on the roads but we made it up to the upper sno park okay. There were a few cars in the lot, several looked like they had been there all night. It had rained the day before even at 5000 ft, so the snow was very crunchy. As we got to 5800 ft,or so there was new powder.  The hike follows a pretty wide road and views of the Sisters open up pretty early on. The trees are relatively sparse compared to the sno parks off Hwy 20. You even hike through a burn. The trees are blackened and contrast beautifully with the white snow. The views were great - we saw all the volcanoes from Mt Bachelor and Broken Top to Mt St Helens and Mt Hood. We hiked on the Jeff View trail to the hut then returned on the Jeff View Tie and Nancy's Loop.
Three Creeks Sno Park (Upper) map
5.7 mi 900 ft gain

starting out

views of the Sisters

views of Jack, Jeff, and Hood

The warming hut

driving home in the pass...the sky was so pretty

Steelhead Falls and Smith Rock 17 Jan 2016 (day 3 of 4)

Rain on Sunday too. We started slowly and then headed northeast to check out Steelhead Falls on the Deschutes River. It is a popular hike and fishing spot but we pretty much had the place to ourselves. The light was terrible for pictures, but we still enjoyed the lovely falls and the interesting canyon rock sculptures. After Steelhead we went over to Smith Rock for a quick hike up and over the rocks leading to the view of Monkey Face then around the back side coming down Burma Road. The light was not great, but Smith Rock is always beautiful with all the views and cool rocks. Very few people out there at that time of day. The back side of the trail was very muddy as it had recently been snow covered and had not dried out.

Out and back hike
Steelhead Falls map
2.1 miles 375ft gain
Loop
Smith Rock map
6..05 mi 2000ft gain

Steelhead:

a Paddle Park on the Deschutes we saw on the drive to our destination

the canyon

Steelhead falls

 

these rocks looked like man made carved structures

lots of layers

Smith Rock

Red Rock

Monkey Face from the base

Snow on Gray Butte

mud!

Badlands, OR 16 Jan 2016 (day 2 of 4)

Saturday brought rain and snow so after an attempt to snowshoe at Newberry Volcanic Monument, we drove east to the Badlands. We had some rain at first then it cleared up. We did two hikes: the first one was on the Dry River Trail where we hiked the dry river canyon from the eastern end to the western end and resumed our trek back to the car via the Dry River Trail. There are petroglyphs on the cave walls somewhere but we didn't see them. The walls of the canyon are 40ft high.
After hiking there, we drove to the Flatiron trailhead because we were running out of daylight. We hiked there on a 6 mi out and back trail.
Dry River Map - we made the detour because we took a left at the wrong "three boulders" Sullivan talked about in his book
3.3 mi 132 ft gain
Flatiron trail map (ignore the driving)
6 mi 300 ft gain

we saw three upturned cars driving towards Bend

Juniper and grass in the Badlands

moss pillows

the dry river canyon

flatiron rock area

view from Flatiron rock

natural arch