We drove around through the forest between Camp Sherman, Sisters, and the closed gate on the McKenzie Pass Highway looking for a decent spot to spend the night. Higher up, there was quite a bit of snow on the ground.
There were some really cool views like this one of Black Butte.
Storm clouds kept churning around us and we didn’t want to end up setting up a tent in the rain.
In the end we ended up back down at Cold Spring Campground for the evening. We found a nice spot that was fairly secluded to setup our stuff.
We decided to orbit Newberry Crater on the outside of the rim to check out some of the scenery. Along the way we went up to the top of China Hat. This is somewhere south of Paulina Creek.
Heading through the lodgepole pine forests. There was snow on the ground above about 5500 feet.
We figured we’d check out the south side of Newberry Crater Road. We got within about a mile of the summit before the snow got too deep, just like we found on the other side earlier.
This was our turn-around spot. Above here, the drifts started getting more than two feet tall and we were at risk of getting stuck. Since we were alone, we decided against that course of action.
We went all the way to the top of China Hat where we found a little blizzard going on.
The road to the top is pretty overgrown. We ended up with a lot of snow on our roof rack from all of the low hanging trees.
Coming down from the top China Hat in the snow.
The snow thinned out a little lower on the mountain.
We ended up going all the way around Newberry Crater and out into the high desert sagebrush north of Bend.
This is a really beautiful area that is wide open.
Up on top of a low pass between some mountains as we head back toward Bend.
A storm was brewing as we rolled through the sagebrush. There are so many interesting places to explore over here!
