Central Oregon – Not Your Average Engineer

June 12, 2017January 2, 2018

Camp Sherman and Around

On our last morning of our long birthday weekend, we checked out a few things around the general Camp Sherman area. We went up to the road closure on the McKenzie Pass Highway. The snow still is too high for the road to open.

Down a little lower where it’s already spring.

Up in one of the burn areas where a big fire swept through a number of years ago.

Looking north and west toward either Mount Jefferson or Three Finger Jack above the Metolius River close to the headwaters of the Metolius.

Down at Camp Sherman along the Metolius River.

Up at Shuttle Lake. There was a lot of wind coming across the lake.

Heading up into the clouds and the end of our long weekend in Central Oregon.

June 11, 2017January 2, 2018

Cold Spring Campground and Around

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.

Heather making some pancakes the next morning.

June 11, 2017January 2, 2018

Orbiting Newberry Crater and Exploring China Hat

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!