Last July, my dad and two younger brothers made a trip up here to see me and I had managed to talk H into letting us have a guys’ camping trip. So we headed out to Timothy Lake, which incidentally is the most popular camping spot in the area, and managed to snag a camp site at a place called Little Crater Lake. For those of you that are familiar with Oregon, Crater Lake is a cool destination just outside of Ashland. Little Crater Lake has absolutely nothing to do with and, as far as I could tell, shared nothing with its ‘older brother’. It was simply a campground.
As was the plan with any other family camping trip there were basically two goals: eat burgers at some point and hike as much as possible. So minutes after setting up the tents, we were off exploring Timothy Lake. I managed to get a pretty good photo of this pond (maybe Little Crater Lake?) a couple hundred yards from our campsite. It had eerily clear water.
And this trip also marked a first. The first time I ran from a tree.
Yep, and I’m not even ashamed to say it. As daylight dwindled and everyone at the campground settled in, my brother and I decided to take another stroll. On the way back he stopped and pointed into the woods and said ‘Is that a bear? That, Daniel, is a bear’ then proceeded to briskly leave the area. I stood for a minute trying to spot what he had thought was a bear and simultaneously spotted it, heard a rustling noise, and took off running. Half of me was vacating the area just in case there was indeed a bear, the other half was doing it just so I could catch up to my brother in a dead sprint to see what he’d do. Well he ran too. And after about a minute of running, we summoned up the courage to go back and take a picture and pat our bear on the head.
I mean come on, it kind of looks like a bear crouched down.
The next day I had actually mapped out a hike in an area more familiar to me. The Columbia River Gorge is jam packed full of waterfalls but Tamanawas was supposed to be one of the cooler ones.
On the way…
Annnd Tamanawas Falls
I had read in the description that it was possible, though not recommended, to trek into the cove behind the falls. So, even though I promised my family that I wouldn’t drag them anywhere that tennis shoes would be uncomfortable, I started climbing. These rocks were brutal and certainly qualified as uncomfortable, but in my defense I didn’t expect anyone to follow me up there.
If you look closely enough you can see my two brothers making their way up the rocks.
So we camped in the shadow of Mount Hood, strolled around Lake Timothy, got two hikes in, and saw Tamanawas Falls. Not bad for a weekend with the family.
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