Finally, some sunshine!
We had blue skies on the drive up and I thought we were golden. But somehow, Dad and I managed to track down the singular cloud hanging over Oregon and spent a couple of hours snowshoeing into it. I took him up the ridge directly to the East of Boyscout ridge, climbing higher and higher hoping to get above said cloud. But it never happened.
On our way back down Mt Hood… beautiful weather.
I took my dad to Silver Falls today. He'd never been and I've never seen it so empty. We stopped at the lodge afterwards, where they were giving out free pie and hot cider.
Happy Holidays!
After Sunday's tough hike, I wasn't sure that I wanted to be back on the trail quite so soon. But my dad was in town for a folk dancing event, and he wanted to get a hike in. Falls Creek Falls seemed to fit the bill, since it's pretty short and easy. We left Portland in the rain, and arrived to cloudy skies (thankfully, no rain) at the trailhead. I was surprised by how good I felt once we started walking. No soreness at all! The last month of training hikes was paying off.
We passed a small handful of people descending on the way to the waterfall, but had the place to ourselves for at least a half hour once we got there. Falls Creek Falls is always a spectacle. It was at full cascade from the snowmelt. Then the sun came out and made the scene even more beautiful. I was playing with some cheap resin filters from the late 1970s that I picked up a while ago, and got some horrifically sentimental portraits of my dad. I'm not sure that I like the look, but I'm sure that I could find some use for it in my work.
On the way back, we saw a herd of about two dozen elk on the side of the road, which was a first for me in the PNW.
