This is a bit of a go-back in time but the day at the Lava Cast Forest was too impressive not to mention. The Lava Cast Forest is a lava flow located in the Newberry National Volcanic Monument and it is actually casts of trees set in lava where trees were growing once upon a time when the most recent lava flow moved through the area many thousands of years ago. It’s kind of like plaster of Paris with lava and trees.
I guess if you are posting about June trips during the second week of July that means you are a bit behind. Such is life in the summer, days are long but they fill up with all kinds of things. We traveled to the west side of Oregon with a couple of objectives, and we actually over achieved.
We launched out of central Oregon on Friday afternoon with hopes of finding a spot to camp on the way to Opal Creek. Turns out we ended up passing our stopping point but were lucky enough to realize it was the best thing going and we turned around and claimed it after a bit of exploring and backtracking. This old logging landing on a ridge turned out to be one of the best camp spots ever. It was full of blooming bear grass, rhododendron, penstemon and several other wildflowers all in full bloom on a forest ridge with nobody around and as it turned out, nobody passed the entire time we were there.
