Dog Days, 2018

Labor Day is approaching and the long hot smoky days of summer draw are drawing to a close.  Fire season necessitates sticking close to home over the summer but there have been some chances to escape to a nearby lake or two, and even a couple of days on the coast.  Here’s a couple of shots from the last month or two of adventures.

Paulina Lake never disappoints with its blue water and beautiful sunsets.  The kokanee are pretty tasty too.

Sunset over Paulina

 

Before fires completely filled the sky with smoke later in August we were treated to a few nice color filled sunsets, including this one spotted on the way back from an evening trip to Paulina.

 

Smoky Sunset

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Wandering the Trout Creek Mountains, 2018

Every once in a while plans change.  This time around we’ll blame it on the weather.  We were all set to head to the lake and then the weather forecast came along saying snow.  Well, yeah, it’s possible to fish in the snow, but I know when to cut my losses.  And just like that we were off to the southeast corner of Oregon.

A trip to begin exploring the Trout Creek Mountains has been on the list for quite a while, but it takes a while to get there, and time is the typical limiting factor.  But we had a tree day weekend on our side, so off we went.  The first night we made it as far as Steens Mountain and enjoyed a good camp surrounded by yipping coyotes.  Then we were off to the Trout Creeks.

It’s tough to find a lot of information on the Trout Creek mountains.  It’s actually a bit of a challenge to even find an accurate map showing which roads are open and passable.  But we managed to improvise and get around.  This was after all and exploratory mission.

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