Oregon is beautiful!

Last weekend we had a change in plans, so took advantage of the time for some hiking and sightseeing in the Cascades!

First, we stopped at Little Niagara Falls -- a day stop on the way up Highway 22:

There was a patch of inside-out flowers near the parking area.

The river comes rushing around this corner, and goes into a narrow, rocky canyon. Most of it is blocked off, for too many lives have been lost there. Turn of the century, there was a little village and mill there...

The picture above is some of the old stone structure that looks like it used to be part of the walkway to the overlook.

Next came the hike. We got a permit and hiked into Pamelia Lake -- it's beautiful! Lots of wildflowers -- pictures are Bunchberry, Reggie on the old trail, looking up through the old-growth forest, a Fairyslipper orchid, yellow violets, some scrambling where the old trail got changed by glacier fall last November, Reg back on the old trail, and 2 views of Pamelia Lake.

This last picture is from Hunter Creek trail, where we found some rocks on which to eat our picnic lunch. See those big, fluffy clouds? By the time we finished eating, they were getting bigger and darker, and there was one thunder roll after another! Beautiful, but we weren't wanting to be out in a downpour, so we headed back the 3.5 miles or so back to the car.

Next stop was where the Metolius River emerges from the ground. It was still dark, with awesome lightning, but not real rain when we parked the car. So off we went, with photos: the full-size river from the beginning, a cute little chipmunk drinking from algae water (ewwww), and Ponderosa forest on this side of the Cascades.

Next, we thought we'd head back toward the Willamette Valley going over McKenzie Pass, but we got to Sisters and found out that the road was still closed due to snow. So, we did the next fun thing -- we drove down to Redmond then north to Mt. Hood. It was lightning and sometimes pouring rain almost all the way to Mt. Hood, but soon we could see that the mountain still had sunshine on it!

We drove up to Timberline Lodge, and admired the views. The lightning storm got closer and closer. We headed back down to Portland from there...

We got to see a lot of Oregon on June 2, 2007!