Oregon 2015

Nicole and I headed to Oregon for a 10 day adventure that included hikes to many waterfalls, mountains, breweries, rivers, and Smith Rock. On our trip we met up with some good friends along the way and enjoyed the sites throughout!

Here are some of the places we visited and pictures that you will find below:

• Mount Hood National Forest
• Columbia River Gorge
• Astoria
• Cannon Beach
• Pacific City
• Bend 
• Smith Rock
• Metolious River
• Portland
• Tillamook

Words can not describe the trip, so here is a photo gallery to do it justice!

South Peak on Pawtuckaway

The snow conditions today were perfect, no ice and a great crisp air crunch to it. As for the trail, Pawtuckaway State Park offers well marked easy to moderate trails that all lead to somewhere fantastic such as the summit of South Peak.

As we parked (Nicole, Han Solo and I) we headed down the road to the Round Pond Trail where we cut off to the Mountain Trail. Both trails were well groomed by the snow mobiles as we saw quite a few crews buzzing around; by the way they were awesome and very courteous to the hikers.

After a mile of hiking on the Mountain Trail we took a right up the South Ridge Trail where we shortly ended up after a .6 mile moderate climb in waist deep snow at the fire tower.

Unfortunately the snow shoe people did not pack it down yet and we did not bring our snow shoes but hey, what is a bit more of a workout. After a short break and some pictures at the summit we headed back.

We decided to bushwhack the backside of the mountain where we meandered around the ice cliffs until meeting back up with the Mountain Trail again. The snow was deep and fluffy with an ice base on the backside so it was a bit slippery but we fared well in our micro spikes. Our hike back was just in time for the snow to start falling. All in all a perfect day out finished with a trip to Tuckaway Tavern for some after hike food and brews.