Oregon Hikers

mjirving wrote: ↑

July 28th, 2020, 7:56 pm

Yep indeed. Although the spot I love in there is the big ass spaceship rock “football field” with the creek running through it.

You could literally play football there! And because it's ringed by higher terrain, it has built-in bleachers for spectators. Mike and I could be captains, and we'd pick our team from the oregonhikers roster. More realistically, it would be a fun place for something requiring less people, like maybe frisbee golf.

Anyway, as a summer camp site, I think it would be too dry. I don't even think you'd be close to snow this time of year.

I have pics of water running through the “field” on Aug 25th last year.

Okay, I retract my statement that you could play football there. Lots of flowers, lovely braided creeks. I don't think I've seen it like this. I think I've been here only late in the year, like oct/nov. Now I love this place even more!

This wasn't a planned trip. Early Sunday morning I was looking for something to do, and decided this was it. So with essentially no sleep, I packed up and hit the road, arriving at Cloudcap at 7am. It was a hot hike along the crowded trail, but I suffered through it knowing the cold zone awaited.

First creek I hit was silty, and I hadn't thought to bring a prefilter, but the football field was braided with strong-running clear creeks. Although I had other places I wanted to visit, this was a perfect campsite, so I dropped all the overnight gear and continued up and clockwise, revisiting some favorite Newton Clark sites.

When I finally returned, later than expected, it was windy and in the shade, the sun already behind hood. I discovered the football field was a bit damp under three inches of sand-and-gravel, and I worried slightly about seepage, but I decided it was drained well enough. (Indeed, the bottom of my footprint was just a little soppy in the morning, no problem. Overnight wind was more of a problem, as if pranksters were molesting my tent all night.)

With a couple hours left before total darkness, I played a little more, reminiscing about certain spots, remembering what they looked like when ice dams formed and created skating rinks (seems to be a common occurrence here).

I couldn't see the sunset from here, but I was treated to moonrise, full, tinted (maybe because of a fire I noticed earlier).

Awesome...love that spot.

Matt Zaffino, KGW meteorologist, tells of recently forgetting his sleeping bag! Funny, considering he was able to borrow three jackets plus a tent fly from his hiking partners, and considering his camp elevation, I'm confident he slept warmer than I did

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBZ-E0UJMMU