Watch out for bears!

Hitting the trail, we quickly noticed that the way we have distributed the weight in our backpacks was not going to work.

Thus we decided to stop, unpack and reorganize the weight inside the backpacks.Iif you run into the same problem, make sure that the heavy stuff is loaded against your lower back.What a difference it made, we were able to accelerate the pace and after 3 hours and 30 minutes hike, we reached the Clay hill lodge (http://www.clayhilllodge.com/)

There, we asked the owners for some water and they were extremely nice even though we were only passing by.We had planned to spend the night at the Brushy Bar campground located 2.8 miles from Clay Hill Lodge. However, the lodge owners recomended us to stay at the Tacoma Campground instead. This turned out to be a wise choice.

To be continued...

Into the wild Rogue River

We started to explore the wild and scenic Rogue River on saturday afternoon after finally finding our way to Foster bar. (Note to myself, do not always trust Google maps).

Thanks to a very nice and helpful campground host on highway 42 (mile 40), we were able to take the right way and the shortcuts to Foster Bar.

In Foster Bar we parked our car at Rogue River's trailhead, there we loaded our backs with our backpacks weighting respectively 42 and 30 lbs. And then...To be continued....

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En camino a Roseburg Oregon

En este momento vamos llegando a Roseburg oregon. Aqui vamos a dormir y manana en la manana estaremos llegando a Rogue River en donde estaremos acampando hasta el lunes

April 12th 2008: the videos!

On the road again - going to the High Desert through Mt Hood

In Cove Palisades State Park - Meeting new friends

Making Fire - Part I and Part II

American Tradition

April 12th: Camping and Hiking in Cove Palisades State Park

Every one in Oregon was speaking about the coming weekend: it was going to be sunny and warm. Ok, this may sound unnoticeable for some of you, but for us, Oregonian, it was THE news of the week.

We already decided that we would go camping somewhere. One of my colleagues recommended me to go to the High Desert in Oregon, namely to the Cove Palisades State Park, located 3 hours southeast from Portland. Off we went. And we were not disappointed.

Outside temperature: 25 degrees Celsius or 77 degrees Fahrenheit

Main hike: Tam-a-Lau (A Native American phrase meaning "place of big rocks on the ground")
Elevation gain: 600 ft or on the first mile
6 miles round trip
Difficulty: moderate-easy

Click here to download the map of the trail in google earth and to have a complete description of the trail

Here comes the trail in 3D

And some pictures...










What we learned:
- it is very easy to make a fire when being in the desert and having a LOT of dry tinders. Duh.
- Claustrophobia is still there when trying to sleep in the sleeping bag. But claustrophobia doesn't prevent the schnarchen bear to take action. Guess who is the bear.
- If there is no rabbit, look up and you will see the falcons

Wir gehen weg...

Irgendwo in Oregon...

The first person to guess will get a gift from me. Or maybe not.




Stay tuned....

Blushing wife...

April 5th 2008 - Gillette Lake in WA

This place was really nice and it had a very simple beauty.

But as always the best of this hike was the company I had......my wife

April 5th 2008 - Gillette Lake in WA

Due to a business trip for Ivan to Detroit, and due to the Governor's conference I had to attend on Sunday, we decided to postpone our next camping adventure, and to explore again the Columbia Gorge, but this time, from a Washingtonian point of view.

It was an easier hike, because the elevation gain was not too much. We kicked arsch and we needed only 1 hour to reach the lake and one hour to come back to the car. 2.7 miles per hour is not so bad in the wilderness....

Length: 5.4 miles round trip or 8.4 km
Elevation Change: 180 ft gain

Here you find the description of the trail:

And here comes some pics...