Easyish Hike at Ray Atkeson Loop Train at Sparks Lake in Bend, Oregon

We did this hike a week ago, but I didn't get around to blogging about it. We were looking for something around two miles that was relatively flat and this fit the bill. My Google search said that it was about 60 feet in elevation and 2.3 miles. We think it was longer and more elevation, but it was still relatively flat and close enough to 2.3 miles that we survived. This hike makes sort of a figure 8 loop so you have multiple options as far as how you want to walk it. The information I read, indicated that the best parts are on what I called the backside, but I wasn't really all that impressed with that side. It was mostly in the forest or in lava fields. There were times when we could see the mountains, but it was through the trees. It was also rather warm in most of this section. There was some snow on the ground still even in June.

This was my best shot from the backside part of the hike. 

It cooled off a bit once we got closer to the lake. The lake was ginormous and it was gorgeous! I could have taken more pics, but my battery was dying because I was also playing Pokemon Go as we walked. There were tons of Pokemon there. Most of them were Rock type Pokemon, but I'm not sure if that's because it was on a lava field or because the Rock type Pokemon event was going on at the time of our visit. There were a couple Pokestops in the parking lot, but I did not see any along the hike. I did not see any gyms.

I thought the layers of pollen looked really cool.

We did not see very many people during the hike. I think we saw one other group on the backside. We saw one group as we were approaching the center of the figure 8 part and we saw a couple groups as we got closer to the lake. There were a lot of people on the lake though.

Here's the map of the trail. The parking lot is on the right lower corner where it says toilet. We followed the solid line until the dotted line to left about an inch in. 

So my definition of the "backside" is the loop to the left. We started the hike and then took the first left. We did not take the shortcut. Then we hooked up with lake section of the loop and headed back to the car.

There was a vault type toilet there. It stunk sooooooooo bad! OMG people. You're supposed to put the lid down to help with that stench!

Easyish Hike to the top of Carpenter Mountain near Blue River, Oregon

Carpenter Mountain

It wasn't the best day to go to Carpenter Mountain, but we did it anyway! It was an amazing day and there are some crazy pictures that we wouldn't have gotten on a bright clear day. The path was really quiet and we only saw one other couple there. Who else would go to a viewpoint hike on such a cloudy, miserable day! We did get some really cool pictures, but I don't really suggest going to this hike on such a crappy day. We got drenched! It wasn't raining, but the path is very narrow and it's overgrown with bushes. All of those bushes were wet from the previous rain and also just from all the moisture in the air. If you do decide to go on a miserable day, make sure you pack extra clothes! 

So the book said this was a 2.2 mile hike with 900 feet of elevation. We were actually planning on doing a different hike, but they were actively logging that mountain. We could have waited 20 minutes for them to clear the road, but then we could have gotten stuck at the top of the mountain! We decided to bail on that and go to the hike that I actually wanted to do, but didn't think we could do since 900 feet over 1.1 miles sounded steep! I really wanted to try out our new Subaru Forester though and the book said something like "the increasingly rough road." It made me want to do this hike just to play with the car! The car did great on it! We did pretty well on the hike also. 

There's not much to say about the hike. My Polar M400 thinks the hike was only .8 miles up, but the book thinks it was 1.1. I'm not going to argue over the distance. The book said 900 feet, but it didn't feel like 900 feet. We must be getting better at this stuff. We stopped to take a bunch of pictures, but we didn't have to stop many times for breaks. About halfway up, there was a big field with a bunch of wildflowers. It was gorgeous. They had a bunch of hummingbird feeders which seemed odd, but whatever. Hubby saw a hummingbird, but I didn't. The path was really narrow in some spots, bu wider in others. The bush ground cover was probably the first third of a mile, but after that, it was wide enough to get through. 

There's a lookout tower at the top of this thing. I would not want to spend the night in this thing! There's an outhouse, but you have to walk down a scary rock to get to the outhouse. No Thank You! The lookout tower is on the tippy top and to get there, I pretty much crawled up this rock. To get down, I sat on my butt like a toddler going down stairs. It was sooooooo scary for me! 

We loved this hike and we didn't have many problems with it, but if you're just starting out, you might not want to try this one right away. I would also suggest bringing hiking poles for hiking newbies. The top of this thing is seriously scary. Hubby wasn't afraid, but I was! Maybe it's because I keep remembering the time when we went to some mountain and there was this patch of snow. We had to climb up and over it. I went up and almost went over the mountain. I ended up falling and then sliding. Not sure how I managed to stop sliding but I did. Then I was sitting there in the snow thinking, "How the hell am I going to stand up and not fall over this mountain?" I do okay with the up, but I bet nervous on the down. When you're going up, you have the opportunity to try your footing with the foot before you pick up the other foot, but when you're going down, if you miss step, there's not much you can do. The poles help though because you can poke around with the pole to find a good spot and then you've got three points of contact with the ground instead of just one. 

How to get there

If you want directions there, follow this link to traveloregon.com. I'd just end up getting you lost and I don't know if it's okay to copy their directions on here. It's way easier to just link to them.

Overall Comments

There were no restrooms at this location and it's a nice bumpy road there and back. Make sure you find someplace to pee before you go up there and find a quiet place off the path to take care of things before you get to the car. I tagged this as Easyish and the book we used called it Easy. We didn't need to stop for breaks very often and I wasn't in my pain the following day. My calves were sore, but that was it. However, another website tagged it as "very difficult." I wouldn't go that far, but maybe they are trying to keep people safe. This is one of those hikes that isn't really all that easy to classify. I'm 265 pounds and made it up there, but I've been working out and hiking frequently for the past couple years. Use your own judgement on if you think you can handle it. Don't do anything crazy and make sure you wear good shoes. Don't go up there in flip flops! 

Polar M400 Screen Shots

I forgot the heart rate strap. Oh well. The Polar M400 agreed with the book on the elevation. That's a first! 

Gaia GPS Screen Shot

Gaia thinks the hike was a little longer than my Polar M400 and had a little less elevation. I will say though that I know I never moved 4.2 MPH on this hike and it seem to think I did so there's obviously a flaw with it somewhere. 

Challenging Hike to the top of Tumalo Mountain in Bend, Oregon

Tumalo Mountain

We had a three day weekend so we didn't have to cram our hike into a trip to the valley! YAY! We went to the valley on Saturday, hike on Sunday, and did grocery shopping and meal prep on Monday. I didn't work at my day job and I didn't edit for my second job! I didn't work for three days! I did update the blog and I did do food prep, but pretty much everything I did, I did for me or hubby! It was amazing! I'm sure I'll have guilt later. Anyway, hubby decided that our hike would be up Tumalo Mountain. I'm not really sure what he was thinking! It's a mile and a half up hill! (Turns out it's longer than that, but what's a half mile among friends!)

How to get there

The trailhead is at the Dutchman Sno Park on Cascade Lakes Highway. If you're heading from Bend, it's just after the first Mount Bachelor entrance. It's on the right. The parking lot is fairly large, but it's still a good idea to get there early since it's a very popular spot!

The Hike

There's not a lot to say about this hike. It's about two miles uphill. The book said that it was 1.75 miles. The trailhead said that it was 1.5. Our GPS watches said that it was 2 miles. The book said that it was 1200 feet in elevation. Gaia GPS shows that it was closer to 1400 feet. What's 200 feet among friends though! 

The trail is a relatively narrow trail for most of the hike. Most of it is also on that loose sandy ash that we're not fans of. I'm tired of coming back from a hike with filthy feet! I need to wash my hiking boots after all of these ashy hikes! I'm not sure how we keep picking hikes with this miserable terrain. The first half of the trip up has some good tree cover and then it's pretty much out in the open. We got some interesting burn patterns. There are parts of this hike that are pretty steep. It started out steep and then was somewhat decent, but then it got pretty steep at the end. We stopped a lot on the way up. There's not that much to look at on the way up. The views from the top are worth the trip. On the way down, you get to see Mt. Bachelor a lot. 

We got there at 8:00 in the morning. It was 41 degrees! I was sooooooo cold to start out, by the time we got to the top, it was warming up a bit, but it was pretty windy up there so I was still pretty chilly. On the way down, the wind wasn't as bad and I started to get a bit warm. I'm glad we went as early as we did. We didn't run into many people on the way up, but we ran into a lot of people on the way down. I would not want to do that hike in the heat of the afternoon sun!

From the top, you get amazing views of the two of the Sisters and Broken Top. From a different angle, you get an amazing view of Mt. Bachelor. The views really were worth the trip up there. At the start, we said we were going to make it to the top of that thing if it took all day. On the way down, we kept thinking, "How the heck did we make it to the top of that thing?" There were some crazy steep parts to this! Without our poles, I doubt we would have made it. 

Overall Thoughts

We were happy that we did it, but we have no huge desire to do that one again! There are some amazing views up there, but it's 2 miles uphill and some of it is pretty steep! It's also a fairly busy trail head. There's not much to look at along the way to the top. It was pretty similar to climbing to the top of Black Butte, but I was in much better shape, so it wasn't as torturous to me. It would be nice to get up there when there was still a lot of snow on the mountains, but the top of this thing is only about 1300 feet below the top of Bachelor, so timing being able to get to the top of Tumalo while Bachelor still has snow all over it, might be a bit of a challenge. We might try and figure that out next spring though to see if we can get some snow covered shots.

Restrooms

There is a single stall vault toilet at the trailhead. 

Polar M400 Screen Shot

Here's the map of the hike from my Polar M400. 

Gaia GPS Screen Shot

Here's the elevation chart for Tumalo Mountain from Gaia GPS.