Oregon Coast
August, 2015 - we rented two giant Suburbans and the twelve of us began our caravan around Oregon. For obvious reasons, Anna Claire named our bus "Clifford."
We started the journey in Portland but didn't spend a lot of time there until the end of the trip. The first few days took us to the coast through Newport, Bandon, and down to the Redwoods in Northern California.
Yaquina Bay Bridge
Had dinner the first night in Newport, right across the Bay from the Rogue Nation Brewery and had our first taste of some Oregon Craft Beers.
Yaquina Head Lighthouse and Marine Garden
Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate with us. Our days on the coast were mostly covered in fog. I've always found that dense fog made for some nice black and white images though.
Bryce was trying to swim...
Mt Yale, Colorado 14ers
If you are going to be a bear....be a grizzly! After hiking four 14ers in one day, why not finish off the weekend with a monster at Mt Yale!
Mt Yale is almost 10 miles round trip. We didn't get quit as early a start this day. The drive was much further away and lets face it, we were tired! It was actually almost sunrise when we started, so not ideal for this long of a hike. The weather almost caught up with us but we got a little lucky.
This was my 5th 14er and I'll probably admit, one of the most difficult. The real challenge was probably the last 1.5 miles. That's where almost all the elevation gain was and it was all bouldering over some challenging rock faces. We lost the trail a bunch of times so you end up making your own.
If you expand this picture below, you'll see two people in red that are hard to see. No - that's not us. But it was eventually. You can see how hard it is to find your way across this part on the way to the summit.
And then going around boulders like this was very tricky. I say that...and then sure enough there was a dog and 5 year old kids that came up behind me so go figure. Guess I'm getting older - ha!
My favorite summit so far. Perhaps because it was one of the most difficult. I might even argue that this one 14er was harder than the four peaks we did on the previous day. Sarah says I have to do it again since she wasn't there with us...