Loomis Adventures

Katie and I took a couple days off to enjoy a longer camping trip with our Mini-Adventurer. We planned on camping in our travel trailer along Barlow Creek near Barlow Crossing Campground. This weekend also happened to correspond with my friend's annual birthday camping trip, so it worked out perfect. Barlow crossing is located close to the junction of NF-43 and NF-48 South of Mt Hood. The actual campground is small with only four sites, but there are numerous dispersed camping sites farther down road 3530 along Barlow Creek.

After a disappointing several months looking for a new home, we finally made time to go camping with our one year old Mini-Adventurer. Katie and I decided to celebrate our 10 year anniversary with our son while staying in a yurt at Devil's Lake State Park near Lincoln City, Oregon. Normally we camp in a tent or our trailer, but decided to try something different. This was our first time in one of the many yurts available in campgrounds across Oregon.

I wanted to go out snowmobiling one more time this season before calling it quits this season. My friend John was back from vacation in Panama, so we decided to go riding Saturday out of Bennett Pass SnoPark. The snow is gone from all the lower elevation snoparks, so Bennett Pass was our only option. It's right across from Mt Hood Meadows at almost 4,700' in elevation. We often rider here early and late in the season as it's the first place snow falls and the last place it melts.

Even though it is officially Spring now, I am clinging to winter as long as I can. My reward for loyalty was some fresh snow in the mountains. My friend Nick and I took advantage and drove up to Frog Lake SnoPark early Sunday morning to go snowmobiling in the fresh snow.

After my scouting trip via snowmobile on Thursday afternoon, I decided to head back to Olallie Lake Scenic Area on Saturday to climb Olallie Butte. I have wanted to climb Olallie Butte in the winter for some time as I prefer snow and ice to dust and rocks. Olallie Butte is a shield volcano situated in the Oregon Cascades between Mt Jefferson and Mt Hood. At 7,215 feet tall it is the tallest peak between Mt Hood and Mt Jefferson. Most of it lies on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation land except for the Western flank where the trailhead is located.

Since Thursday afternoon was beautiful, I decided to make a quick drive to the Upper Clackamas for a snowmobile trip to Olallie Lake. I had never ridden this route and was curious what the snow conditions were currently like. We received about 10 inches of new snow earlier in the week before the sun came out and warmed things up again.

I finished rebuilding the fuel injected engine (top end) on our 2008 Polaris 700 Dragon RMK Friday night. During the rebuild, I discovered the previous owner didn't use Loctite® on the exhaust valve guillotines and after we put just over 100 miles on the sled, they loosened up and started hitting the pistons causing the engine failure. A local dealer said the sled was basically junk without a repaired engine. They gave me an estimate of $1,500-$2,500, so I decided to tackle the project myself.

Ever since learning about the Warm Springs Cabin on forest service road 42, I have wanted to snowmobile to it and spend the night. My cards finally lined up and I planned a trip this weekend with a couple friends. The Warm Springs Cabin is maintained by the Mt Hood Snowmobile Club. It's a log cabin with a concrete floor, large wood stove, and sleeping loft.

I had the day off Friday because I was planning on driving to Reno to visit family and go snowmobiling in the Sierras. Unfortunately there is still very little snow in that part of the country, so I booked a plane ticket to Reno on the same flight as my wife and our mini adventurer. That freed up Friday morning so I could take advantage of the fresh snow that had been falling on Mt Hood throughout the week. I met up with another snowmobiler at Frog Lake SnoPark with plans to ride out to Bonney Meadows which is on the Southeast side of Mt. Hood about 1.5 miles NW of Boulder Lake.