Oregon: Day 3

Keith and I spent the afternoon (well, about 7-8 hours) driving along Highway 242 which follows an old stage coach trail from the 1800's deep into the Oregon Cascade Mountains. No, this isn't the official Oregon Trail but it sure felt like it! The speed limit was seriously 15-25 mph the entire time and the road was the most curvaceous road I've ever driven. Our first stopping point was Dee Wright Observatory which is a great vantage point to see the lava fields which formed from the Belknap Shield Volcano. My dad took me here probably 15 years ago and I wanted to be sure to show Keith this part of Oregon since it is unlike anything I've ever seen before. You can see Mt. Hood, the Three Sisters, Mt. Washington and a lot of others that I can't recall all from this one spot.

We weren't able to stand the cold very long since we really weren't dressed for the part so we headed back to the car to find Proxy Falls along Highway 242. Stopping at what we thought was the falls, we hiked for 30 minutes and couldn't find anything and come to find out, we had stopped at a trail to a lake instead of the falls. We headed one more mile down the road and finally found the falls. It was almost a 2 mile hike to see the falls but very worth it!

Lower Proxy Falls

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Upper Proxy Falls

Rushing a bit through these falls, we wanted to head to the hot springs just down the road about 30 minutes but as soon as we headed away from the falls, we stopped dead in our tracks and waited for over an hour due to a motorcycle wreck around the corner. Luckily everyone was ok but since we were so far from both the town of Sisters and Springfield, we had to wait forever for US Forest Services, police cars and ambulances to reach the wreck. Finally one lane was opened for thru traffic and we made our way back to civilization and stopped at the hot springs. These weren't the hot springs I remembered because you had to pay to use a hotel pool that I guess was heated by the hot springs underground. We opted to just look around and take in the sights. I talked to my dad later that night and he forgot to tell me the hot springs we really should have gone to was by Cougar Lake and you have to hike in to see and enjoy them. Unfortunately for us it was already dark and they are closed at night so we headed back home exhausted from the day!