Birthday Bash 2010

This post is a little late, but will recap the events of my birthday bash 2010. Adam and I, followed my Andrew and Maura, headed down to my family's vacation home in Sunriver, OR. As usual, we planned way more activities than what was feasibly possible. Our intended list included: mountain biking the McKenzie River Trail, Climbing South Sister, climbing at Meadowcamp, some low key spelunking in Boyd Cave, mtb Mrazek trail and a visit to Deschutes Brewery. So with that line up, we ventured off to Sunriver Thursday night in order to get a jump on the weekend. After a lazy start Friday morning, Adam and I pulled off Skyliner Rd around marker #5 of the Phil's Trail Network. Our plan was to cut off the Shevlin Park part of the trail and take some fireroads to by pass them. I think it was FR4606? Anyway, we ended up hike-a-biking part of the trail as a short cut, at the recommendation of some local shop guys in SR, that was a bad idea as it really worked us climbing out of the canyon. We finally bushwacked our way back to the Mrazek and continued all the way to cold water/clear creek (cant remember the name) before we were too tired and decided to turn around in order to get some climbing done at Meadowcamp. The ride back down Mrazek was amazing and definitely worth the slow, gradual, long climb to the top.This was half adventure #1.

Coming down Mrazek

We had climbed Meadowcamp before and had our eyes set on a specific route next to a little cove besides a big Ponderosa. Didnt have a guide book so we didnt know the rating. With light fading, Adam and I set up a top rope, but quickly realized that there was not enough light left to actually climbing the route so we cleaned the anchor and headed back to the car with the intent of coming back the following day.

Boyd Cave

That night, Andrew and Maura arrive and we continued the celebrations late into the evening with numerous games of beer pong and a weak attempt of the board game Imagin-iff. The next morning we got up and geared up for a climb of South Sister. But on our way, we decided to stop and climb down Boyd Cave for a little while.  Maura and Andrew had never really done anything like this so it was nice to have some newbies. So with a latter than planned started, we arrived at the Devil's Lake Trailhead and headed up the South Sister Climber's trail. In the summer, this is a technically easy climb/hike but very strenuous in nature. Once reaching the alpine, we detoured over to Moraine Lake, which has a wonderful view of Broken Top and South Sister. Realizing that it would take the rest of the day to climb to the top, we headed back to the car, rounding off a 2.3 ish mile hike with relatively 2000ft elevation gain. These are ballpark numbers. Half adventure #2.

Moraine Lake and Broken Top

That night we rode our bikes to the Owl Nest in the Sunriver Lodge for drinks, then jumped in the car and headed into Bend for the 4th annual Octoberfest. The live band was great and the beer was better. After that we all headed over to the Deschute Brewery Public House on Bond St. After more delicious food and beer, it was time to head back to Bend and get some zzzz's.

Just below Clear Lake

Sunday morning, we packed up and had a wonderful breakfast of eggs and gheta(sp breakfast meatloaf). Adam and I wanted to mtb the McKenzie River Trail on the way back to Portland, but needed a shuttle so we were able to convince Andrew and Maura to caravan with us over to the bottom of the trailhead, then ferry us up to the top. After driving the picturesque McKenzie Scenic Byway, we jumped in their car and were deposited at the bottom of Clear Lake due to daylight constrictions. Adam and I quickly set off and quickly got off trail on a hikers trail following the waterfalls down. (Note to others- take the footbridge over the river after leaving clear lake. You want to be on the west side of the river.) We made our way, slowly down the path until we came to the reservoir, in which point we found out that our intended bridge back to the trail was in repair for the summer and generally impassable. After proceeding around the reservior for maybe a mile, we finally made it to the trail after an hour of route finding. The trail was technical until Tamolich Pool, but then proceeded to become unrideable due to extremely technical lava rock sections. Lots of hike-a-biking for the next 30 minutes. At this point, we noticed that we only had about an hour of daylight left due to all the setbacks and roughly 12-14 miles of trail. We hammered on for another hour, getting lost again by missing the trail and heading up a forest road in search of it only to find it back at the bottom of the road. It began to get very dark just as the trails opened up into some really fun and flowly sections. But we decided that we needed to bail and try and hit the car before dark. We strapped on our headlamp, set them to flash mode then took turns drafting each other back to the car via the highway. The last two miles were pitch black and we were glad to have bailed when we did. We packed up the car for the last time and prepared ourselves for the 3 hours drive back to portland.

Time to Go Home

All in all it was a fantastic trip of Half Adventures and I wouldnt have changed anything. It was nice to have Andrew and Maura join us for the tail end of the trip, and Adam remains the trusty friend as usual. I am working on getting the photos that Adam and I took during our trip up here on the blog so hopefully Ill get all off them up here soon.

UNT

Bryan