GeoCaching in Hood River 4

After a stop at Wal-Mart for a pair of shorts, a shirt, and some socks, we kept caching. These were some of the views for the rest of the day.

Actually while on the way to WM, we stopped to take this shot of Mt. Hood.


This picture of Mt. Hood was taken while driving to the 4th and final cache of the day. Darn those power lines for messing up my shot! ;-)

At one point we hiked along a pipeline that was bringing water from a dam to some turbines. I read the historical info and found out that when the dam was completed in 1924, that area was noted as being one of the “most electrified farming areas in America.” Cool. No luck finding that cache since the gate at the end of the 'plank' was locked.



It was an easy ½ mile hike high above Indian Creek to find the last cache of the day. Along the way we saw tons of these tall purple wildflowers.

Was a great day!

GeoCaching in Hood River 3

After enjoying the view of the Gorge on such a clear beautiful day we decided to head back down the hill. I’m not sure if you can see it, but look for the very light rocky ledge towards the center of the picture. That’s what we had to get around to hit the trail back down. Dave did fine. I had to force myself to think about flat places.

Our 2nd cache took us to a nice park with access to Hood River. Supposed to be a great place to catch trout. We only had to walk 5 minutes down the trail to find the goodies. This was our view just 5 feet from us.

The notes for the cache mentioned that the rocks on the trail could be slippery if wet. Not wet. No problem. However, when Dave decided to see how cold the water was, he had a problem. He put one foot on a rock in the river and was immediately half submerged in the water—his entire left side and then some. His foot slipped on moss on the rock, and he wound up with moss all over his jeans and shirt. Although his knee and palm were bruised, he was pretty much OK after shaking off the shock of it all. Thank goodness the GPS unit is waterproof because it was totally submerged as it hung from his neck. Got lucky in that his PDA/phone was on the hip that did not try to go swimming. You can tell Dave was able to laugh about it all as this was a posed picture to capture the memory of his misadventure.

GeoCaching in Hood River 2

I figured that putting all the pics in one posting would make for a very long blog so decided to break it up.

To the west: I don’t like this picture of me, but it’s the only one looking back toward Portland from Mitchell Point.

This is the view behind us as we stood high on the rock at Mitchell Point. So many layers of green. The yellow wildflowers were everywhere in the meadow-like area.

We hoped the cross wasn’t indicative of a previous cacher’s adventures up there.

GeoCaching in Hood River 1

Thought I’d send some pics of our adventures geocaching around and in Hood River on Saturday. HR is just under an hour’s drive east of Portland in the still lush part of the Columbia River Gorge. Too much further east, and the Gorge’s weather is warmer and drier so the vegetation isn’t as green anymore. The small town of 5,000 people is known for its orchards and vineyards and now is considered a premiere windsurfing location. It has quite a trendy shopping district built into the hillside.

http://www.el.com/to/hoodriver/

http://www.hoodriver.org/

Our first cache was about 5 miles west of Hood River at Mitchell Point. The people who placed the cache feel that the overlook to which we hiked offers the best view of the Gorge. I don’t think that there’s a bad view of the Gorge, but this one was phenomenal. We hiked just under half a mile but the terrain was steep and at times a bit treacherous. The trail dumped us off into an alpine meadow-like setting at a sort of base just before the tip of the big rock that offered the view. Dave was the one who found the cache as I wouldn’t get any closer to the edge. After finding the cache, we sat and enjoyed the view for almost half an hour. The weather was perfect—warm with a slight breeze. Well, actually it was quite windy at the top of Mitchell Point, but that was fine. We hiked to the top of this rock. I must admit, it was a bit scary at times. Steep drop offs and all.

To the east: This was the view from the rock looking toward Hood River.

To the north: This is the view across the Columbia River in Washington. The greenery isn’t as lush here, but I loved the land formation in the water.