Heading out

tristessa · Post by **tristessa** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 11:49 am

Spur of the moment overnight trip, going back to the abandoned Twin Springs Campground where Hammie and I were at over Labor Day Weekend with teh wife & dogs.

Bringing plenty of trash bags and fresh batteries for the camera, will make a report when we're home.

Oregon72 · Post by **Oregon72** » Thu Jul 03, 2008 10:27 pm

Hal, looking forward to seeing the pics. Where is this place you are referring to and why do you need plenty of trash bags?

glasseye · Post by **glasseye** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 8:51 am

I bet 'cuz he's gonna perform the (nearly) ultimate feel-good act: Cleaning up other people's trash from the wilderness. =D>

tristessa · Post by **tristessa** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 2:40 pm

Cleaning other people's trash is why we took plenty of bags -- there's no shortage of crap littered around. Filled three 42-gallon contractor bags without trying too hard, mostly "beer" cans (Coors Light & Natural Ice aren't beer), but also a lamp & shade, chicken wire and a crapload of spent shotgun shells..

I didn't think to get many pictures, and we didn't make it to Twin Springs .. almost, but there was still a good bit of snow on the road and I decided not to push it. Here's where we stopped; I hiked up around the bend and it only got worse:

.. so we set up here at the entrance to the abandoned Lookout Springs campground, though access to the campground itself has been blocked with big rocks .. pretty recently, the dirt was freshly disturbed. And ironically, it's *right* where the snow stopped on the road.

About an hour after we set up, a bunch of guys in a Volvo came along and tried the road anyway .. and got it high-centered stuck in the snow. I'd brought some chain and a come-along (cable winch), and between that and the Westy got 'em out .. they'd've been screwed otherwise. They parked the car to the right of the bus in the picture above and loaded up to hike into Squaw Lakes, were going up for some backpacking in the area. I took this shot of the snow jammed into their steering rack while they were loading up:

.. then we moved camp. I went up a road-let the other side of 4610/Abbot Road and found a nice spot with a view and a nice established fire pit, so we dropped the top and headed there. Only shot I have of it is this one:

.. excuse Mary's clothing, we'd just gotten up and were having our coffee. The view:

.. anyway, that's all the pikshurz, still need to unpack the icebox, and I smell like campfire.

location: 45.21278 -122.06639

Oregon72 · Post by **Oregon72** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 7:23 pm

tristessa wrote:Cleaning other people's trash is why....

I was hoping you were going to say that, but I figured that you might have been expecting rain last night. Picking up other people's trash is something I like to do as well.

Snow.... apparently there are a lot of areas covered with snow right now.

I'm pretty sure it was you I passed on 224 today around Estacada area. We went hiking with the kids up at Alder Flats - nice easy hike for our six-year-old.

Troy.

tristessa · Post by **tristessa** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 7:54 pm

Oregon72 wrote:I'm pretty sure it was you I passed on 224 today around Estacada area.

Heh .. I thought it was you that I waved at on the way home but wasn't sure. I meant to ask "hey, was that you?" when I posted here earlier and just .. forgot.

We only got the most egregious stuff in the fairly-immediate area near where we camped; bottles, cans, plastic, garbage .. didn't worry too much about the spent brass from people's guns, there was so damn much of it. Burned most of the paper & cardboard we found in the campfire, packed the rest out. We did the best we could given the time we were there, the amount of crap, and the fact that we went up there to unwind a bit and not play garbagemen for redneck a$$holes.

zblair · Post by **zblair** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 6:22 am

Bravo to you and your Mrs. for cleaning up where other less considerate jerks mar the beauty. =D> =D>

Bookwus · Post by **Bookwus** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 9:16 am

Hiya Hal,

I'm also into playing weekend garbage man.

And that spurs along a thought. I'm wondering if other PNW folks might be interested in doing the same thing. Might be a good reason to do a few camping-kinda-road-trip-get-togethers.

Not that anybody really needs another reason to get out into the wilds, but it would be a nice thing to do as a group/family.

Just a thought..............

Post by **Amskeptic** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 7:30 pm

Bookwus wrote:And that spurs along a thought. I'm wondering if other PNW folks might be interested in doing the same thing.

I'd sponsor it as an Itinerant Air-Cooled Tour. We catch 6 campgrounds in one week. Our buses can handle plenty of trashbags. When the media finally finds us and asks for our impressions, we give them a different respose than the usual Sanctimonious Smug Do-Gooder gabbledegook, "uh, Hal here's looking for a shim to fix his hydraulic lifter, I'm trying to find the right can to rebuild my steering wheel upper bushing and all 231 cans here are too dented, Mike, that's his Ruptured Duck, he was going to rebuild his vent window seal with that truck tire tread, Hambone? yeah Hambone's looking for a nice lamp and shade."

spiffy · Post by **spiffy** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 10:08 pm

Hambone does this every place we have camped and he has spread the vibe to me, anyplace you go tread lightly and leave it better then you found it.

hambone · Post by **hambone** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 7:56 am

Hal yashoulda tol' me you were goin out, we were in the Clacky from Thurs to Sat, but down SE closer to Ollalie country.
Yeah I figured that 4610 was closed about where it was, the snow pack is still pretty low. It'll probably be a few weeks before that route is open. Jasan and I camped about 1/2 way to where you were a couple weeks ago, near Huxley Lake.
I'm surprised they closed Lookout Springs Camp, that's a shame. It's a historic one from the 30s but has been heavily abused by ATVs. We all hauled a lot of trash out of there last year.
To me, the woods are sacred so I haul every glass chip I find out of there. Where we camped this past weekend was surprisingly clean! One of the few times where it feels like someone before us has really respected the place.
Thanks for the report, you should also post the info on the Trailadvocates site, it's good info.

tristessa · Post by **tristessa** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 8:54 am

It was total spur of the moment -- we got up Thursday morning and decided "let's go camping", so I didn't exactly have a bunch of time to get ahold of anyone.

We went up there because .. well, when you and I were tramping around Squaw Lakes over Labor Day weekend, I thought "Mary would love this". Ah well, it's still there and summer's still starting .. kinda sorta. I kinda guessed the road was going to be snowed but hoped it'd be farther up or passable. Didn't think to pack the tire chains, if I'd had 'em it probably wouldn't have been an issue.

Got an idea while we were out, gonna start a new thread...