"Car" Camping in the High Country

 The girls and I took a drive with our friends Ahmed and Sarah.  Our first thought was to try to hike at Canyon Creek Meadows and camp on the Metolius River.  We got a bit of a late start and after getting to Canyon Creek Meadows trailhead, we decided to set up camp at Jack Lake.









Setting up Camp was a bit more than we bargained for with our car camping setup.  Between the five of us we had 2 tents, 4 sleeping bags, 2 pillows, a ready bed, three backpacks a diaper bag, a baby carrying backpack, and our food/ cooking stuff.









The easiest camp spot to access was taken so we ended up bushwacking around the lake for a spot.  We found a great spot but it took 3 trips to get set up.









We decided it was too late for our hike so the girls played in the dirt.  We made a fire and cooked some serious meat provided by Ahmed as well as some noodles and mushrooms.









The next morning we got up bright and early as Baby Analise did not sleep too well and was up around 6am for the day.  Ahmed was pretty hard to wake up and tried to bribe Amy to leave him alone but she kept at it and eventually he came out for breakfast.









We headed up to the high meadow.  There is a beautiful view of Mt. Washington on the way.









We made it to the view of Three Finger Jack and enjoyed lunch by the stream.  There were no wildflowers but looked like there had been quite a show earlier in the season.









It was a lovely morning for a hike and we enjoyed our trek together.  This area has a lot of horses which was fun for all of us.









There is quite a contrast between the beautiful high meadow and the dry dusty burned down forest on the way up here.









Amy reminded me to look up.  I often have to remind myself of this in life when I get "tunnel vision" forgetting about greater purpose and meaning.









When we got to the bottom there was still the job of breaking down camp, though we tried to bring much of our stuff with our breakfast dishes.  It is a long way home from this trailhead but a wonderful adventure together.