Sandi's Adventures and such: Ochoco Mountains and Lake Billy Chinook

Last weekend I traveled to the Ochoco mountains in Central Oregon to visit my very good friends Gary, Susie and Bob. They are living my dream out there in the mountains with a private lake, very few neighbors, and surrounded by 375,000 acres of BLM land to roam.

Gary has done an amazing job of carefully carving out a beautiful park like setting in the wilderness. He has crafted winding trails among the shrubs and grasses, placing benches here and there inviting you to sit and admire the scenery. Little solar lights blink on in the evening for moonlit walks.

Bald Eagles, Osprey, Great Blue Herons, King fishers and many other birds soar over the lovely lake and the wetlands seeking out a meal. The frogs are starting to come out. A month from now they will be so thick on the ground that you cannot walk without stepping upon them. Later in the year the Western Garter snakes will make their appearance. I have never before witnessed snakes behaving as they do at Mark's Lake. They gather in large numbers on the rocks of the spillway jostling for the best position to capture the small fish that congregate there. The water here is freezing cold snow melt. It amazes me that these snakes can survive in such temperatures. When they are not fishing, you can observe them basking on the little bridge and the surrounding rocks.

I caught a gorgeous rainbow trout on Saturday morning. About 17 inches long, with the brightest colors I think I have ever seen on a trout.

Susie loves horses. She is lucky to have neighbors with horses which she can care for and ride. She has been working closely with a horse named Sonny. I didn't get to meet Sonny this weekend as we were busy taking care of a different group of horses for neighbors who were out of town. They have a precious 1 month old foal named Schmore who needs some extra attention to ensure she gets enough to eat. Susie's face just lights up when she is with the horses. You can tell she is in her element and having the best time. There is another horse ready to give birth any day now. Poor thing was so large and heavy. Tim and I helped to feed, water and muck out stalls.

Here is baby Schmore

Susie feeds momma while Schmore nurses

It is always such a joy to visit these wonderful folks. Can't hardly wait until next time. (o:

On the way to the Ochocos we made a detour to Cove Palisades State Park at Lake Billy Chinook. I had never been there before and wanted to see the lake, the waterfall and I also wanted to find a couple of geocaches that are placed there.

The lake is gorgeous! Set down in a steep canyon. It is fed by three rivers: The Deschutes, The Metollius and The Crooked River. A narrow, winding road leads you around the lake with day use areas along the way. We stopped at the first day use area to seek a cache. There was a lovely little picnic area and trails weaving among the trees and boulders. Unfortunately I do not yet possess a GPS unit so my geocaching efforts are truly an effort. I find about half of those that I seek. Using only the hints and clues left by other seekers we wound our way around the area seeking "twin trees." It appeared that park rangers had been thinning the vegetation in the area, as there were many trees and shrubs cut down and laying on the ground. We were unable to find any twin trees so made our way back to the car. Not disappointed though, as I was very glad to have spent some time there with the lake view and Nobody else around.

Evidently the water is high. That is a picnic table out there in the water

The trail winds among the boulders

Waterfall ahead! Billy Chinook Falls was running with water. I hear that is not always the case, so I was happy to see that we arrived at a good time for waterfall viewing. The water spills over the lip of the canyon rim in a horsetail, falling a long way to the rocks below. It disappears briefly among the vegetation before bounding down to the roadway and continuing on to the lake below.

Continuing on around the lake I searched for clues to the next geocache. A huge knobby rock juts up into the sky at a bend in the road. This is called "The Ship" and it marks the tip of the plateau called "The Peninsula." This was the clue to my next cache but I did not know it at the time. We went on winding around the park until I knew we had come too far. Turning around we made our way back and from this side of The Ship I had an Aha moment. Stopping at the little pullout we found a paved trail with interpretive signs telling of the Indian history of the place and explaining the rock petroglyph that is there. I easily found the geocache placed here and signed the log.