The foothills of Oregon's Cascade mountains are full of wonders, so we had to stay one more day to drive another scenic byway up into the mountains. Today we are driving the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway. But the really big news is that we have been blessed with a blue sky day for this drive. As we drive toward Mount Bachelor, we are getting a great view of one of Oregon's most popular ski mountains--with no smoke hanging over the top!
Even though the title of this blog assumes this is a lake day, we are starting with a hike. This is the Tumalo Mountain Trail, and it is a steady climb up 1,430 feet toward the summit of Tumalo Mountain. On our upward journey we get continued views of Mount Bachelor--now more at eye level.
Looking to our west, we can see the smoky haze. From our visit to Newberry Volcano yesterday, we know that each of those bumps out there in the haze is a little cinder cone.
As we neared the top of our hike, Denisa is super excited to finally get to see some of the set of mountains called the "Three Sisters." We have been in this area for 5 days, and this is the first time that the smoke has allowed us a view of some of the sisters.
Even though there are three mountains in our view today, these aren't the famous Three Sisters.
The one on the right is named "Broken Top" because its conical top was broken when this mountain volcano erupted around 100,000 years ago.
The other two mountains that we can see are two of the sister mountains. From the town of Sisters, Oregon, all three of the sisters can be seen. Denisa really wanted that Three Sisters picture, because she is one of three sisters. She's the youngest of three girls in her family, so we decided to fix our mountain view today . . .
We put Denisa as the youngest sister right over Broken Top. Now we have the Three Sisters picture that Denisa had been waiting for. We think it is interesting that we got to view the seldom-seen Mount Denali every day that we were in that area of Alaska, but it has taken us five days to get a clear view of the Three Sisters here in Oregon because of the smoke.
With that job finished, we headed back down the mountain. Denisa's flower picture isn't a flower at all. But the bright red leaves of this mountain plant are as colorful and pretty as a flower.
After that mountain hike, now it's time to see some of the lakes that this Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway is famous for. We stopped in at Todd Lake, and took the short hike to see this very nice alpine lake.
But our kayaking destination is going to be Sparks Lake.
We're very excited that the sky is still blue, and we can see those wispy white clouds and the peaks of the mountains that surround this lake. Until this summer, we didn't know how much we missed seeing clouds. But after too many smoky days when the sky is white or gray/brown, we are soaking in these views today.
It took a 1.5-mile drive over rough gravel roads to get here, but while on the water we got a nice view of South Sister,
and Broken Top.
A friendly kayaker offered to take a picture of us on the water, and he did a great job of getting us centered between the two mountains.
While we were posing for pictures, we heard a "splash!" right beside us.
We were in the middle of an osprey dinner buffet! We looked around and saw five different ospreys flying overhead and diving into the water for fish.
More ospreys were sitting in the trees, and others were circling high above our heads. It was fun to watch them occasionally come out of a splashing dive with a fish in their talons.
It was a good day for bird watching, as we also spotted this family out for a swim.
Denisa has a weakness for trying to take pictures of baby ducklings.
We watched this family of ducks swim away from us in the bottom right hand corner of the picture below. They have a beautiful home here on Sparks Lake.
Like most of the lakes in these mountains, this one was formed by a volcanic event so the edges are lined with black lava boulders. If you look closely, you will see that this shore is also lined with Canadian geese.
We're on a roll, taking bird pictures with mountains in the background today.
We paddled here for hours, exploring coves and finding more wonders. While in this cove, we spotted two duck families at the same time.
We don't remember seeing these white-cheeked ducks before. After a google search for "white-cheeked birds in Oregon" we think that this was a female bufflehead.
The youngsters were almost as big, but were a little fuzzier as their adult feathers haven't fully developed.
What a cute family picture as all ten of them made their way down the shore of the lake.
Sparks Lake was certainly a great place to kayak! But this is the Cascade LAKES Byway, and there are dozens of lakes on this scenic byway. So instead of drying the kayak and putting it away, we tied it on to the back of the pickup and continued onward. Our next stop was about 13 miles down the road to Hosmer Lake.
We had heard great things about this lake. But it's already after 5:00, and it looks like most of the boaters are coming in for the day. Do we have time to kayak this lake too? It looks like we do, as we took off on that glassy water.
The blue skies we enjoyed this morning are now hazy. We are becoming more accustomed to the wind and smoke trends, and how the views can change during the course of a day. By 5:30 the views of Mount Bachelor are blurred by the smoke.
Hosmer Lake is a long strip of water with mountain views and tall grass and lily pads on its shores. We probably would have been content for a short paddle to the middle of the lake, and then turned around and kayaked back to the pickup. But we talked to someone just getting off the water, and they told us all about going all the way to the end of the lake and then hiking to a little waterfall. They had a great time, and ended the description by adding, "but of course you wouldn't have time to do all that since you got started so late."
Well, that kinda sounded like a challenge to us. So of course we're going to try to accomplish that same route that took them all afternoon.
We didn't have much time to dilly-dally taking pictures of the duck families swimming among the lily pads.
So Denisa had to snap pictures quickly.
We were on a mission, and we didn't remember for sure where we were supposed to veer left, or how to locate the inlet we must go down to find the waterfall hike. We thought it was a good sign when we finally found an opening, and then the route kept getting more narrow.
When we couldn't go any further, we beached the boat and then had to find the lightly used trail that our kayaking buddy had quickly described to us.
We have pictorial proof that we did find the secret waterfall.
It wasn't the grandest waterfall, but it was exactly as he described it. We had accomplished our mission and went where few people go.
It was a more leisurely boat trip back from the waterfall. We thought we might be the last kayakers on the lake today, but we found a few others when we got back to the wider section of the lake.
In some places the water is shallow, and the setting sun was lighting up the sand on the bottom making interesting designs.
It was also lighting up the ducks as we took the time to snap a more leisurely picture.
The blue skies are back, and we got a much clearer view of Mount Bachelor as we neared the boat dock.
The sun was setting on this beautiful day of wandering God's wonders on the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway. By the time we got the boat dried and put away, it was another day of driving home around dark. But we were blessed with beautiful scenery and blue skies today--without the smoke!
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