Sparks Lake

After visiting Hosmer Lake twice (post one and post two), Sparks Lake was next on our list to paddle and we headed out of Bend just after 10am on Sunday, hoping to beat most of the traffic, which we did. Sparks is the first lake to the left of Cascade Lakes Highway just past Mt. Bachelor, situated in a position to offer great views of South Sister (north), Broken Top (northeast), Tumalo Mountain (east), and Mt. Bachelor (southeast).

As I slowed to make the left turn onto the gravel access road leading to the boat ramp, I could see a line of vehicles behind me, all sporting SUPs or kayaks, or like us, both. The rest of the line of traffic continued on to other lakes, leaving us to navigate the super bumpy dirt road by ourselves. This mile and a half road made our recent approach to Jack Lake, using its so-called "washboard" road, look like a picnic. The Sparks road was slow going, even in my 4x4.

We pulled right in to the boat launch and dropped our watercraft, before I went in search of a parking spot. Almost all of the parking was full, but I managed to make a spot along the entrance road about 200 yards from the ramp. Most of the cars in the lot belonged to people who had come earlier in the weekend and boated to dispersed camp sites along the lakeshore.

Our Greeter, Osprey in a Fir Tree

Just as soon as we got on the water, we both heard an osprey calling from the top of a nearby fir tree, welcoming us to the lake. We watched as it flew circles overhead before flying elsewhere. At this point, we turned our attention to the vast expanse of Hairy Arnica covering the mudflats near the ramp. Beyond were stunning views of South Sister. Broken Top and Tumalo Mountain would come into view as we moved out of the very shallow water near the ramp out into the marginally deeper part of the lake.

South Sister Above Expanse of Arnica

Hairy Arnica, Arnica mollis

Close Up of Arnica Blooms

As we moved west out of the little finger in which the boat launch is situated, we moved along a shore defined by lava formations. (And in fact, in my inflatable kayak, I had to keep an eye out for submerged lava rock, especially given the low water levels). I was surprised at all the wildflowers seemingly growing out of solid rock. The banks are home to Red Elderberries, Canadian Goldenrod, Hairy Arnica, Fireweed, Cow Parsnip, and Red Baneberries, among others.

Common Riparian Denizen
Red Elderberry, Sambucus racemosa 

Red Elderberry Detail

One of Many Lava Formations Along the Bank

Out in the Middle Looking Northeast:
South Sister (l), Broken Top (c), and Tumalo Mountain (r)

Female Junco Foraging at Water's Edge

More Lava Formations

Ann Exploring a Small Inlet

Male Ring Neck Duck and 17 Babies!

Same Goup; I Think I Count 18 Babies!

We paddled west out into the middle of the lake and turned south to keep exploring the deeper part of the lake. This brought our first views of Mt. Bachelor and the backside ski runs. After having paddled as far south as we could (and encountered perhaps too many noisy overnight campers), we did a 180 and headed back north in the direction of South Sister to explore the northern end of the lake.

Mt. Bachelor

Ski Runs (Sparks Lake Run, etc.) on the Northwest Flank of Mt. Bachelor

Headed Back Towards South Sister

Red Baneberries, Actaea rubra, Glowing in the Sun

Fireweed, Chamaenerion angustifolium, Growing on a Rock Island

Heading North, Views of Broken Top and Tumalo Mountain

Ragged Top of Highly Eroded and Aptly Named Broken Top

As we moved north, we got great views of the aptly name Broken Top, a stratovolcano in the Three Sisters Wilderness whose current shape was formed by glacial erosion. The further north we moved toward the extensive wetlands at the northern end of the lake along the highway, the shallower the water became. We went as far north as we could before our fins started dragging the bottom. In the photo below, I can just barely creep along as the water is only half my paddle blade deep. We gave up on the northern end and went back south to explore a bit more.

Reflections on the Shallow Bottom

Pewee Hawking Bugs from a High Perch

South Sister, More Lava

Firs on a Narrow Spit

Broken Top Behind More Lava

Bright Red Elderberries and Tall Pink Fireweed

Cow Parsnip, Heracleum maximum, Seed Heads

Goldenrod, Solidago perhaps canadensis, and More Fireweed

Fern in Cliff Face
Perhaps Brittle Bladderfern, Cystopteris fragilis  

After messing around back in the middle of the lake, I started heading in to the boat launch, having had enough paddling for one afternoon and having exhausted most novel sights. I thought Ann was with me and I thought she was coming in to the launch as well. In fact, I saw her over my shoulder as I stopped to talk with a man in a wooden canoe on my way into the finger that is home to the boat launch. I headed in to the ramp thinking Ann was following me.

Unfortunately, I thought incorrectly and I waited on shore for an hour and twenty minutes for her to arrive at the launch, all the while new people were streaming in from town. Because of our mixed signals, Ann paddled back to the south end of the lake looking for me. Meanwhile, I had loaded up my kayak in the truck, reviewed all the photos on my camera, and finally resorted to halfheartedly playing solitaire on my phone with one eye on the water. As the afternoon wore on, dozens of campers landed and offloaded tons of gear, their weekend coming to a close.

Parting Shot of South Sister on my Way to the Ramp

Female Ring Neck Duck and Young

After tens of false alarms, a lone SUP came into view around the lava formations at the end of the finger leading to the boat launch. With the help of my camera, I saw Ann in the magnified image. Whew! That was a load off my mind. In another ten minutes, I was going to get dressed again for the water, haul my kayak back to the launch, and set out to find her. She arrived on the sand a bit frustrated and very tired. We were both frustrated at the miscommunication and agreed that we would set rendezvous points in the future to check in and avoid a similar situation.

We had planned to hike the short trail on the shore to see more of the sights, but after this experience, we were both starving (we planned to eat lunch at least an hour ago) and tired. We packed up and I squeezed out of my parking place: during the afternoon, cars had nearly wedged my truck in. The first part of the trip back in to town in search of a beer and a smashburger was uneventful.

However, by the time we hit Wanoga Sno-Park on the Bend side of Bachelor, we ended up in an ever-growing line of kayak- and SUP-toting vehicles. We were all behind a pickup with an untethered SUP in the bed. The driver was going slowly and frustrating all of us who had taken the time and effort to strap our gear down tightly.

I could deal with creeping back into town off the mountain at the speed limit (55, the usual pace is 65-70). What I could not deal with was the white Mercedes Sprinter van on my ass less than a van length behind me. As the line of traffic behind us grew ever longer, I gave the #vanlife moron driver several unmistakable back-the-fuck-off signals which worked, but only for a mile or two. The Sprinter dick was still on my bumper all the way onto Colorado Avenue back in town. We lost him as we headed east to Spider City for a beer and a burger.

Post-Paddle Beers at Spider City

Too bad for us that I thought it was Saturday and the Americana truck (home of Bend's best burger) was closed. All damn day, I thought it was Saturday. After two beers, we ended up hopping in to Gross Out and getting some dried pasta to make at home. I ended up making fried tortellini with anchovy, caper, and sage butter. Dinner did not suck!

In reflecting on our experience at Sparks Lake and our as yet meager experience paddling the Cascade Lakes, I have to say that I much prefer Hosmer to Sparks. As beautiful as the mountain views are at Sparks, I feel like there is more to explore at Hosmer.

Mountain Goat, Meet Mountain Goat

I've been hearing and reading for many weeks this summer that one of the best hikes in this part of Central Oregon is the Canyon Creek Meadows loop hike at the base of Three-Fingered Jack in the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness Area. Because this hike has been loved to death, you cannot just run up and hike it on a whim. You need a Central Cascades Wilderness Permit which involves heading over to recreation.gov and rolling the dice. I did just so in early August and we got two tickets ten days out.

Jack Lake and Three-Fingered Jack

With this much lead time, you cannot pick your weather window. You roll the dice and you go with the weather you get. In Central Oregon in the summer time given our almost total lack of rain, weather is generally not an issue, except for blazing heat and wildfire smoke. Knock on wood: we've only had a couple bad smoke days and that wasn't in play for our hike. But wouldn't you know that moisture rolled in from the ocean giving us gray skies and spitting rain drops all day? Abnormally high humidity aside, this turned out to be a good thing in that we did not get fried under the blazing sun while navigating the exposed flanks of Three-Fingered Jack.

The 18th of August would not have been my preferred date to visit this area to view wildflowers. General consensus is that the ideal timing would be right at the end of July for maximum bloom and minimal mosquitoes. That said, I do not think that Ann and I have any complaints this year about the timing. Sure the vast meadows of lupines and the big stands of beargrass are bloomed out, but every turn in the trail up in the meadows left us slack-jawed. The wildflowers as you will see in the photos below were stunning.

The hike starts at the Jack Lake Trailhead. Getting there from our house in Bend took about an hour and fifteen minutes despite it being only 50 miles from the house. Navigating washboard dirt roads doesn't go all that quickly, even in a 4x4 truck. We headed west on US 20 past Sisters, about 2/3 of the way between Sisters and Santiam Pass, just before Suttle Lake, where we turned north off the highway and wound our way up to the parking area at Jack Lake. The roads were washboarded in places, but I thought they were in fine shape overall. You could make the drive in a 2-wheel drive car if you had no better vehicle.

From the parking area, we headed right around the north side of Jack Lake. On the far side of the lake, the trail forks left and right forming a loop. Because of so much traffic on the trails, the Forest Service asks hikers to stay left at the fork and return via the other trail. After forking left, the trail bent back northwest until we reached Canyon Creek. At the creek, you can return back to the car park by forking right and taking the other half of the loop, or you can continue following the creek upstream towards its source from snowmelt off Three-Fingered Jack, almost due north of Santiam Pass.

After the 2003 B&B Complex Fire,
Very Short Stands of Lodgepole Pines

At this point in the tale, I should now mention that the first time that I went to snap a photo, my camera would not turn on. Checking the battery compartment, I found no battery. I could have sworn that I put it in, but no. It was sitting by the charger when I returned home. Doh! I put in the backup battery (an aftermarket battery that has very little lifespan when compared to the OEM-supplied battery) that I carry in the hip-belt of my pack. It reminded me of the film days: very careful composition and only shooting decent shots. I managed to husband the battery through the entire hike, though.

And, one more aside. Remember the washboard? At the first water break, I asked Ann to pull the water bottle out of the side pocket of my pack. "What water bottle?" she asked. It had bounced out of my pack on the bumpy road and was in the back floorboard of the truck. I did not catch this when I put on my pack. Note to my future self. Fortunately, Ann had a full water bladder in her pack. That, and it was a relatively easy hike on a gray and relatively cool day.

First Good View of Highly Eroded Three-Fingered Jack

Walking through the burned out section was instructive in its own way. I am always amazed at the way a forest regenerates after having been burned. On the walk out on the outbound half of the loop, it seemed to be the province of the asters and the bear grass, neither of which would be here if the forest had not burned, both being edge species. I am decidedly no good at identifying asters (by which I mean most ray flowers), but I sure enjoy their beauty in the late summer and fall. I expected to see a lot more fireweed (which gets its name from being the first to colonize burned areas), but I didn't see very much the entire day.

A Glorious Deep Mauve Aster 

A Very Different Aster

Scarlet Gilia, Ipomopsis aggregata

Glaucous Penstemon, Penstemon euglaucus

Burn Area Colonized by Bear Grass, Xerophyllum tenax

Once through the dry burn area, we entered the woods again and I was surprised to see a lot of Douglas Fir among the Mountain Hemlocks. I usually think of Doug Fir as a west-side species (even though there are a few along the Deschutes Canyon in Bend) but I supposed that this area is moist enough for them. As the ground became moister, we started to see a few sporadic Arrowleaf Groundsels and other flowers that would hint at the beauty to come farther on up the trail.

Bush Oceanspray, Holodiscus dumosus

A Pond Upstream of Jack Lake

First Good View of Mount Jefferson

Pacific Tree Frog

Arrowleaf Groundsel, Senecio triangularis

Aster-Lined Grass Meadow Before Reaching Canyon Creek

After winding through the damper woods, we came out into a fairly damp meadow before we came to Canyon Creek itself. At the creek, we went left, upstream, to continue our hike. At just about this point, the Forest Service stops maintaining the trail, but this is the point where all the fun starts. We followed the creek almost due west, climbing easily but steadily up to the base of Three-Fingered Jack, passing through a series of delightfully lush wildflower-decorated meadows.

The Fun Begins Here!

A Teaser of the Color to Come

Canyon Creek: Lupines and Senecio

Western Columbine, Aquilegia formosa

All Along the Creek: Lewis' Monkeyflower, Erythranthe lewisii

Close Enough to See the Striations in Three-Fingered Jack

Unmistakable Magenta Paintbrush, Castilleja parviflora

Broadleaf Arnica, Arnica latifolia

Still Life with Blue Chicken

Climbing Ever Higher

Large Clumps of Pink Mountain-Heather, Phyllodoce empetriformis

Snow: the Source of Canyon Creek

At the tree line at the base of Three-Fingered Jack, Ann and I parted ways. Her balance is not the greatest and she has real problems with scree fields and the like, especially coming back down. I continued scrambling up to the saddle ridge crossing a small snow field and then rising above a small cirque lake. At the top, I had nice views of the Sisters and Black Butte to the south and a decent view of Mount Jefferson to the north, despite the hazy gray skies and spattering of rain drops.

Partridge Foot, Luetkea pectinata,
First I've Seen Since the Chugach Range in Alaska

Growing in the Moraine, Yellow Coralbells, Elmera racemosa

A Sedum in the Scree

North From the Saddle, Cirque Lake and Snow, Foreground
Mount Jefferson, Background

Truth be told, a primary motivator for this hike was the possibility of seeing Mountain Goats, one of the very few large animals in the US that I have never seen before. My wife has bestowed the unofficial trail name of Mountain Goat upon me for my ability to go uphill relatively easily, so I thought it fitting that I should at least be able to see one just once in my life. I struck out on seeing any in Alaska and given my luck, I wasn't really expecting to see any here in Oregon. And also, eyesight is not a strength of mine and eyesight is sorely needed to pick out creatures at great distances.

I am hopelessly nearsighted and really cannot focus on anything beyond 30 yards, though I see color and motion well. I have learned to compensate for terrible eyesight by being able to pick out that which does not belong, a spot of color in the wrong place or something moving against the wind. I cannot see a damn thing at 100 yards, but I am the guy that can point out the white head of a Bald Eagle at 600 yards. And for identifying birds, I have learned their behavior (how they fly, how they perch, etc.) and their songs to help my poor eyesight.

And that brings me back to my scramble up the remnants of the glacial moraine/talus/scree to the saddle on Three-Fingered Jack. Every 100 feet or so of elevation, I would stop and scan the cliff walls around me. About the second time I looked, I saw something white where something white did not belong. Can you spot the anomaly in the picture below?

Do You See a Goat?

I snapped a photo and then enlarged it to see what I was looking at, another trick that I use frequently to augment my eyesight, as in picking out Ann among all the paddleboarders on a lake 600 yards away. Bingo: Mountain Goat, meet Mountain Goat! I only saw one, but one was enough and made my day. I continued to climb to the point where I was level with it and where I shot the photo below. After that, I continued up as far as I could to the saddle, beyond which you cannot go without technical gear and after which, people have died, good climbers even, as the fragile stone flakes away easily.

Handsome Mountain Goat

On the way back down, I had to break out my trekking poles for balance on the steep, slippery, and loose rock. I would not let young children climb this route and I would not suggest anyone do it without poles, yet I saw plenty of people without them. But why be stupid? Take poles.

After I climbed down and rejoined Ann who was camped out on a large glacial erratic taking in the view, we started back to the truck. For maximum scenery, we made our way back to the truck following a different track through the meadow (we had come through the woods above the meadow) and along the banks of the creek until we got back to the maintained section of the trail. This was the section of the hike with the most spectacular wildflower display.

Ann Shot These Monkeyflowers

Ann's Boot Shot Atop Glacial Erratic

Handsome Davis' Knotweed, Aconogonon davisiae

Gray's Licorice-Root, Ligusticum grayi

Female Junco and Youngster

Lupines in Bloom Only Above 6000 Feet

Lupine Close Up

As we descended into the meadow along the creek, we were shocked at almost every turn by the abundance and color of the wildflowers. The photo below shows some of the wonderful diversity. I can pick out at least two dozen different flowers in the photo. Quite breathtaking!

Meadow Money Shot: a Riot of Color

Expand This Photo and Marvel at the Flowers

Creek Bank Full of White Marsh Marigold, Caltha leptosepala

A Large 2-3cm Erigeron

Orange Paintbrushes, Royal Blue Larkspurs

Larkspur, Delphinium sp.

Boykinia major

Back down to the maintained part of the trail, we then forked left along the creek taking the part of the loop trail that we had not taken on the outbound hike. We then re-entered the burned area and in the misty day punctuated by random rain drops, it seemed at times as if we were hiking in a ghost forest.

Can You Spot Ann?

Ghost Forest in the Mist

Not Quite Ripe and Seedy Berries, Probably
Thin-Leaf Huckleberry, Vaccinium membranaceum

Fireweed, Chamaenerion angustifolium,
Not as Common in Burn Area as I Expected

Unripe Berries: Sitka Mountain Ash, Sorbus sitchensis, center
and Littleleaf Huckleberry, Vaccinium scoparium, lower left

One charming feature of walking on the return part of the loop through the burned area was the large stands of glowing white Pearly Everlasting. Each time I would spot a large patch, I would round a corner and see an even larger one. At one point, I was looking down a hillside that was probably an acre of white blooms.

Very Pretty Pearly Everlasting, Anaphalis margaritacea 

Ann and Trail Surrounded by Pearly Everlasting

Shaggy Moss on Tree Trunks

Green Alder with Cones, Alnus alnobetula

Woodland Beardtongue, Nothochelone nemorosa
Blooms Similar to Penstemons, Plants Very Different

What Does the Fox Say?

By the time we reached the car park, we hiked about 7-1/2 miles together and my scramble up to the saddle at Three-Fingered Jack probably added another 1/2-mile to my total. We started about 5100 feet and I probably topped out about 6900 feet up on the mountain, Ann a few hundred feet shy of that. Filthy from miles of dust, we piled into the car and headed into Sisters to get a pizza before going back to Bend. We had heard good things about Boone Dog Pizza at The Barn. The crust was really excellent; the toppings get 4 out of 5 stars. This was easily the best pie we've had in Central Oregon.

The Barn in Sisters

Good Pizza from Boone Dog

Contented Hikers