Poking around Gifford Pinchot

After a few days at the coast and one sketchy campground, I came back into Portland for a vet appointment for Olive. I wasn’t sure where I was going to go for the weekend, as I had a reservation on Sunday at Trillium Lake, near Mt. Hood.

I was texting with a friend and she suggested a county park in Trout Lake, WA, just about an hour from Hood River, OR. She and her husband run a rafting company on the White Salmon River and she’d spent plenty of nights in this campground about 15 minutes from where they put their rafts in.

I hadn’t really explored the Mt. Adams area, so decided I’d check it out.

In order for Olive to do well at the vet, I need to give her Trazadone to calm her down. This dose totally knocked her out and she had a hard time staying on her feet. I was exhausted too, from a sleepless night the night before and the stress of bringing her to the vet.

I picked my friend Nicole up at her house in Portland and we drove out to White Salmon to the boat yard where she and her husband stay on weekends when they’re running trips. After a meal together, I excused myself to the van and quickly fell asleep.

Exploring Trout Lake

I headed out the next morning for Trout Lake. The Guler Mt. Adams campground is run by Klickitat County. I didn’t actually see a lake in the small town of Trout Lake, but the campground is lovely. There’s a handful of electric sites at the entrance. They’re smashed in together and looked crowded and full, but the rest of the campground was spaced out really well and mostly empty.

I found a site off in a back corner under a tree with water hook up, but no electric. With my senior discount (55 and over) I only paid $8 a night. One of the best deals yet for a well maintained campground with flush toilets, a dump station ($10- not included in camping fee) and hot showers ($2). I felt totally safe and the site was beautiful with a tall pines for shade, a picnic table and a fire ring.  A small farm backed up to the campground and we got to visit with baby goats just a ways down from our site.

My van has house batteries and I also have a Jackery, so power is not an issue unless I want to run my air conditioner or microwave. It was kind of a rainy day and I felt a bit restless. I wanted to walk around and explore the small town of Trout Lake, but Olive was still recovering from the sedatives and she wouldn’t walk very far. Luckily, there was a taco truck just outside the campground. I ordered a taco plate, which was decent, not great, but was enough food for two meals.

The next day the sun came out and Olive was feeling a lot better. I pulled out my Washington Benchmark map and noticed there were some cool things to explore not too far away. Nicole stopped by on her way to go mountain biking and after a quick shower, Olive and I loaded up to go exploring.

Caves and Lakes and Bridges

Our first stop was the Guler Ice cave. The parking lot was crowded with kids and when I got out of the van, noticed a sign that dogs were not allowed in the cave to protect the bats that live there. I’m all about protecting bats, so brought Olive back to the van, which she was not happy about and scooted down into the cave. A few steep steps lead down into the cavern and you need a light to see. I only spent a few minutes, my light wasn’t bright enough to see more than a dark cavern and piles of packed snow.

We then made our way up NF Road 24 to Peterson Prairie campground. I pulled in to check it out. The night before it rained pretty hard and I saw a lot wet campers. It looked like a great site for tent camping with rustic sites spaced well apart and plenty of shade. It’s close to wild huckleberry fields, which weren’t in season yet.

I drove a few yards up the road and pulled over to look at an interpretive site, but there was no sign. Suddenly hungry, I made myself a sandwich and noticed a beautiful alpine field across the road. Perhaps this is Peterson Prairie? Olive and I walked through the meadow with yellow spring flowers with butterflies and bees and wild strawberries. We followed an elk trail for a bit and appreciated the colors and the high altitude light on the ponderosas.

I decided to next venture up to Goose Lake. After about a mile, the paved road turned to gravel. The four miles to the lake were pretty rough, but drivable in Squeaky if I was careful. It was worth the rocky ride. At first I thought the lake was a reservoir because of the tree stumps protruding up from the depths, but turns out the lake was formed when a lava flow dammed a stream and flooded the area into what is now Goose Lake. The trees still remain under the clear water.

I parked in the day use area where I could use my National Forest Service pass. I walked a bit up the road where there’s a primitive campground. Cars park on the side of the road and campsites are up a steep embankment. None of them looked too level. It’s definitely not a place for RVs. The campground looked mostly full on a Saturday afternoon with families and lots of people fishing. The lake must have been stocked recently, because I saw plenty of people catching trout. I even saw a few osprey dive in and come up with nice fat fish.

The lake is small and there were no motors, only other kayaks, stand up paddleboards and little fishing pontoons. I brought Olive back to the van and pumped up my Aquaglide kayak, which is super quick with the electric pump. Luckily Olive was tired from all the adventuring and decided to sleep instead of howl. I paddled the lake for 45 minutes, just happy to be out on the water.

I had one last place to explore before heading back to the campground. The lava flow in the area didn’t just form Goose Lake, it also created lava tubes that run all through this area. The Natural Bridges area is a collapsed lava tube that is about a mile long. The ceiling did not collapse in several places, leaving bridges that you can walk across. Olive and I walked the mile or so path. I kept her on leash, because the drop-offs were pretty steep in some places. It was quite a scenic area, with bear grass in bloom. At about 5:00 in the afternoon, we mostly had the place to ourselves.

Olive was pretty tired by this point, so we drove back to our campsite. She gets excited when I stop and back the van into a camping site. She has the excited bark when we pull up to our Portland home. She knows we’re home for the night and also that it’s probably dinner time and she gets to lounge about on her tie-out in the soft pine needles.

I went to bed that night happy about all our exploring and looking forward to our next adventure near Mount Hood.

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