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Man, it was cold last night. It was the coldest of the three nights. The temperature had dropped below freezing point. In the morning, we saw there were ice formed on the car. I have never slept in a sleeping bag in a tent in this kind of weather. I was pleasantly surprised that I was not frozen to death in my sleep :).

We packed everything and started for our todays destination: John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. On our way we passed the beautiful city of Bend and we had breakfast there. We drove almost through nothingness for miles and miles and for hours and hours. The drive always seems longer when you are not driving. I don’t recall anything interesting happening on our way – but the drive was beautiful with many interesting geological formations.

Some information:

Within the heavily eroded volcanic deposits of the scenic John Day River basin is a well-preserved fossil record of plants and animals. This remarkably complete record, spanning more than 40 of the 65 million years of the Cenozoic Era (the “Age of Mammals and Flowering Plants”) is world-renowned.

Our first stop was the Painted Hills Unit. It was a beautiful and colorful place. The color-splashed hummocks and hills are the eroded remnants of the lower John Day Formation. The weathering of volcanic ash under varying climatic regimes resulted in vividly-hued rock layers of red, pink, bronze, tan, and black.

Here is a picture from the cell phone: (More pictures in the gallery later).

The next stop was Calrno Unit.

The cliffs of the Clarno Palisades were formed when a succession of ash-laden mudflows (lahars) inundated a forested landscape. Two trails begin at the base of the Palisades. Winding up through the lahars, they allow observation of embedded plant remains. Picnic facilities and water are available.

Within the boundaries are significant fossil sites not yet open to the public. In the Clarno Unit Beds, more than 300 plant species have been found. The Hancock Mammal Quarry has revealed an unusual ancient fauna still under investigation.

My archeological bend of mind ends in a dead end – so this part of our trip did not enjoy me much. To me, it was a nice and quiet place with really interesting rock formations.

Then it was a return journey – and interestingly, this was the high point of my day. The wonderful scenic drive along highway 84 along the Columbia river made my day. That was gorgeous. We also stopped in front of the Multnomah Falls on the way and took a couple of pictures. There was not enough time to hike to the top of the falls (there is a trail) but it was gorgeous.

We drove over 450 miles that day.

I stayed the night at Portland with Dipu – and I still remember the wonderful Chilli Chicken of the Indian restaurant in Portland in which we had dinner that night – one of the best Chilli Chicken that I have tasted in this country.

We woke up to the fresh sunshine in the morning. Matteo had brought some yogurt – which seemed quite unusual for a camping trip. But in breakfast, with hot tea, cookies and cereal bars, they were awesome. I am seriously planning to take some yogurt in my next camping trip.
So, after the wonderful breakfast, we packed the tents and started for our today’s destination: Newberry National Volcanic Monument. As we were passing through the Crater Lake for the last time, Matteo and me seized the opportunity to take a few last snaps f the crater lake in the bright morning sunlight. Dipu and Vishal were, by that time, tired of the incessant photography by me and Matteo and hence they did not come out of the car. It was a moderately long drive. Our plan was to camp beside Paulina lake and then do a few hikes nearby. On a personal note, the name Paulina reminds me of a girl whom I knew, or more preciously, some of my friends knew, while I was doing an internship in Sophia-Antipolis, France in the summer of 2001 but that is a different story.

On our way to Newberry, we crossed the big Deschutes National Forest. Most of the time, the highway (and very few passing cars) was (were) the only sign of human habitation for miles. We also crossed a few towns with only a few buildings. I wonder how many people live in there. On our way, we had pizza for lunch at one place. The town (or whatever you may want to call it) was extremely desolate. Few gas stations, few shops and very little activity around. I could hardly see anybody, except few passing cars down the freeway. In the pizza place, one extremely sweet but melancholic girl was managing everything from taking our orders to baking the pizza. I felt genuinely sad for her. That was not a very happy place to work for.
We reached Paulina lake slightly after 1:00p. We set up our tent there, it was a beautiful place. After that, we went to see the Big Obsidian Flow

The Big Obsidian Flow is 1300 years old and is the youngest lava flow in Oregon. A one-mile interpretive trail climbs up and onto this impressive lava flow of obsidian (black glass) and pumice. Along the trail there are seven interpretive signs which discuss the geology, biology, history, and archaeology of the Big Obsidian Flow.

It was great. I haven’t seen anything like this before. I will post some pictures later when I get some good bandwidth. I took very small pieces of these wonderful obsidian rocks with me while coming back – even though I knew I was not supposed to do so. But I could not resist myself. It was a simple one mile hike – but my stupid knee started to hurt again.

From there, we went to see the Paulina Creek Falls. It was nice as usual. These days I am visiting way too many water falls.

Paulina Creek Falls is located just west of Paulina Lake outside Newberry Crater. This double falls drops 60 feet onto the jumble of rocks below.

One more hike that we could have done is the hike to Paulina Peak – the highest point in Newberry area. But somehow Dipu and Vishal were not in a mood for hiking – and my leg was hurting to. So I was kind of glad that they did not go. We decided to go check out the bbq-party that was going on in a nearby restaurant beside the lake. It was their annual Labor day custom to throw a BBQ/Party. The interesting point was that they have been slow roasting a pig in a pit for more than 24 hours. That must have been delicious. But I don’t like pork that much. Neither does Dipu and Vishal is a semi-veg. So, Matteo is the only one who ventured to have dinner there – and I could say he liked it. We rented a boat and was on the lake for two hours – till it suddenly become very cold. I would say that the boating was the high point of the day.
After that, we came back to the campground, and three of us cooked some food for ourselves as Mattoe had already eaten. We had hot tomato soup, some noodles and some hot dogs. It felt really good and filling. After that, it was campfire + marshmallows + wine time. It was getting really cold – primarily because the elevation and the fact that we were beside the lake. So, we doused the fire and went to bed quickly.

I have been postponing this post for a long time – primarily because I was waiting for the opportunity to upload the photographs first. It seems that I cannot do that before I reach SD. So…here it goes without the photos.

I woke up to the sound of my cell phone alarm at 0730 in the morning. It was cold outside but inside the sleeping bag, it was heavenly cozy. My tent is a little bit small for two people, but dipu and slept quite comfortably. I didnt want to get up so early and dipu was not showing any sign of life, I decided to in to sleep again.
Finally we woke up at 0830 and got ready. Had a quick breakfast consisting of hot tea, cookies, yogurt and cereal bars. After that, we began our day. After some debate and discussion about what to do first, we decided that we would hike to the top of Garfield Peak. It was a great hike. Relatively short: 1.7 miles with around 1000 feet elevation gain. It was an interesting trail with wonderful views of the lake and some nice volcanic rock formations. We took quite a lot of pictures on the way. We had a lunch of sandwich, apple, and banana on the top of the peak. While coming back down, I developed a strange pain in my right knee which made any kind of walking difficult for me for the rest of the day. That was bad.
It was bright and sunny so far but now the sky was gradually becoming cloudy and temperature started falling. After that we decided to hike up to the Watchman’s Point. That was a rather short and steep road: about 800 feet in a quarter of a mile. It was real simple but my right knee was hurting so badly that even this small walk was difficult for me. But the view was rewarding from the top and we had a nice photo session also and I also had the chance to peek into a fire lookout station. According to our plan, the next stop was Cleetwoot Cove. This is the place where you hike down to the lake and hop on to the boat tour of the lake. At this point we realized our biggest mistake of the day. By the time we reached there, all the tickets have been sold out for the day. So, a tip for all of you who want to in there: if you want to take the boat ride, get your ticket early in the morning. Since the boat ride was ruled out, the motivation to hike down to the lake kind of died. Also the pain in the right knee having intensified considerably, I was not in the mood of hiking down myself. So we all decided to visit all the points of interests and overlook points around the rim. We did that, took a lot of snaps, and enjoyed the view and quiet. The last stop for the day was the Pinnacle Overlook. Pinnacles are interesting natural chimneys which are formed when got gases from solidifying lava try to escape upward. After that, we came back to the camp. It was cold and damp. There was a paid shower in a nearby inn and paid 75 cents for 4 minutes of hot shower. It was nice after a tiring day. There was a small open air amphi theater nearby and there was a show by a ranger about the origin, history and interesting facts about crater lake. It was pretty good. As Matteo was keen on having a nice dinner, we had made a dinner reservation at a fancy lodge overlooking the lake. The dinner menu was ridiculously expensive and I reluctantly spent 30 bucks for a delicious salmon dinner.
We came back to the camp at 1100 at night and lit a nice campfire and finished the day with a decent bottle of wine and a bunch of marshmallows.

My cell phone is out of network. I will post it when I have a chance. This photo shows a view of the lake from Garfield Peak.

Recently my blog is becoming a travel journal. Well, it is better than nothing, even though I didnt finish up the writing on the recent trip to Olympic National Park. This is one of my last couple of weekends in Seattle. This is the long weekend of Labor Day. The destination this time is the Crater Lake (along with a few other interesting destinations). I am writing sitting at the back seat of the car. It is about 11:30 in the night on Friday, 2nd September and the drive seems fantastic. Especially since I am relieved of the duty of driving and I am able to watch the crystal clear sky above and the engulfing darkness and the big black evergreen trees on both sides of the road. This is so soothing. Night driving always fascinated me, and this experience is just great. This day so far had been pretty hectic for me. I woke up pretty late as usual. The morning was dull, gloomy and cloudy. I just wished I have a clear weekend. I left from work at 1:30, and started to drive south towards Portland. The plan was that I would reach there before 5 and them we would start from Portland sharply at 5. The road was so crowded. The bad traffic took me over four hours to cover the 190 miles. As a consequence, we were late in starting. We are almost there now. We will camp at the Mazama village campground tonight and we will hike around the place all day tomorrow.
We: Sudipta, Vishal, Matteo and me.

~ Siddhartha Saha
UCSD

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