July 4th Weekend - 2005

Rocke and I had a busy 4th of July weekend. Michael and Sylvia had purchased a stove from us and we were making arrangement to take it, plus a few other things over to them on that weekend. We picked up our rental pick-up truck on Saturday morning, came back to the house and loaded things into it and we were on our way to The Dalles. Michael and Sylvia has invited us and some friends, Becky & Ligh, for a cookout Saturday evening.

When we arrived, Michael was in the backyard checking on the turkey he had in the smoker. He and Rocke unloaded the stove and got it installed in their kitchen (as expected, they had to run to Home Depot to pick up a new "pigtail" for the stove). We visited while the turkey smoked. As soon as the turkey was done, Michael put a beef roast in the smoker. Sylvia came home from work and we had a great time catching up with her news. Becky & Ligh showed up with their little girl, and did some more visiting while the food cooked.

We couldn't wait to try the smoked meats! The food was delicious and we all ate more then our share. Michael was afraid we were going to have too much food. We had a little turkey and beef left over, so I would say he did a great job on judging how much to cook.

Sunday after breakfast, Rocke and I returned to Portland and took the rental truck back the dealership. We spent Sunday evening relaxing at home. On Monday, the 4th of July, we drove over to Cascade Locks to meet Michael and Sylvia for a hike to Indian Point in the Columbia River Gorge. This was going to be a difficult hike, an 8 mile loop with a 2600 foot elevation gain. Whew, sounded like work to me and it was!

The trail began in a forest of Douglas fir and bigleaf maple. We switchbacked up across a powerline access road, and then climbed until we came to a fork in the trail. There were several trails we could have taken, one was easy, the other was moderate, but we chose to take the difficult one. Michael, Sylvia and I were carrying our backpacks and wanted to do some climbing carrying them, so we could get in shape for our upcoming backpack trip in the Three Sister's Wilderness area. We would be taking this backpack trip the first week of August with my oldest son, Ricky, who was flying in from Fort Worth, Texas to join us for the trip.

We took the trail to the left. This path climbed steadily for 2.6 miles before switchbacking up to a junction on a ridge end. We continued climbing uphill to the Ridge Cutoff Trail. Hiking uphill for about 50 yards on the Gorton Creek Trail, Michael showed us a small, unmarked side path to the left that lead us downhill for about a tenth of a mile to Indian Point. Ohhh no, going down, meant we had to come back up. This little trail went steeply down and we had to watch our footing all the way down to Indian Point.

Whew, we finally made it to Indian Point! Time to take off the backpacks and relax before heading back down the trail to our cars. We relaxed for an hour or so, took some pictures, and congratulated ourselves for making the effort. Rocke even found a place to lay down to try and take a little nap before starting back.

Finally rested, we donned our backpacks and make our way back down the trail. The nice thing about hiking back to the car was that it was going to be downhill all the way, except for the short hike back up the steep hill we came down to get to Indian Point.

It took Rocke and I about a week to get over the hike and our sore muscles from all that steep hiking. But the view from Indian Point is worth it and there seems to be a lot of satisfaction in saying "I hiked up there"!