Camping in Sisters

We just got back from a camping trip in Sisters, OR. Kevin said more than once that this was the most beautiful spot in Oregon that he's seen so far. It was beautiful, but it was not your ordinary camping trip.

We woke up at 5 am to drive to central Oregon on Saturday. We met up with our pastor, his wife and daughter and another lady from our church. They had gone down the night before to get the horses ready and scout out a place.

Yes....I said horses. You see, when Mike (our pastor) camps, he horse camps. He loads his horses with all their gear and then then hike in.

We were hoping to carry in all our stuff, but with Kevin's back hurting more than usual this past week, we gladly loaded most of our stuff onto the horses as well.

Then we began to hike in. 7 miles.

The hike in wasn't so bad. We took short breaks at every creek crossing.  There were three of them and they were pretty evenly spaced.

They were also beautiful, because the wildflowers would grow right along the banks.

And there were also fantastic views to look at.

Finally, after 3 1/2 hours of hiking, we were thrilled to see this....our campsite. We were camping in Park Meadow next to Golden Lake. It's actually a pretty popular destination and we saw several others hiking through and/or camping. This mountain is called Broken Top.

And looking the other was you could see some of the Sisters Mountains.


Mike and his daughter Brooke had gone in the day before and set up camp. Brooke stayed there and Mike rode back out to meet the rest of us and pack the rest of the stuff on horses.


If you look really closely you can see Kayleigh playing in the water.

The girls had a lot of fun playing in the lake and the little streams that ran all through the meadow. I'm not sure how many poor frogs Sydney caught. Do you see it in her hand?

 

We had lovely weather....warm, but with a nice breeze. Unfortunately there were a lot of mosquitoes. enough to drive you crazy at times. And they didn't seem to be deterred by bug spray.

There were three horses along on this trip - Junior, Sarge and Josie. Both girls liked them, but Sydney loved them. She would take a chair and just sit, looking at them. Pastor Mike fed Sarge a donut and he made the funniest face. He did it a couple times and even gave him some spaghetti. 

Here's the funny face....

If you are wondering what the white line is, it's an electrical fence for the horses. And if you are wondering what's on Sydney's head, it's a mosquito net.

This has been a long post, so I'll stop for now. I still have a lot more pictures from the next day. Here's a shot of Broken Top in the evening.

And these final pictures are from the middle of the night. Kevin couldn't sleep so he got up a couple different times and took some night photos.