After the hike mentioned previously, we still had the whole day in front of us. A very very hot day in the desert. After fortifying ourselves with cold beverages from the camp store, we headed out in the air-conditioned truck for some dirt road exploring the back routes southeast of the park, ostensibly to locate a couple of heads of creeks. Water in these parts sometimes flows underneath volcanic buttes, leading to odd places where entire rivers come gushing seemingly out of nowhere. We thought that sounded like a good kind of destination for a warm day.
The heat is not so bad from inside the truck. Chad found the driving fun, I think.
It certainly was scenic. This is forest road 1170, after road 2055 appeared not to exist.
We did successfully navigate our way through the maze of dirt roads to the trailhead.
The springs are surprisingly serene and quiet, for all that the flow is something like 50,000 gallons a minute. Mt. Jefferson is framed nicely in the background. From this point, the Metolius River flows back to the lake by our campground.
The kiddo is much more awake at noon than at 6am.
Headwaters #1 was nice, but we weren't allowed to stick our feet in (private property), so we had to drive around the maze of forest roads to find the trailhead to another one. Given my dad's name, the Head of the Jack seemed like a fun destination.
Another nice, but short hike through the trees brought us to the head of Jack Creek,
where we could happily stick our feet into the ice-cold water. Aaaahhh...
Post hike, we took advantage of the shady picnic table to have some lunch. Nim worked on her writing; Chad took a nap to prepare for the drive back along another obscure almost-not-a-road through a part of the Crooked River National Grassland. (I just looked at the atlas to plot out said dubious route!)
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