Our activity for today was exploration. We left our campground near Sunriver and headed west on NFS Road 42 which sort of parallels the Deschutes River from Sunriver to the Wickiup Reservoir. It is a very nice road with great scenery of snow-capped mountains and volcanic buttes, dense Ponderosa pine forests, absolutely clear waters in rivers and creeks and some spectacular lakes.
After about 20 miles going west we turned north on NFS 46 northbound, also known as the Cascades Lakes Loop. After a couple miles, we pulled up next to a little finger of the Crane Prairie Reservoir because we spotted some big, white birds fooling around in the water. We identified the birds as American White Pelicans which we had no idea lived around here and we also did not know they frequented lakes at 4500′ elevation.
We continued north for another 15 miles or so before coming to a steel gate across the road which sort of turned the Cascades Loop into the Cascades dead end. Although the weather around here is good with temperatures substantially above freezing, all the federal stuff seems to be closed. Some of the stuff we have come here to see will open for use in May. That is only 2 days after we will leave the area.
We turned off NFS 46 for a short side trip to Lava Lake. The road was plowed for the mile or two to the lake and we pulled right up next to the water for some bird watching. We were rewarded with glimpses of some type of grebes, a few mallards and four ospreys who were feasting on the fish. The ospreys pull off amazing aerobatic stunts you don’t typically see from birds. Today we saw them hover without flapping their wings, stalling and snatching formerly happy fish from the surface of the lake.
On the way back to our camping spot we tried to take a shortcut by driving down NFS 40 which would have shortened our drive by about ten miles. Where we started going southeast down the road, we were at about 4500′ elevation. At about 4600′ elevation, numerous pine saplings could be found across the road which we drove over. At about 4800′ elevation the downed saplings became pretty good sized trees which we dodged and/or ran over. At 4900′ the downed trees got to be pretty ubiquitous and the snow blocked the road so we chickened out and ended up returning to our campsite the way we came.
We took a couple of pictures you can see if you click here