The trip begins at Sequoia (College Outdoors’s warehouse)
with a fine breakfast. Once we have
eaten we prepare our lunches, load our gear, and head off on our journey. After a couple dusty gravel roads we pull
into a gravel parking lot, meet our guide, and load our gear into the Opal
Creek shuttle so they can deliver it to the cabin for us. We then gather our daypacks and start the 3
mile hike to Jawbone Flats.
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Jawbone Flats a rejuvenated mining town and now houses the Opal Creek
Ancient Forest Center, the center’s staff, and those participating in the
center’s programs. |
The hike takes much longer than usual because of frequent
stops to look at mushrooms, interesting plants, and old mining equipment.
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Rattlesnake-plantain (Goodyera oblongifolia) |
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Western grisette (Amanita pachycolea) |
As well as stops to admire the beauty of one of Oregon’s few
remaining old growth forests.
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The sun peeking through the trees |
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The shorter scenery |
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An old mine |
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Opal Creek |
After we arrived, unpacked our gear, and had a fantastic
(and vegan/gluten-free friendly) dinner, we took a short hike to Opal Pool to
take a look and dip our feet into the ice cold water.
Any activity with College Outdoors is challenge-by-choice,
if you don’t want to or can’t participate in an activity then you will not be
forced to. Friday’s plans involved a 15
mile hike up a mountain, but due to old injuries acting up it wouldn’t have been
a good idea for some of us to participate.
Those who decided the hike would be a bad idea started the hike with the
main group and headed back to Jawbone after a few miles. We spent the rest of the afternoon reading,
enjoying the scenery, and comparing the summer camps we worked at.
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My camp went with a dinosaur theme last summer. |
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Movie night! |
In the evening we cooked up some of the collected mushrooms
and watched an old movie about Opal Creek. After that people hung around, played board
games, talked, and read.
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Opal Creek by Cedar Flats |
We hiked out on Saturday by way of Cedar Flats, an old
western redcedar (Thuja plicata)
grove. Once we were about a mile from
the parking lot it started to rain on us.
It’s a common occurrence in a temperate rainforest, I know, but it has
been dry in Oregon for an unusually long time and the plant life was beginning
to suffer. I honestly love the rain and
became completely soaked because I left my raingear in my backpack instead of
putting it on like the more sane participants did.
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The CO Logo, courtesy of their Facebook page |
It was a fantastic way to spend fall break. I’m incredibly grateful that I was asked to
help lead it and I look forward to being able to work with College Outdoors
more as I get into the rhythm of school.