Camping at Tilley Jane

It's been a while but we finally got to go do something again... so what if the camera battery was low and we only got three pics, it was still a good time.

We went too Mt Hood and drove about half way up via a road called Cooper Spur. We turned off Cooper Spur onto Cloud Cap road that was a winding gravel road taking us to an elevation of about 5500 feet. It ended at a campsite and rustic inn called Cloud Cap. Origionally we intended to camp at Cloud Cap but there were people there so we turned around and went from the north side of the mountain to the north-east side to a camp called Tilley Jane. It was made in the late 1800's and named after the cat that found it's wife. It was already getting dark and threatening rain so we threw down the tent and promptly cooked pasta primevera courtesy of Mountain House. It was two servings of creamy goodness punctuated by cheese and the freshest , most authentic tasting roasted red peppers anyone could ever expect from dehydrated food. Simply put, the shit was bomb! Anyway, it was getting chilly and was pitch dark so we grabbed a bottle of pinot noir and hopped in the tent- drank the bottle and slept well.

In the morning we woke up and made some hot chocolate (choklit) and poked around the vast expanses of the barren campsite. Not often do people get to drive to a cool campsite and be alone, we were lucky. There was a guard station (what they were guarding I don't know but noone was there so it must have been safe: terror threat level- blue), and an ampitheatre, a building marked "stove house". We opened the door and it looked really creepy inside so we didn't do any further exploring of it. Then we came across an old A-frame cabin (in the pic above) that was for cross country skiers to crash in on their way around Hood. It had wood burning stoves and a bunk room. The log book only went back to '97 but upon further inspection we saw that the cabin was built in 1934.

There was a trail around the back of the cabin that went further up Hood above the timberline to an elevation of about 8500 ft. We are gonna go back and camp at Tilley Jane and day hike this trail. It promises to be scenic and interesting. It climbs 3000 ft in 3 miles- fairly steep.

We walked back to our campground and looked around at the different sites. There were tons of stacked logs where, presumably workers were cleaning up years of fallen trees. ( they allowed Amy's photographic eye to see this interesting shot) The MT. Hood complex forest fires had recently threatened this area and they must have been taking out all of the excess wood to keep this area safer from fires.

Once back at our site we stood around and drank the other bottle of vino and talked about whatever for an hour or two. It was cool just to be in the chilly air, in the woods, and be alone for a while with just the wind in the trees. It was peaceful and a good getaway from the everyday grind. Rat race, rat race- oh, what a rat ra-a-ace! Until nex tiim...