08-06-2025 A Day Exploring the Medicine Lake Highlands

 

Mount Shasta view from the road leading to the Little Hoffman Lookout

After our morning kayak, the three of us ate an early lunch before our next outing for the day.  Deb was tickled to have the opportunity to try out her Subaru Crosstrek Expedition on a real dirt backcountry route.  The road leading to the lookout is about 4 miles of dirt, rock, and gullies through forest that has been cleared and only partially cleared up after what appeared to be a prescribed burn. She drove it like a champ and was tickled with her little car that is mostly used on the freeway between her home here in Grants Pass and Central Point near Medford, where she works.

After 4 miles or so, we arrived at the locked gate at the entrance to the somewhat steep gravel road that leads to the lookout at the mountain summit. 

Mo and I hiking up to the Lookout in July of 2014 (notice the jackets)

Mo and I hiking up to the lookout in August of 2025

We have done this hike several times over the years, always looking forward to the magnificent views that open up at the top of the mountain.  Each year, I get the opportunity to check my progress as I compare how much harder it might be for me as my "thing" progresses.  I am happy to report that with sticks and a slow pace, I did as well as last year.  A great sign that with this slow progression, I probably won't live long enough to end up in a wheelchair.

Almost there!

Deb and Mo taking photos of flowers and views along the road to the lookout

The Little Mt. Hoffman lookout was constructed in the 1920's and was used by the Forest Service on a regular basis until 1978. It is one of the few remaining historic lookouts on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest and is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. The Lookout is still occasionally used by the Forest Service in times of extreme fire danger.

Staying at the lookout would be a unique and memorable experience. From a height of 7,309 feet, Little Mount Hoffman offers a spectacular view of Mt. Shasta, Mt. Lassen, Mt. McLoughlin, and a variety of other interesting landforms. From the Tulelake Basin in the north to the Fall River Valley in the south, the 360-degree view offers a glimpse of some of Northern California and Southern Oregon's most unique and beautiful scenery. 

The lookout has been restored to its original character

For just $75. per night, you can rent the lookout by reserving at Recreation.gov.  There are bathrooms, but there is no drinking water, and you must pack up what you will need for your stay.  Also, there is a fire pit if you bring your own wood, and there are no restrictions at the time of your reservation.  It says nothing about this on the website, but I did read somewhere that they open the gate for renters to drive up the road rather than having to pack wood and water and food to the site.

All three of us thought that might be a wonderful thing to do someday. We can even bring our dog if she remains leashed.

The views in all directions are simply spectacular.  I can only imagine how wonderful it would be to spend the night up there watching the skies and the stars.

Here is a website for information about renting the lookout: Little Hoffman Lookout

Just for fun, Deb pulled up the Peak Finder app to see the names of all the mountains we could see from the lookout.  It was great to have a signal up there as well, and we caught up on emails and text messages before going back down to the lake, where there is no signal. Access to the internet would be a nice benefit while staying in the lookout, with apps about weather and the night skies and flight radar adding to the natural beauty of the place.

We returned to camp in time to relax a bit before supper and another gorgeous campfire. This time it was spaghetti made at home, a really good salad, garlic bread, and best of all, one of our favorite wines. Klinker Brick Winery in Lodi has the very best old vine zins around, and Old Ghost is truly delicious.

Mo built another perfect campfire, and we snuggled with the dog and blankies, and jackets as we watched the sunset and the almost full moon rising once again over the lake.

Tomorrow, another day of exploring as we visit Glass Mountain and the Glass Flow at Medicine Lake

08-05-2025 First Days at Medicine Lake

There is nothing quite so wonderful as that moment of anticipation as we approach one of our favorite places in the west.  The Medicine Lake Highlands loom over the landscape south of the Oregon border near Tulelake.  We know the route well, having camped at Medicine Lake together several times since our very first shared camping trip in August of 2003.

We have returned several times in July or August, and sometimes in frosty September.  The only thing that keeps us from going there more often are the fires that can darken the skies with thick smoke during the months when the weather is conducive to an off-grid camping trip.  This year, for the first time, we planned to share this special place with Daughter Deborah, and I watched the smoke maps daily as our scheduled departure grew closer.  Wonder of wonders, the winds kept the smoke from the California fires north of the lake, and the skies were gorgeous and clear as we drove over the High Lakes Pass, past Klamath Lake, along the State Line road adjacent to the Lower Klamath Wildlife Refuge, through Tulelake, and south on Highway 139 toward Alturas.

We have two favorite campsites at this lake, 43, which was already occupied, and this one, 45

Medicine Lake Highlands unfold like a vast, uplifted world, a gentle giant of a volcano built up by successive basalt flows that erupted from fissures as recently as 1,000 years ago. As the land swells upward, its crown is hollowed into a shallow caldera where forest, water, and stone mingle.  Within that natural amphitheater rests Medicine Lake, a still, dark mirror cradled by slopes of pine and fir. On quiet days, the surface lies so calm it seems almost to deny the restless forces that shaped it. It is that glassy stillness that draws us again and again to camp beside the lake and launch our kayaks on the silky water.

Mo and Deb did most of the hauling of wood and gear down to the firepit and picnic table

There is much to explore in this magical landscape. Radiating outward from the lake, the highlands are etched with the marks of ancient fire. Vast fields of ropy layers of cooled lava sprawl toward the horizon, some weathered and softened by time, others raw and sharp-edged as if the eruption cooled only yesterday. 

To the east of the lake, Glass Mountain rises in a stark, glittering contrast to the dark basalt around it. Born in a furious eruption less than a thousand years ago, it is a hill of pure obsidian, a chaotic tumble of jagged shards and car-sized boulders that catch the sun like splinters of black crystal. Walking there is like treading on broken glass, each step ringing underfoot with the clinking sound of glass shards. This is the high volcanic country we looked forward to sharing with Deborah. 

After setting up camp and getting settled, Mo started a campfire, and I cooked supper on the Weber, our trusty little BBQ that has been with us for at least a decade.  We had marinated grilled chicken breasts with foil-roasted yukon potatoes and onions with a dollop of beef tallow, my newfound seasoning treat.  A simple salad and a bottle of wine rounded out the meal as we looked out over the lake.

Check out our little chipmunk companion investigating the warm fire

We had another companion on this trip, our newfound friend Eldarr, a little gnome we found at our last campsite at Fish Lake on Fourth of July Weekend.  He was so cute, with one broken leg, so we decided that he needed to come traveling with us.  I named him Eldarr after doing a bit of research on gnomes, and his name means keeper of fire and protector of the hearth.  It was fun learning about gnomes and their long, storied history in the Scandinavian countries.  Until recently, for me, gnomes were just those silly little things everywhere at Christmas that are such a "thing".  Now I know why.

After supper, the glassy lake beckoned, and Mo said, "How about going out in the boats?".  We had already unloaded the boats and carried them down to the beach, so we were ready to go.  Deb stayed with Mattie, and for the first time, we got photos of Mo and me together in our boats on a lake.  

We paddled across the lake to "our" meadow, and on the way back, a bit of a breeze came up to ruffle the water. We call it our meadow because in 2003, when we were tent camping and I was learning to sail, we would tack back and forth near the meadow in Mo's sweet little red sailboat.

Sailing on Medicine Lake in 2003

The moon was rising as we returned to camp and Mattie was very concerned about us being out of her sight for a time.  Deborah kept the fire going and the four of us settled in to watch the fire and the rising moon over the lake.

The next morning Mo and I got up early to enjoy the beautiful stillness of the lake early in the day.  As with most mountain lakes, the stillness only lasts until mid-morning or so with winds kicking up around 9 or 10, making the paddle home less enjoyable.

I took only my phone with me on this paddle, unwilling to go to the trouble of packing up the Nikon, but when I saw the eagles, I knew that was a mistake.  Even the fancy camera in my Samsung 25 Ultra can't zoom in enough to catch the detail that I hoped for.

On our last morning at the lake, I did take the big camera with much better results than this photo, which I will include in the last post of our trip.

Still, we enjoyed every minute of our time on the water, searching out the eagles and paddling to the far western shore of the lake where the pink polygonum was blooming as usual.

Deb enjoyed her morning time without being rushed, and walked down to the lake to open up her umbrella for us to use as a marker of where we should head for as we paddled back to camp

If you look closely, you can see the MoHo parked in the upper area of our campsite and Deb's blue tent down below.  Our campsite is one of several along the lakeshore that are designated as "first-come, first-served" sites, with no reservations.  Many sites in the upper part of the campground can be reserved through Recreation.gov, but during the week, even in summer, we feel comfortable taking a chance that we would get a spot in one of the four campgrounds at Medicine Lake. We have always enjoyed the A H Hogue campground better than the other. Hogue is the unnamed campground on this map between the Medicine and the Hemlock Campground.

Map of A.H.Hogue campground with site 45 on the lower center right next to the lake

We were ready by ten to begin the next adventure of the day, with a back road trip to the Little Mount Hoffman lookout with its spectacular views of the surrounding landscape.

Coming Next:  Little Mount Hoffman Lookout hike, Glass Mountain, and the Glass Flow

July Placeholder

 Seems as though we have been having too much fun.  I am quite behind on my blogging stories.  Having just returned from a great camping trip to Medicine Lake, one requiring almost 3 days of photo processing, I decided to write that first, before returning later to fill in the blanks about a great July.

So just a couple of highlights:

Fourth of July was celebrated with another lake camping trip to Fish Lake with daughter Deborah, including a side trip to kayak our beloved  Recreation Creek.

Early July saw the summer heat building with a few storms and sunsets and summer flowers

Mid-Month I traveled north to Brownsville for a few days to visit Daughter Melody.  I enjoyed her gardens, conversations, good cooking, and a day trip to the coast at Newport.

Mid-Month Mo and I traveled back over the High Lakes Pass to Kingsley Field in Klamath Falls for the first Thunderbirds air show held there since 2008.  Spectacular!

We were included in a level 2 evacuation notice thanks to a fire that was much too close for comfort, just a mile south of home

Late in the month, my sweet little Dakota, which I bought new in 2002, passed away, and Mo and I found a replacement in Portland.

For my personal journaling purposes, each of these events requires more than a photo or two and one sentence, but all that will show up later, when I find days that are not filled with so many other things that allow writing time.

07-31-2025 July Journeys: Fire, Water, Wine, and Wheels

I took far too many photos during July. After sorting through pictures and writing about our Fourth of July weekend, my visit with Melody in Brownsville, and our quick trip to Klamath Falls for the Air Show, I still had a mountain of images left and plenty more memories to track. 

That’s when I realized just how busy we had been. Even my trusty Google Calendar wasn’t much help, since a few things were missing entirely. In the end, the only way I could piece it all together was by laying out the photos in order and filling in the blanks. Sheesh!

After our delightful July Fourth, we returned home to a less-than-happy scenario. My sweet little Dakota pickup, purchased brand new in 2002, refused to start. This wasn’t the first time. With a truck of this vintage, a hiccup here and there was expected. A battery replacement, an alternator, even a new transmission back in 2017, and she still ran great until now.

My grandson Matthew came over to take a look and finally asked if he could roll it across the street to his place to tinker with it. After a few days, he reported, “Grandma, I can get it to start sometimes, but it won’t stay running, and sometimes it won’t start at all.” He was stumped. Reluctantly, I called for a tow to the Dodge dealer here in town, never dreaming her days might be numbered.

A couple of weeks later, the diagnosis came with a jaw-dropping estimate: eleven thousand dollars. The culprit was rodents that had made nests under the hood and chewed up a mess of wiring. I knew enough to understand that electrical problems of that kind are a nightmare to fix, and I had no clue where else to turn. My only option was putting her up for sale as is and beginning the search for another pickup.

We already have two cars and the motorhome, but with an acre of land to maintain, a truck is still a necessity, especially when it comes to hauling away debris during leaf season. Thankfully, a buyer showed up almost immediately. He offered me two hundred more than even the tow truck driver thought I could get. When he asked if his price was acceptable, I accepted instantly. He handed over a stack of $100 bills, looking almost surprised at my quick yes.

The sale more than covered the towing bill and the failed diagnostic charges. Still, letting go of that little truck was bittersweet. She had been good to me all these years, and I was more attached than I realized. But there’s more to that story still to come.

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For a couple of weeks, things at home were reasonably quiet. We enjoyed Sunday brunches with Deborah and did a bit of puzzling when the temperatures got too hot for outdoor activities. 

The roses bloomed beautifully early in the month, and the front lawn had not yet succumbed to the drying July heat. We even had a couple of gorgeous sunsets with clouds, though there was no rain to bring much relief. I always think July is a tough month, but this year it did not seem too bad. The temperature reached triple digits for several days in a row, and we had a constant battle keeping enough water in the well. Still, it was not as bad as it has been in past years. One hundred and ten degrees feels much better than one hundred and sixteen, believe it or not.

During the last three weeks of July, our well would run low, and we needed to buy a truckload of water every week. For a mere $120, we can get 2,000 gallons of good water delivered to our cisterns. We have two of them underground to help manage our low-producing well. We talked about drilling another well, but there is no guarantee that we would find water, or that it would be fresh rather than salty, as many wells in this area are. A few quick calculations showed that we could buy delivered water for years before reaching the cost of a new well.

I spent much of July hand watering, checking the well levels, and sometimes getting a bit of free water from neighbors who have a good well and are very generous. I try not to take advantage of their kindness. 

July is also trimming season, when all the lush spring growth turns into wild summer overgrowth. When I was not dragging hoses or measuring the water depth in the cisterns, I was busy cutting back plants.

With our reverse osmosis unit producing less and less water, we knew it was time to replace the membranes. Our water guy from the local well company is excellent and will come whenever we need him. Of course, his visits are not free. Installing the new $700 membranes takes a couple of hours, and it always seems that July and August bring expensive household projects. That made it all the more refreshing to take a break, let Mo worry about the water while I was gone, and enjoy my visit with Melody, which I already wrote about.

Mo does most of the outside maintenance jobs:  this is the front gate

Just a few days after I returned, we were suddenly reminded of the realities of living in Oregon during fire season. Several emergency notifications arrived on my phone announcing a fire in a nearby area. We skipped right past the “Ready” stage and went into stage two: “Get Set.”

When I stepped outside and looked southeast, I could see smoke billowing into the sky over the mountain behind us. It was a scary sight. We both felt extremely lucky that there were no strong winds to spread the fire. What wind there was blew away from us toward the southeast.

This was the start of what became known as the Board Shanty Fire. It began on the evening of July 17 as a small 5-acre blaze but quickly surged to 80 acres by nightfall. The terrain made firefighting difficult, and crews had to battle spot fires that broke out along nearby Green Creek Road.

Within two days, the fire had grown to 469 acres, and evacuation notices went out for several zones in both Josephine and Jackson Counties. Residents closest to the fire were told to “Be Set,” while others nearby were put on “Be Ready” status. Thankfully, no major winds developed to push the fire further into residential areas.

By July 20, firefighters had managed to line the entire perimeter, though containment was still listed at only 9 percent. Aircraft made repeated drops while ground crews cooled hotspots and strengthened firelines. Over the following days, progress was steady. Containment rose to 20 percent by July 22 and 45 percent by July 25.

Seeing that smoke from our place was sobering, a reminder of how quickly fire can change everything. We felt grateful for the crews working in the heat to keep it from spreading, and more than a little relieved that the wind carried it away from us.

It was an interesting experience, to say the least. Mo and I have always considered the MoHo to be our version of an evacuation “bug-out” bag. I try to keep her fueled, with copies of important papers and documents tucked safely inside. We also store necessary medications, animal food, a minimum supply of clothing, jackets, shoes, and a bit of cash. With all that in place, the Level 1 “Ready” stage of evacuation is simple.

Level 2, “Be Set,” was another matter. That was when we had to really think about what else mattered enough to pack if the fire escalated and we had to leave in a Level 3 “Go Now” situation. It was much harder than I expected to make those choices. While keeping an eye on the smoke billowing over the mountain, I spent time walking through the house and outbuildings, taking videos of everything we owned in case we ever needed to file an insurance claim.

Our house is at the blue dot in the screenshot above

What do you truly care about enough to grab in a hurry? For us, it started with the essentials: the dog and her needs, our medications, computers, phones, chargers, and backup devices. Photos and important documents have all been digitized, so we did not have to worry about paper files. What weighed on me most were the irreplaceables—original art and the quilts I have made over the years. We experienced an interesting moment as we looked down the side street on our east side.  Everyone on the street had their RVs parked at the edge of their driveway, ready to go.  We decided that maybe it was time to bring the MoHo out of the shed and park her facing out of the driveway as well.

Even though the fire never came close enough to feel like a direct threat, the experience required us to think carefully about what matters most. Both of us were extremely relieved when the evacuation notice was finally lifted. Life felt normal again. Almost.

After the fire threat eased, Mo and I agreed that an afternoon of music and good wine was exactly what we needed. I sent Deb a note asking if she’d like to join us at our favorite spot in the Applegate Valley—Red Lily Vineyard. I had resisted joining any local wine clubs for a long time because I didn’t want my choices limited. But Red Lily’s signature Tempranillo reds kept winning my heart and awards. Eventually, I decided to become a member, and sharing the wine club with Deborah gives us a great discount on our purchases.

Red Lily Vineyards is a boutique, terroir-driven winery in Southern Oregon. Its philosophy focuses on crafting wines that truly reflect their place of origin, and that sense of place comes through in every sip. The winery is nestled along the Applegate River in the Applegate Valley AVA, a sunny, warm region perfect for Spanish-style varietals like Tempranillo. Its name honors both the rare Bolander’s Lily found in the Siskiyou Mountains and the winemaker’s daughter, Lily. Everyone finds a welcoming space with a tasting room, picnic tables, and riverside seating. It's a great family spot.

It was a wonderful afternoon, sitting by the river, sharing wine and music together.

The month of July ended on a high note with the purchase of a great little truck to replace the forever-broken Dakota. I began searching CarFax for used compact pickups, thinking perhaps a Toyota Tacoma might be the right choice. It was surprising to see how expensive even older models were, and how many miles most of them had logged.

Mo joined in the search, and between the two of us, we found a beautiful 2016 Chevrolet Colorado with only 56,000 miles. The photos looked almost too good to be true, and as we drove north to Portland to buy it, I was more than a little apprehensive. Surely it couldn’t be as perfect as it looked online. To my delight, it was. The color is a soft bronze, and inside and out the truck looks nearly new.

After completing the purchase, we celebrated by meeting Mo’s brother Dan and his wife Chere for lunch at the big food court on 82nd Street in Portland. Mo drove the car while I took the new pickup, which made for a nerve-wracking first drive on a crowded, narrow city street. It was a challenging introduction, but also a lot of fun getting used to the digital screens and all the bells and whistles we have lived without for so many years. I am still discovering new buttons and features.

Rather than making the long drive back to Grants Pass late in the day, we stopped in Brownsville, where Melody graciously welcomed us for the night. 

Melody works from home but she made time for us to visit

The next morning, I had three hours of interstate driving to get better acquainted with the truck. My favorite feature so far? The Bluetooth system for hands-free phone calls, a luxury I have long coveted.

It was a wonderful way to close out a month that had been filled with both ups and downs.

Another Lovely MidSummer Sunset at Sunset House