[ragman and rodman]

We have settled into our new (built in 2007) home in La Pine, Oregon and finally got out for our first hike in the area. La Pine State Park is a 3 mile drive from our home and offers ~15 miles of fairly flat trails. The Fall River Loop is the longest hike in the 2000 acre park with a portion of the hike following along the Deschutes River and Fall River... traveling through lots of lodgepole and ponderosa pines. We didn't see it on today's hike, but the largest ponderosa pine in Oregon is located in the park... referred to as "Big Pine" it is 191 feet tall, 27 feet in circumference and more than 500 years old. We saw a herd of elk before we even reached the trailhead and also saw a dozen fly fishermen who apparently really like the very clear and slow moving rivers. Our loop hike was 5.8 miles, gaining 318 feet of elevation. Photos, trailhead directions and downloadable GPS track from our Fall River Loop hike. ..

[kitya]

Congrats on your move, but I'll be very sad if it means no more hikes in WA

[nordique]

How are you going to keep up your usual mileage and vertical gain down there?

[RichP]

[zephyr]

[Sculpin]

[ragman and rodman]

People... there is no way that you can get rid of me this easily! I still have work to do on the Back Court 100 list (11 left to finish the list)... and will never stop visiting my beloved Teanaway Area... okay, there will come a time when I stop, but lets not go there just yet. The Seattle area is only a 6 hour drive from La Pine and we plan to visit several times a year for hiking and Husky football games. Right now my only familiarity with Oregon hiking is the Three Sisters Wilderness and the Wallowas... but I know there is more out there... for instance, Sculpin mentioned the Steens with which I have no knowledge. nordique and RichP seem a little concerned about me getting in my elevation gain... perhaps I will do South Sister every week... z... as far as ever getting to the Burning Man festival, I'm definitely a lot closer... and I do have a folder in my email with 175 newsletters from "The Jackrabbit Speaks" if the time ever comes to attend the event.

[nordique]

Enjoy your retirement! Many many of us will miss your great, impressive, and well-photographed trip reports over so many decades!

[olderthanIusedtobe]

You better keep your eye on implementation of proposed radical changes to policy for Three Sisters Wilderness (and Mt. Jefferson as well I think). Required permits and quotas (and apparently unnecessarily low numbers for the quotas) for EVERY trailhead in the affected Wilderness Areas, for day use as well as overnight. Head over to oregonhikers.org for plenty of info and discussion about it. More or less locks most of the population of Bend and other nearby communities out of the Wilderness Areas in their back yard. Looks to be a massive overreaction by the Forest Service. This would include South Sister. Imagine having to compete like you do for an Enchantments permit, for entry anywhere into the Wilderness for an entire region. Yay Forest Service.

[ragman and rodman]

One of my nieces sent me a link to the proposed plan several months ago. Personally I don't like it, but I don't get a vote on the issue. Seems like the primary reason for the permits has to do with too much visible human waste. I don't ever remember this being a problem, but I have to admit that was very low on the list of things I was thinking about when hiking. I'm blaming this on the idiots who don't know how to dig a hole!! Hiking in the wilderness will definitely require more advance planning... at least the permit system won't be a lottery like in the Enchantments where 99.9 percent of the people don't get a permit and end up losing their money... and like the Enchantments, they will have a "day-of-the-hike-walk-up" lottery... in other words, good luck and so much for an early hiking start. I never did South Sister on the weekend and always started the hike between 5am and 6am to avoid the crowds... worked very nicely... and the last two times (2014 and 2016) on the way down I exited the normal route at the 8800 foot tarn below the Lewis Glacier by taking the path that leads down to Green Lakes and never saw another person on that section of the hike. Oh well, I guess that I'll have to start hiking more down the road wherever. ..