Applegate

This past weekend we made our first journey further afield, prompted by our desire to try out our brand new tent! By far the biggest difficulty of the trip was choosing a destination—we read a statistic recently that within 2 hours of Medford, one could explore a different trail every weekend for a lifetime. We decided on Applegate Lake, a mountain lake one hour west of Ashland. When we arrived on Saturday we selected a campsite high in the pine forest overlooking the lake, then scrambled down to the waterfront and rather ambitiously/foolishly swam across one leg of the lake. After assuaging the ensuing gripping hunger and exhaustion with our horde of poptarts, we hiked along the lakefront. The highlight of that trek was observing (chasing, and photographing) a magnificent bald eagle as it swept from tree to tree along the shore. Following a restless night (the first night of camping is always the worst) we did another 3-mile mountain hike, earning some excellent views. Other fascinating beasties observed include mountain quail, western scrub jays, Stellar’s jays, Western wood-pewees, Western sandpipers, hairy woodpeckers, and unidentified red-necked ducks. The trail was frequently interrupted by black bear scat, but thankfully no bear encounters interrupted our hike. In conclusion, MSR makes an excellent tent, but hopefully it need not become our primary home again any time soon. Check out the photos.