Clear Lake in October

A rainy week means an opportunity to try and make some headway into getting this blog caught up.  Rain down here in the city means much-needed snow up in the mountains.  Lack of mountain snow has delayed this year's ski season, so I'll take any moisture we can get.  Now that I'm retired and can ski anytime, I want to go skiing!

Bridge over a side creek covered in vine maple

While I'm waiting not-so-patiently for the white stuff to accumulate, let's take the blog back to early October when fall colors were just beginning to pop at the higher elevations.  One of my autumn traditions is to catch peak vine maple color at Central Oregon's Clear Lake.  I convinced my neighbor, friend, and photo-mentor Cheri to join me for this year's visit.  To sweeten the deal, I rented a cabin for two nights at the Clear Lake Resort, so we'd have all that beauty right outside our door.

The lovely teal-colored waters of Clear Lake

Clear Lake is a mountain lake at an elevation of about 3,000 feet, so traveling from the lowlands I got excited when I began to see changing leaf hues as we climbed higher.  From experience, I knew that autumn colors usually peaked the first week of October.  I hoped it would be true this year, since I was now dragging Cheri along.  I didn't have to worry.  As my car wound down the side road to the Clear Lake Resort, vivid red and yellow vine maple leaves poked out from the forest greens.  Yes!  Peak color was on!

Tons of color in the lava flow area

After checking into our cute little cabin, just a stone's throw from the lakeshore, Cheri and and grabbed our cameras.  Time for some photography!  There was no shortage of scenery to capture.

A five-mile hiking/biking trail circles Clear Lake.  I've walked this trail many times, but today would be Cheri's first trip.  From our cabin, we headed north intending to follow the trail clockwise around the lake.  Once we reached the shoreline however, our progress was slowed almost immediately - not only due to the many colored vine maple bushes that were everywhere, but also for Clear Lake's lovely teal-blue water.  So. Many. Subjects.

Red vine maple leaves

Clear Lake gets it's unusual color from a spring that bubbles up from underneath a huge lava field.  The pure spring water stays a constant 38 degrees, chilly in the summer but it means the lake doesn't freeze during winter months.  Created from an ancient lava flow that blocked the McKenzie river, what is now Clear Lake ended up flooding an entire forest.  The lake's pure, cold water has preserved the trees, and one can still see eerie remains of this forest under the water.

Colorful shoreline

The lake's NW corner was a symphony of leaf color.  After finally getting around this portion of the trail, we passed by the Great Spring, the place where the spring feeding Clear Lake bubbles up out of the ground.  The trail then took us across a patch of black, crumbly lava.  What would ordinarily be a not-so-scenic area was brightened by an abundance of vine maple in shades of yellow, orange and red.

A lone fishing boat with Mt Washington views

Finally, passing by the now-closed Forest Service campground on the lake's south end, we hightailed it along the western shore back towards the resort.  The final mile traveled through dense conifer forest with little leaf color.  But that was okay, by that time we'd taken plenty of photos.  Both Cheri and I were tired and ready for some dinner.  

Fantastic sunrise the next morning

Sunset that night was a bust.  However, rising early the next morning, Cheri and I decided to try our luck capturing sunrise.  We walked out onto the resort's boat dock (the place rents rowboats, kayaks and SUPs) which gave a great view of the lake and surrounding forest.  

Beautiful sky color

Luck was with us that morning.  Not only did the sky produce an unusual-looking cloud (that we dubbed the "UFO cloud") it also lit up in lovely shades of pink and orange.  These colors reflecting on the lake's surface were stunning.  Totally worth getting up early for!

Sahalie Falls

After sunrise, we hustled back to the cabin.  Cheri's good friend Venita, who lived in Central Oregon, was meeting us for a day of photography.  Venita arrived soon after we returned from our sunrise outing, and then we loaded up our vehicles and headed towards the nearby McKenzie River to photograph two lovely waterfalls.

Lovely McKenzie River

The first cascade, Sahalie Falls, was just a short distance from the parking area.  We three ladies set up our tripods in a line at the overlook and tried to capture this waterfall's wide, white fan.  At 100 feet tall, water churned over it's drop, scattering misty droplets everywhere (which necessitated lots of lens wiping!) 

Koosah Falls

A mere half mile separated Sahalie Falls from it's sister cascade, Koosah Falls.  Although one could drive the highway between the two, I suggested taking the hiking trail connecting the two falls.  This trail followed the uber-scenic McKenzie River.  The mighty McKenzie was a photo subject in itself, and my companions and I found lots of photograph as we meandered towards our second waterfall.  We also discovered that hiking with tripods unfurled poses dangers - at least a couple of us had small incidents when a tripod leg got snagged in nearby branches (I'm not naming names).  Luckily no injuries, just damaged pride - and something to laugh about later!

Koosah Falls, at 70 feet in height, wasn't as broad as it's upriver companion.  Two small streams of water coursed over it's mossy cliff.  Dense foliage didn't provide many opportunities for unobstructed views.  A single viewing platform provided the best look, and it was so small we three ladies had to take turns placing our tripods on it.

Someone had left this beautiful leaf art on the Proxy Falls trail

After a photo session at Koosah Falls, my companions and I headed back upriver to Sahalie Falls and our vehicles.  Next up on the day's itinerary was a stop at Proxy Falls, a short drive away.

The one-mile path to Proxy Falls was another autumn delight, with more vine maple showing off their colors.  Again, it took longer than expected to reach our destination due to numerous photo stops.  But none of us minded in the least.

Proxy Falls

I'd warned both Cheri and Venita that the final few hundred feet to Proxy Creek was a sketchy climb down a long, steep bank.  Still, when both ladies first saw the crude scramble trail they initially balked.  But after I started down, both women followed, hanging onto roots and trees with one hand and tripods with the other.  Arriving at the creek, in order to reach the waterfall viewpoint we had to hurdle downed trees, crash through tall bushes, and wade through several small side channels.  Later Cheri joked that our trek was comparable to an obstacle course in army basic training! 

But once my friends spied Proxy Falls' lacy white curtain, all was forgiven.  We all set up our tripods and got to work capturing this stunning 100-foot tall cascade.  Proxy Falls was my favorite waterfall of the three - but it was definitely the most difficult to access!

Metolius River

Back at our vehicles, we drove further up the McKenzie River highway, to McKenzie Pass and had a brief stop at the Dee Wright Observatory.  But the wind was strong and cold, and both Cheri and Venita had wet feet from our Proxy Falls scramble, so we didn't linger.  Instead, we continued into the town of Sisters, where we bid Venita goodbye.  After a quick stop for gas and coffee, Cheri and I headed west towards the Metolius River, our final photo destination for the day.

A quick hike around Clear Lake before our departure

Because the Metolius River was at a lower elevation than Clear Lake, the vegetation surrounding it's banks was just beginning the seasonal color transformation.  Still, it was a lovely location and we had a nice half mile hike along the river, taking in more stunning scenery.  Cheri and I felt extremely lucky as rain had been predicted to begin later that morning, but had held off for the entire day.  But just as we were leaving the Metolius River, the clouds opened up.  Perfect timing!  We returned to our cozy cabin at Clear Lake for one final night.

Cheri capturing some mergansers

The following morning we awoke to cloudy skies and a wet forest.  But the night's rain had passed.  Since check-out wasn't until noon, we decided to take one last short hike around the most colorful portion of Clear Lake's shoreline.  All these vine maple trees were so gorgeous, we couldn't get enough.  Cloudy skies and wet leaves made the colors absolutely pop.

Loved the lake's unique color

Hoping for some bird sightings, Cheri mounted her long 100-500 mm lens on her camera.  Cheri's luck held because not only did she spot a few mergansers paddling around the lake, we also came upon a kingfisher that posed perfectly for several minutes.  (I was sort of kicking myself for only carrying my landscape lens)  

Yellow vine maple

It was hard to pack up my car and drive away from this most spectacular display of autumn hues.  But Cheri and I had memory cards containing of hundreds, if not thousands of photos, and another day's stay would just add to that total (it would also prolong the amount of hours we'd spend sorting and editing images!)  It was a great escape to the mountains, and I'm looking forward to coming back for more next fall.