Timothy Lake Camping

This past weekend for my birthday we went camping in the Mt. Hood National Forest on Timothy Lake, elevation 3500 feet. It was a great weekend. We arrived on Friday... it's a beautiful 50 mile drive from Portland via 221 through Estacada. My best friend Matie, her 2 dogs, and her boyfriend Kenny went. Our friend Anna, who used to be a co-worker of Matie's was there. And one of Eric's co-worker's Chris (and his dog) went... The camping spot is actually one of Chris' regular spots. Timothy Lake has four campgrounds, but we were across the lake in the woods at an unmarked site... One either had to take the boat there, or walk a 1/2 mile down a trail to get to it. So no cars and no toilets. Chris had to make about 4 trips back forth across the lake to get us and all of gear. Luka loved his first boat ride. It was a great place to set up our tents on the lake shore, with a fire pit already made. The woods were swarming with bee's, but despite all the food we had laying around they never bothered us. I don't even think there were any critters or wild animals near us... we left a piece of cooked steak out overnight (not a good idea) and a piece of corn, and it was still there in the morning.

Luka stayed up until 11:00 pm the first night and thankfully slept in until 8:30 am. It got down into the 40's I would guess. We slept pretty comfortably in our tent, on our air mattress so that helped. Anna, Luka, and I hiked to the car and drove to Government Camp (near Timberline Lodge) to get a few important items (coffee, corn, creamer, syrup, potatoes) that we had forgotten. We made food and drank all day. Luka took a very long nap, and we waded and tubed in the lake. That night we made salmon, steak, hamburgers, corn, hotdogs, potatoes, and 'smores. We had so much food.

Sunday we packed up and drove home. It was the first time I was on Mt. Hood, with the weather clear enough to see it. The tip of it you can see peeking over Timothy Lake, but as we drove home we got closer to it- and it's pretty breathtaking. We stopped at Calamity Jane's for lunch, which is a cute little country hamburger place. Luka had a pretty fun time, and we all enjoyed getting away from the city. Unfortunately, I did not have batteries for my camera, so the 3 pictures above are from Anna's cellphone.