Cheryl

Thanks! Yeah, the pub date happened to fall on April Fools, which is kind of funny!

Mountaineers Books reached out to me at the end of 2022 about doing a hiking guidebook for Oregon's fire lookouts, and the finished product is almost here! It was a lot of work but a lot of fun, and I'm so happy with the way this book turned out. #oregon #firelookouts

Fire Lookout Friday! The 41' tower on Bald Butte in Harney County was built in 1959. This photo is from a 2018 visit during a stormy Memorial Day Weekend. This tower hasn't been staffed in decades and is in great disrepair. Access from the road is easy and a lot of vandalism has occurred.

Fire Lookout Friday! This was a unique foggy sunset at Clear Lake Butte Lookout in the Mt. Hood National Forest.

Fire Lookout Friday! The first time I rented the Fivemile Butte Lookout with my sister we had a campfire under bright moon and a starry sky. Even though it was March there was no snow on the ground anywhere up there.
#Oregon #FivemileButte #FivemileButteLookout #FireLookout

Watching a bungee jumper at Kawarau Gorge. Fun to watch, but I wouldn’t want to do it!

We braved the pouring rain to visit a few New Zealand sights today, including Huka Falls. Very impressive!

Today we saw (but did not climb) Mt. Ngauruhoe, better known as Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies. With the terrible weather Mt. Doom felt like an apt name today!
#newzealand #tongarironationalpark

Fire Lookout Friday! It was cold and snowy the first weekend of November in 2015 when Greg and I stayed at Warner Mountain Lookout. We were socked in the whole time with no views, but it was still beautiful up there!
#Oregon #WillametteNationalForest #WarnerMountain #FireLookout #Winter #Snow

Fire Lookout Friday! Clear Lake Butte was the first lookout I snowshoed to in the winter. I went with my sister and although we were only stayed one night, but we lucked into clear starry skies. What a sight! #Oregon #MtHoodNationalForest #FireLookout #ClearLakeButte #ClearLakeButteLookout

Wildlife Wednesday! This photo is from our trip to the big island last winter. I spotted this cute gecko on a leaf backlit by the sun while we explored the Hawai‘i Tropical Botanical Garden. (A gorgeous place to visit, by the way!)
#hawaii #bigisland #gecko #wildlifewednesday

Fire Lookout Friday! This is the view of Mt. Hood from Fivemile Butte, a year-round rental in the Mt. Hood National Forest. In the winter you have to ski or snowshoe 2.7 miles of unplowed roads to get here. #Oregon #MtHoodNationalForest #FivemileButte #FireLookout

I braved the cold drizzly weather and went for a walk in the woods this morning. Now I'm looking forward to spending the rest of the day inside! This photo is from a different walk in the woods, back in November when we hiked to the Heceta Head Lighthouse.
#oregon #oregoncoast #trees #forest

With the world falling apart and the stress of house hunting, I found it hard to concentrate on reading this year, but I still managed to finish 80 books! (The number is only that high due to all the audiobooks I listened to in the car.) These were my faves. What books did you enjoy this past year?

Wildlife Wednesday! We saw lots of these cute Cascades Frogs in Upper Royal Basin in September. They were so fun to watch!
#WildlifeWednesday #Washington #OlympicNationalPark #RoyalBasin #CascadesFrog

Forest Friday! This is the quiet Cummins Creek Wilderness on the coast. It was very green when we hiked here in May, and we saw no one!

#Oregon #OregonCoast #CumminsCreekWilderness #ForestFriday

Wildlife Wednesday! We spotted this doe and her spotted fawn at Royal Lake over Labor Day weekend. Fawns are born in the spring, so this cutie wasn't so little anymore, but it was still fun to see! #wildlife #deer #olympicnationalpark

Mt. Hood visible behind the shoulder of Shellrock Mountain, as seen from the Surveyor's Ridge Trail in September. The mountain was looking pretty naked at that point, but there's a lot more snow up there now! Looking forward to some snowshoeing adventures this winter. ❄

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While hiking in the east Gorge this morning we saw two foxes. I've always wanted to see a fox in the wild! They were beautiful!
#OregonHikers

A photo from last winter when we hiked up Bessie Butte. It was a beautiful day, although quite cold and windy!

An underrated bonus of going to the office instead of working from home: snagging a giant cinnamon danish from Trader Joe’s, savoring a guilt-free slice, and then offloading the rest onto your coworkers so you don’t "accidentally" inhale the whole thing by yourself.