Charlie Bottita's Adventures: Metolius River August 2014

The kids and I camped on the Metolius River in Central Oregon. I have visited this area since a couple years after I moved to Oregon in 1981. This is my favorite area to camp and explore. We hiked up to the top of Black Butte, which is quite a tough hike. It is only just under 3 miles up, but the elevation gain is about 2500 ft. The views on top of Black Butte are incredible. Three Sisters, Broken Top, Mt Washington, Three Finger Jack, Mt Jefferson, Ollalie Butte and Mt Hood are seen from the top. My anemia was still in full affect, so we took our time hiking to the top. Once on top, we took our time, ate lunch and enjoyed the view. The hike up was about 2 hours, and the hike down was just over an hour. We finished our hike and headed to the town of Sisters for an ice cream as our reward. The next day, we rode our bikes and enjoyed the sites around the Metolius River. Earlier in the summer, a fire was raging near our campsite. But thankfully, it had not been a problem for us. On our way home, we stopped at Scout Lake, near Suttle Lake. It is a designated swimming lake. The kids had a blast and didn't want to leave. There are logs that are floating in the lake and they climbed and jumped off them. The B&B Complex fire roared around the lake in 2003. Lots of burned trees in there area. That fire was nearly 100,000 acres. Be sure and click on the more pics here at the bottom of this page.