Pringle Falls camp ground

We've had a really nice time, spending so many days here by the river. The Deschutes is a premier fly fishing river, which is another way of saying there are mosquitoes here.... but they weren't bad as we usually had a nice breeze to blow them away.

We wake up every morning to the osprey babies shouting for "more fish", and the bitterbrush bushes shaking like crazy with young golden mantle squirrels romping through the branches, harvesting the seeds. I've never seen so many little squirrels, and they climb the flimsy branches like a jungle-gym. The bitterbrush seeds are fairly large, so worth the effort I guess.

I'm a real sucker when it comes to chipmunks (these are really golden mantle squirrels, but I tend to lump all the stripped rodents together.) We had some surplus carrots and other veggies so I put them out on a rock for the little guys. This one decided to go directly to the source. I was in the kitchen mixing up some bread dough when I heard a strange scratching noise and looked up to see this hanging on the screen door.

Steve and Bill spent most of this morning assisting people driving through the campground who were looking for the "falls", because you see, there aren't any. Pringle Falls is really just a section of not very exciting rapids on this part of the Deschutes. Who knows how the rapids came to be called a "falls", but it's a bit disappointing to those who come here looking for a classic Oregon waterfall. Other than being a bit dusty (inevitable in this volcanic area, as the soil is all "pummy dust") this has been a nice quite stop. The spaces are large and nicely laid out among the trees, and access to the river for fishing is easy.

For those not familiar with the volcanic environment, pummy dust is the pumice ash from volcanoes. Most of the soil on this side of the cascades has a high percentage of that type of material. It's very fine and drains quickly, which is nice if it rains, but makes for a dusty environment when dry. This part of the forest is designated as a "study area", so they aim for minimal human impact. One of the results is a very narrow road in and out of the campground. It's not high traffic so we made it both ways without meeting anyone, which is a good thing as there are few wide spots and even fewer places where it would be easy to back up with a tow vehicle. Other details about the campground include no water available, only a vault type restroom, and the fee is $10 a night.

One of the things about being out like this is you never know what you'll see next. We were sitting around yesterday afternoon gazing over the bushes at the river when around the corner of the campground road came a draft horse pulling a wagon. A couple of local ranchers had decided to go out for a spin. The wagon had a young mule tied behind and when we asked about him we were told he was' just along for the exercise", and they hated to leave him behind because he put up a real fuss when his friend, the horse, leaves without him.


We'll be taking off tomorrow for Lava Lake. No idea what kind of access to Internet we'll have there, so updates may be slow.