Hambone Springs and Bagby Hot Springs Trip, Part One

Last Father's Day we loaded up Totoro and headed to Maupin for the Deschutes River RendezVW, a Volkswagen meet. It was a blast! While there I learned of a forum on the interweb called Itinerant-Air-Cooled.com. Now, Totoro is water-cooled, not air-cooled, but I met some wonderful people in Maupin and wanted to keep in touch so I signed up for IAC. Through IAC I've met a bunch of new people, all VW crazed airheads. This last weekend, a trip was planned to Hambone Springs.

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We decided it was doable and I let the forum know that we were on our way.

We loaded Totoro with the camping gear and a bunch of really dry lodgepole pine and left Bend, heading north on HWY 97 through Redmond and Madras. We had the curtains up so the kids could watch their DVD. After topping of the tank (Totoro's gas gauge is a bit optimistic sometimes and the speedo/odo are inop at the moment) we continued on 26 out of Madras and went through the Warm Springs Indian Reservation.

After leaving the high desert, we made the familiar, twisty climb up toward Mt. Hood. Instead of traveling all the way to Gov't Camp and on to Portland like we normally do, we turned left onto Skyline Road.

And Climbed. . .

And Climbed. . .
This is where I took the shot of Mt. Hood



It was surprisingly smooth for about the first 16 or 17 miles, then after we turned onto Abbot Rd. things got a bit bumpier.


Abbot Road is an interesting drive. You head through the forest like the shot above and then you realize to the left of you the ground has dropped father and father away until you are looking at the tops of trees and then way over the tops of trees. I don't have many pictures of it because it was soooo narrow and rocky I was concentrating pretty hard. It's basically a controlled fall: first gear, clutch in, ride the brake, crawl over rocks and the occasional tree. Sommer at this time was having really sharp pains, the baby did not like all the jostling. We took a few breaks coming down the Abbot Road before it smoothed out a bit, just as we arrived at Hambone Springs.