Bottle Rocket

 

Bottle Rocket is a popular food cart located at Hawthorne Food Cart in East Portland. It serves mainly burgers with unique side and also serves homemade lemonade and various kind of beers that are brewed locally. Hawthorne Food Cart has been a popular food cart location for people in Portland and Bottle Rocket is one of the most popular choice there.

We went to Hawthorne Food Cart on Sunday to catch up with friends visiting from California. They have heard of the food cart culture in Portland and thus wanted to try as many food cart as possible. We chose Hawthorne Food Cart since it is closer and also offers good food cart experience.

Bottle Rocket is located on the East side of Hawthorne Food Cart area and the food menu includes hamburger, cheese burger, and bacon cheese burger. The sides includes various vegetable choices. People can choose to make a meal that includes the burger, a size, and a cup of homemade lemonade.

We ordered a Bacon Cheese Burger meal with Tempura Cauliflower as the side. After we placed the order, we also realized that we can choose to have bigger, or smaller burger. We chose the bigger one of course.

The burger is being cooked after the order is placed, but it was served quite fast within 10 minutes. The burger came with a large thick beef petty, which was quite juicy. There were also lettuce, onion, and pickled vegetables in the burger which provide amazing taste. A small portion of barbecue sauce was also give on the side if we wish to add more sauce in the burger.

The side was served in a Chinese takeout paper box. We were not expecting that. We chose the Tempura Cauliflower, but it was more like fried mixed vegetable. On top of cauliflower, there were also onion and jalapeno in there. There was a limited amount of cauliflower served in the box, which was a bit disappointing.

The homemade lemonade was not bad and quite refreshing.

Overall, Bottle Rocket serves great burger that's juicy and full of flavors. However, the side we chose did not meet our expectation and we would definitely try a different side next time. In addition, our friends ordered the beer from there and they loved it.

South Sisters Summit 2020

 

South Sisters Summit trail is one of the most popular hiking trail at Central Oregon. South Sisters is the third tallest mountain in Oregon and there is a way to head to the top of the mountain. Every summer, thousands of hiking enthusiasts come here to do camping, day hikes, and night hikes. This hiking trail is especially crowded during the weekend. The hiking trail is about 40 minutes West from Bend and about 4 hours away from Portland. The trail is about 6 miles 1 way starting from Devil's Lake and the elevation gain is nearly 5000ft.

During the Labour Day long weekend, we decided to take Friday off and do a night hike on Thursday night since the weather is warm with low wind. We left Portland right after work and got to the trail head by 11PM. We decided to rest a bit after a long drive, thus we started the hike at 12:30AM.

When we started hiking in the first section of the trail in the forest, it was so warm and humid. We took off our jacket and outer layer to cool off. The night had a full moon in the clear sky, we barely needed to have our head lamp. The full moon was almost bright enough for us to see the trail ahead.

As we make our progress on the trail, we heard some tree branch dropping sound on the side of trail. We were alerted by this and used flash light to look around. We did not see any movement however, but suspected that there were animals around us. We stayed quite cautious as we proceeded further but did not see anything.

As we headed out of the forest, we saw a pair of shining eyes right in front of us about 15 feet away. The pair of eyes disappeared very quickly but we could clearly see our head lamp light reflecting off the eyes. We were being very careful and worried if it could be some vicious animal. For the next 10 minutes of hike, we maintained alerted status to ensure no surprises could jump at us.

After we crossed the plan and got to the rocky area, we ran into a man sleeping in a sleeping bag right on the side of the trail. Apparently we woke him up and he said he was just taking a rest. The rocky section was tiring to hike on because we had to pay close attention to where the trail was so that we would not get lost. By the time we got to Tear Drop Lake, it was around 4:30. We were hiking quite slowly compared to before.

We took a 30 minutes reset and started to make final ascend. The final part of the trail is the most difficult part. It was sandy and sipper, and the incline angle is like 60 degree. It would have been better with hiking poles but we did not carry any. It took us nearly 2 hours to complete the last part to get to the summit, but it was totally worth it.

The summit was windy but beautiful. We crossed the snow field to climb to the summit and we could see North Sister and Middle Sister. The sun rise was beautiful. It made the whole hike worth it.

Overall, this was a great hike. We do it almost every year as we enjoy this outdoor area very much. We highly recommend this hike but do prepare to carry enough water to stay hydrated.

McNiel Point

 

McNiel Point is a quite popular hiking trail within Mount Hood National Forest. The trail goes through variety of terrains including great view of Mount Hood, the view over Mount Hood Forest, and the wildflower meadows. The trail is about 10 miles long round trip with about 2000 feet elevation gain. Thus the trail itself is not really difficult. The trail head is at Top Spur, which can be reached by going through LoLo Bypass Road. The parking space at the trailhead is limited however, but people usually park on the side of the road.

On this super hot day in Oregon, we decided to get somewhere high in the mountain to cool ourselves down. We got to the trail head around 8:30AM. It took us about 1.5 hours to get here. When we got there, the parking lot was already full and we had to park on the side of the road. The trail also requires Northwest Pass. When we were there, there were several groups of people carrying camping gears to do the Timberline trail.

As we started our hike and reached an intersection with 3 trails leading to different direction. The notice board has a map and requires every hiking group to fill out the safety form. We then took the trail #600 on the left.

The first portion of the trail is to go through the forest. This part is about 1.5 miles long with some elevation gain. The trail itself was quite wide with a couple of bugs flying around of course. After 1.5 miles, we got out to the lookup point which has a great view of Mount Hood. We had a quick little rest and reapplied the bug spread before heading further.

After about another 1.5 miles, we got to the meadows where all the beautiful wildflowers were. The wildflowers were simply just on the side of the trail and was beautiful. Some part of the trail requires people to go across streams of water, but it wasn't a big deal for us.

After about 4 miles of hike, we got to the rocky area where we had to climb over rocks on the side of the cliff. This part may sound and seem scary, but it was very easy to get through. We saw a guy trying to climb this with his hiking pole, and he was having a lot of difficulties. So the advice is not to use hiking pole here.

After 2.5 hours, we got to McNiel Point, which is at the shelter made out of rocks. The view from the top over the Mount Hood National Forest was breath taking. We could see mountains on the far side and the river running below. While we enjoy some food at the top, there were several dogs running by as well and asking for food. These dogs were quite energetic.

As we headed back down, we ran into a group of people with a Black Labrador Retriever. The Black Lab suddenly sat down in the middle of trail and she seemed exhausted.

Overall, this trail is one of the most amazing trail. We would definitely come again and next time we could try to do a night hike to see the sunrise from there.

Skyline Trail

 

Skyline Trail is located at Paradise within Mount Rainier National Park. It is located at the South side of Mount Rainier and it is one of the most popular trail within the park due to its panoramic view of the mountains. Skyline Trail is a loop that goes up along the ridge of Mount Rainier and loops back to Paradise. It has a total distance of about 5.5 miles with some elevation gain. It also goes by the Myrtel Falls.

We left Portland early in the morning around 5:30AM and got to Paradise around 8:30AM. The parking lot at Paradise was nearly full at this time. We were shocked at the amount of people there. We didn't know the trail and Mount Rainier National Park is so popular.

Unfortunately, the weather was not so good on this day. It was extremely foggy with visibility of about 10 meters and has a lot of mist in the air. We couldn't even see the mountains.

We started the Skyline Trail hike around 9AM. Instead of heading to Myrtel Falls first, we headed the other way towards West first. The trail started to climb right away but it was not difficult at all. The first part of the trail was even paved and very easy to walk on.

When we went past the intersection that heads to the glacier lookout, the trail was covered by thick snow. The snow on the trail has not completely melted yet. Thus we walked on top of the snow field to cross to the next section of the trail. The rest of the trail was quite easy to follow with signs and we got to panorama point by 10:30AM.

At the panorama point, it was so foggy and misty. We couldn't see anything at all. There was so much mist in the air and our hair were wet. Since we just climbed up to panorama point, our body was still warm, thus we took the rest to have some food. While we were up there, we were surprised that there was toilet here a panorama point.

We continued on Skyline Trail after having rested at panorama point. The next section of the trail was beautiful. There was a variety of wildflowers blooming along the mountain side with different colours. We have never seen so many wildflowers bloom at once with different colors. It would have been an amazing sight if it wasn't so foggy.

While we were heading down the Skyline Trail on the East side, there were more sections of the trail covered with large pile of snow. Some part of the snow covered trail was slippery and we had to slide down due to the steepness of it, but it was quite fun. We enjoyed it quite a lot. We also had to cross a rushing stream of water and make sure our feet did not soak in the water.

We got back down to Paradise by 12:30PM. It was a great experiencing doing the Skyline Trail. The fog was clearing a bit but not complete. We still could not see the top of the mountain.

While we were driving back down the mountain, we also saw a Blacktail Deer along the side of the road. We were surprised that he was not afraid of the cars.

This was our first time visiting Mount Rainier National Park and it was much closer to us than we thought. We would definitely come here more often in the future.

Crater Lake 2020

Crater Lake is the only National Park in Oregon and the lake is known to be the purest and deepest lake in US. The water in Crater Lake is so pure because there is no inlet or outlet to the lake. All the water came from the rain and the melted snow from the winter. The Crater Lake National Park itself is not very large and it mostly covers the surrounding area of the lake. The drive time from Portland to Crater Lake is about 4.5 hours. During the winter season, majority of the road is closed at the National Park and only the road to Crater Lake Lodge is still accessible.


We were lucky to be able to make 2 nights reservation at Crater Lake Lodge. We left early on Friday morning around 6:30 AM and got to Crater Lake National Park around 11AM. We first stopped by Watchmans Peak to have an awesome view of Crater Lake. On Crater Lake National Park website, it indicated that the trail has been closed due to lingering snow, but we still did it any way and it was well worth it!

We then drove to Rim Village to check out the gift shop. However, the wait line at the gift ship was so long that we gave up. Thus we went driving along East Rim drive and went to Mount Scott. The Mount Scott Trail is another popular trail. We love to view things from the top, thus this was a must do for us to see Crater Lake from the top!

After coming back down from the mountain, we drove back to Crater Lake Lodge to check in. We got the room on the first floor. The furnace in the room was so noisy and we were unable to turn it off. That was a bummer.

At night, we drove to the East side of Crater Lake to find a good spot to view NEOWISE comet. We somehow spot a place where everyone was at and that turned out to be the best spot to view comet. We got to Pumic Castle view point where everyone was taking photos. The NEOWISE comet under the Big Dipper was amazing. We could even see the reflection of stars on the surface of the lake! Then we turned around and also saw extremely clear Milkyway right above us on the East side.

On the second day, we woke up early at 5AM to see the sunrise from Rim Village. It was so amazing. Then we went to climb Garfield Peak to have a panoramic view over the entire Crater Lake National Park.

We then drove towards West Rim drive and visited all the view points. Eventually we got to the North of Crater Lake and took Cleetwood Cove Trail to get down to the shore of Crater Lake. It felt good to feel the water of the purest lake in US.

At night, we went to Watchman Peak viewpoint again just to see the Milkyway. The Milkyway was right above the lake. The view was breathtaking! While we were taking photos, we saw a group of people there having hot pot. We were so shocked. Then the park ranger came and ask them to pack up the food so that bears don't get attracted. The park ranger also asked whether we heard of any firework due to some firework report to the rangers.

When we headed back Crater Lake Lodge, as we parked the car, a deer was right in front of us! That was a crazy surprise. As we got out of the car, the deer zoomed by us so fast and we were stunned!

Overall, this was a lovely trip to Crater Lake. Crater Lake was still so beautiful and pure with deep blue colour. We would definitely visit this place again!

Cleetwood Cove Trail

Cleetwood Cove trail is the only trail that goes down to the shore of Crater Lake, and thus it is also the most popular trail within Crater Lake National Park. The Cleetwood Cove trail is located on the North side of Crater Lake. It is about 2.2 miles round trip with decent elevation gain. This trail typically gives hikers a work out when coming back up. This trail is also a must do if you want to go on a boat tour or go to Wizard Island because the boarding point is at the bottom of the trail.


We got to the trailhead around 11AM in the morning and there were not that many cars there. We also noticed that the parking lot has been expanded since 5 years ago to accommodate twice as many cars. Since there was not boat tour service during the pandemic time, the rest room at the cove was also closed, but this did not stop people from going down to enjoy the Crater Lake water.

The trail descends at a constant pace. We could see the lake on the side all the time as we hike down. One thing good about this trail is that it is covered by shades due to all the large trees on the side. This helped to keep our body cool and not exposed to the glaring sun.

As we hiked down, we saw a girl fell and crying. We felt really sorry but there was a nice guy providing first aid kit to bandaid the girl's wound.

We finally got to the bottom after 30 minutes and there were already so many people there enjoying the fun in the water. People were jumping off the cliff into the water and swimming. There were also people fishing there but just have to keep in mind to only use artificial lures.

We climbed down to get close to the water and the water was not as cold as we thought. We took off our shoes and dipped our feet in it. It felt so good. We stared right down into the water and it was so blue. The colour of the water was so blue that it was kind of scary. It was hard to tell how deep it really was.

After about an hour enjoy the water, we headed back up the trail. Climbing back up was more difficult with constant climb. However, we actually climbed back to the top without taking a rest in between.

This is definitely a must visit place when visiting Crater Lake. This is the only place to get your hands into the water and feel how pure the water really is.

Garfield Peak Trail

Garfield Peak trail is one of the most popular trail located within Crater Lake National Park. The trail is only 3.4 miles roundtrip and the trailhead is right beside Crater Lake Lodge. Thus the trial itself is very accessible to visitors. The trail has some elevation gains but not difficult. However, for some reason, the trail is marked as strenuous. Most people do this hike in the early morning to see the beautiful sun rise over Crater Lake.


We woke up early in the morning around 6AM to do this trail. The early morning air was chill but was not as cold as we thought. As we walked towards the trailhead, we were joined by few other groups of people. Some hikers were alone by themselves and we figured that their family might still be sleeping.

The trail was not difficult at all. The climb was gradual and the trail itself was quite wide. The view along the trail was simply breathtaking. We spent so much time stopping by every viewpoints to take beautiful photos of Crater Lake.

As we hiked up, we also ran into a groundhog! The groundhog was quite chubby with a huge tail at its back. It was right in the middle of the trail staring at us for almost a minute before it ran off to the side. It was hilarious.

We got to the top after about 40 minutes of hiking. When we got up, no one was there and we figured it was because we spent too much time taking photos along the way. The top of the mountain has a large platform for people to rest. It also has a panoramic view over Crater Lake National Park. We could just see how round Crater Lake really is.

When we hiked back down, we started to see more and more people coming up. We really recommend to do this trail and preferably in the morning. The sun light that shine on the surface of Crater Lake was just so amazing.

Mount Scott

Mount Scott is the highest point within Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. Its peak has an altitude of 2723m and overlooks Crater Lake. The Mount Scott trail is located on the West side of Crater Lake. The trail itself is about 5 miles roundtrip with about 1000ft in elevation gain. Thus the trail itself is not difficult and quite popular among the visitors to Crater Lake National Park.


We go to Mount Scott trail head by around 1PM in the afternoon. There was about 10 cars parked there. The trail started quite flight through the prairie and the climb started short after. When we were there, the sun was very glaring and hot. However, whenever we go under the shade, the breeze felt really good, just like an AC.

As we make our climb, we also encountered many people coming back down. We were counting the group of people we see and figured that we were probably the last group of hikers on this trail.

After about an hour, we reached to the top of the ridge and we could see the hut at the far end of the ridge. The ridge of Mount Scott has a panoramic view on both sides. We could see Klamath Lake to the Southeast. The view was magnificent.

When we got to the hut, we found the area for sitting down was quite limited. There were many large rocks near the edge of the cliff. There were also bad odor coming from the side of the hut and we figured that someone probably peed here.

Nevertheless, the view over Crater Lake was just amazing. We enjoyed our time up there with cold breeze under a hot sunny day.

Overall, this is an amazing trail for people to do. This trail may be difficult for some people who do not hike on regular basis, but we still strongly recommend this trail. In addition, this trail was not busy at all on the Friday afternoon, but the parking lot was packed full when we drove by on Saturday.