We camped at Suttle Lake to be close to the trailhead for Canyon Creek Meadows, with plans to rise early and hike to Three Fingered Jack, an extinct, craggy volcano surrounded by sub-alpine meadows. Plans however, are just that, and sometimes the universe has another idea. We woke early as planned, but Rob’s ankle was hurting and was in no shape for hiking. We decided to drive the Cascade Lakes Scenic Byway and see how his ankle felt later in the day.  The “plan” had been to camp at Devil’s Lake and hike to Morraine Lake the next morning, but we would see how things went. We picked up a piece of metal in a tire at Sparks Lake. A tire pressure alert came on as we left. We stopped at Devil’s Lake and could hear air quickly escaping from the tire. We were thankful we were in a parking lot with shade, off the highway to empty the contents of the back of the car and change the tire. We were just over an hour into the drive, and didn’t know exactly what was ahead, but didn’t expect much in the way of services, so we headed back to Sisters to get the tire repaired.

Rob’s ankle worked itself out and was feeling good mid-day, so we decided to travel into the Mount Jefferson Wilderness to Jack Lake, in hopes of finding a campsite right at the trailhead to Canyon Creek Meadows; we succeeded. This area is busy with both day hikers and backpackers, but in the evening, you are reminded that you are in wilderness. The night revealed a beautiful silence and the brilliance of the night sky in complete darkness. We began the hike to Three Fingered Jack at sunrise and were fortunate to see a mountain goat grazing on the slopes. We did not realize that if we had continued hiking up the ridge, just 1/2 mile further, we would have enjoyed an overlook of a glacial lake. We had decided not to continue as the view we had was quite good, and the trail was becoming increasingly steep with loose volcanic rock. During the hike, you can observe the reforestation process at work, as you hike through miles of forest burned in the 2003 B&B complex fire which burned over 90,000 acres between Mt Washington and Mt Jefferson.