A Day in the Mountains - June 2007

On this day (Saturday), my brother, dad, and I decided to hunt some caches in the mountains near home. The first two caches were part of a series of caches by WR7X each placed near fire lookout towers. From where my family lives in Cove, we could look up and see the area where both towers are. It was a rather lengthy drive but the roads were in good shape and the weather was perfect. On the cache pages linked below you can see a few more pictures including those of the lookout towers.

Point Prominence Lookout by WR7X (GC13N7R)

18 miles ENE of La Grande, Oregon
Elevation 6745'

My dad and brother knew the way to this tower and we drove to within a few hundred yards of it. After finding the cache, we took pictures of the view of the valley floor. From the cache site, we had a great view of the valley to the west. We hiked a short distance to the tower and climbed the steps up to the top. We couldn't go inside because the door was locked - the tower wasn't manned that day. We took a few more pictures and climbed down. We walked a short distance south of the tower and had a spectacular view of the Minam River and Eagle Cap Wilderness to the east of us.


We then drove back to the main road where we parked and had something to eat. After spending some time talking to some forest rangers who stopped by while we were eating we drove on to the next cache a few miles north:

Mt. Harris Lookout by WR7X (GCYYJJ)

12 miles northeast of La Grande, Oregon
Elevation 6071'

We drove fairly close to this cache but somehow missed the road that led directly to the tower. After we parked, my brother and I hiked roughly .15 miles through some tough terrain on our way to the tower.

Somewhere along the way I hit my head on a fallen tree while trying to manuever under\around it and managed to draw blood. I'm not really good at watching my head and feet at the same time.

[I wasn't terribly concerned at the time since I am always getting assorted cuts and scratches out in the woods, but later had to go to the emergency room in La Grande and get 6 staples to patch it up as well as a tetanus shot.]

As for the cache, we continued on and eventually found the tower and after some searching found the cache as well. While reading the logs, I noticed that several cachers had left blood on the log from cuts acquired while retrieving the cache. I left my own bloody mark after signing the log! We took a little more time to rest and take more pictures of the view before heading back to meet my dad at the truck.

[ If you look just above my right temple, you can see where I got banged up a little.]

Since we were close to Elgin, OR after coming down off of the mountain we hunted a cache called

Welcome to Elgin by WR7X (GCYY73)


which was in a small park, and enjoyed some ice cream at a place nearby before heading home.