Fishing Hagg Lake

Ever since I was a little girl, I have loved to fish. My dad taught me how to fish. We would usually fish for trout. Last year, while in Oregon, I got my first fishing license in years and off we went. Last year we tried salmon/steelhead fishing but didn't catch anything. We had some nice trips, found some nice places, but no salmon. We did get some trout when camping at Trillium Lake last year. So this year we didn't get fishing licenses for everything, we just got licenses for trout. It seemed to be an easier fish to catch and offered more family friendly opportunities to fish. We had been looking at a local lake, Henry Hagg Lake, and decided to try it in the winter. A bit of research on the internet brought us information on where to go at the lake. And we talked to my daughter and son-in-law, grandkids included, and they wanted to try it out too. It seems that Micaela, my granddaughter, got a new fishing pole last year and needed to try it out. This was a good opportunity to do that.

It was a cold morning. 

We were stalked by this Heron looking for a meal.

                                                                                             

Zeke waiting for that fish!

Fish caught!

Micaela waiting for that fish!

Fish caught!

                                           

                                                    Our catch for the day

Our meal that evening

We had so much fun fishing that Mr UAW and I went back the next week to try again. This time we caught 2 fish, enough for dinner. I took my fishing pole from when I was a kid and caught one on the first cast out. Then we had nothing until it was almost time to leave, then Mr UAW caught one. And again we had some beggars stalking us for a meal, this time there were 3 of them. 

Snowshoeing!

I've been wanting to snowshoe here in the Pacific Northwest. We never got to it last winter so I've been waiting for the right time to go this winter. It was late January and the weather was clear for a good 5 days. We planned our trip for the weekday so as to avoid the weekend crowds. Sno Park pass for the day was needed-a whole $4! I guess if we went all the time we would get a season pass. Then we had to decide on a destination.  Going towards Mt Hood on Highway 26 gave us plenty of options. Glacier View Sno Park and hike around Enid Lake or go to Ski Bowl West and hike the trail to Mirror Lake were some of our choices. Checking some of the trail apps gave information that turned out to be incorrect-and pleasantly so...more on that later. We chose Glacier View and if it didn't work out Ski Bowl West was the next place to stop on the highway. So on a Monday morning we headed up early. Traffic wasn't bad. In time, my Google Maps app told me we were minutes from our destination yet there was no snow. Oregon is low on their snow levels for the year, maybe there isn't any snow at Glacier View and we will have to go higher. But just as I rounded a corner, there it was-lots of snow. Ok then. It turned out that Glacier View was not a Sno Park that Oregon Dept of Transportation kept plowed. It was too icy and we didn't have any traction tires or chains on the car. On to the next destination-Ski Bowl West. I read on the app that you had to hike down the highway for a 1/2 mile or so to connect with the trail to Mirror Lake. That didn't sound very appealing. But it turned out that last summer a trail was completed that took you from the parking lot to the Mirror Lake Trail. It has 9 bridges that were air lifted in to establish this trail. We have found that Oregon takes very good care of their trail system and this is a good example of that. So off we went

   

The first picture is one of the bridges they air lifted in. Later we had to cross this other bridge-not one of the new ones-with our snowshoes on. It was tricky but doable.  Most of the trail was snowed over but there were some spots with bare ground. We just left our snowshoes on. The snow was pretty icy and probably a better choice would have been spikes or crampons. Sounds like a good birthday or Christmas gift idea. Problem is that I would need to remember that as those holidays land towards the end of 2019.



Mirror Lake looks like Mirror Snow Field. There were tracks going across it but it didn't seem such a good idea to walk across. It had been warm lately and we didn't trust the ice.

   

A hike around the lake revealed a nice view of Mt Hood. I hear in the summer the mountain is nicely reflected in the lake.

   



Our snowshoes are older. We got them in CA years ago at Sams Club and had used them two times. There are probably better ones out there now, but these worked out fine.

This creek crossed our path many times 

Our path thru the snow 

                           

               

The trail ended up being a 4 mile trek. There were uphills and downhills. It wasn't too much for us. Back at the car we decided to go up the highway to check out some of the other Sno Parks. The town of Government Camp had one but it was not free. Up the highway a bit there was Snow Bunny Sno Park and Trillium Lake Sno Park. Both of these looked to be plowed by ODT with nice size parking lots, and to use them you needed a Sno Park pass. I think next time we will snowshoe the Trillium Lake Trail. Both of these Sno Parks had areas that the kids could use a sled so maybe we need to take a trip with the grandkids!

Confession, prediabetes, motivation

I have a confession to make. I fell off the "vegan wagon". On December 22, 2017 I blogged about becoming a vegan 98% of the time. My blood work for my cholesterol numbers had gone down from 236 to 213 because of my new diet. I was excited about how what I ate affected the numbers. The months went on and slowly, very slowly, I allowed many of the old foods I used to eat back into my life. I probably ate vegan about 50% of the time. I was curious to see how this would affect my blood work this coming November 2018. I had my blood work done and held my breath. Now my cholesterol was the highest it has ever been 238-closer to that 240 danger zone! And to top it all off I was now prediabetic. Actually, I looked at the estimated average glucose numbers for the last 4 years and I have always been in the prediabetic range. I wonder why no one said anything until now? My glucose numbers in 2017 were less than they were in 2016-so the vegan diet was helping. Anyway the glucose numbers are currently closer to type 2 diabetes than they have ever been. It is currently 120 mg/dL after fasting. It's supposed to be under 100 mg/dL and between 100 and 125 mg/dL is prediabetes. So now what to do? I decided that I shouldn't have "fallen off the wagon". I now have even more motivation to stay vegan.

I was surprised by the prediabetes diagnosis. I'm a tall, thin, active person that didn't eat a lot of sugar. I guess my genetics are catching up with me. My maternal grandmother had type 2 diabetes as she got older and 1 of her siblings had type 2 diabetes and 2 of her siblings had type 1 diabetes. My mother and brother don't have it. As far as I know none of my cousins have it. They say there are many things one can do to reverse this diagnosis.
1. Loose weight if you're overweight-check, I'm fine there
2. Don't smoke-check, I don't smoke
3. Reduce stress in your life-check, I'm retired now, much less stress
4. Exercise regularly-check, I run 3 days a week, ride horses once a week, do my exercise videos 2 days a week or hike or kayak. I guess I could do better at elevating my heart rate on some of those days.
5. Change your diet-this is the only thing I have left in my arsenal to reverse this disease.

I've said "reverse" diabetes twice now. Reverse is the correct word because it will always be with me my whole life. "Reverse" is not the same thing as "cure". I can reverse it's affect on me thru my diet but I can't cure it.

Prediabetes is not the same as diabetes, but from all my reading it is a serious condition in and of itself. According to the CDC about 84 million American adults, more than 1 out of 3, have prediabetes and 90% of them don't even know they have it. Prediabetes usually flies under the radar. There are no clear symptoms, so it often goes undetected for years. It's linked to a great risk of heart disease and stroke due to the chronic damage that elevated blood sugar can cause to heart and blood vessels. It puts me at increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke, neuropathy, kidney failure, blindness. It's a wake up call to make some changes so that I don't develop type 2 diabetes with all of its complications. Prediabetes is a fork in the road, if I ignore it I will probably end up with type 2 diabetes down the road. If I actively do something about it, I could prevent or delay type 2 diabetes. Hence, I've now got plenty of motivation to stay on my diet and always get my exercise.

So now I'm more motivated than ever to work on my diet, it's the only thing I have left in my arsenal to hopefully reverse diabetes. And it will help to reduce the cholesterol numbers. I like the vegan diet. I also have more support this time around. I've started eating like a diabetic, watching what I eat and how it affects my blood sugar. I find that it's not only the sugar I eat but the type of carbs that I eat that affect my blood sugar levels. So I've started testing my own blood sugar levels. There are many at home meters you can get to test your own levels, mine is Contour. I figured I could guess how to eat and hopefully have lower blood sugar numbers, wait a year for my next test, and hope the numbers would be good. Or I could actually test myself, see how particular foods affect my numbers, make adjustments based on some facts-so hopefully I'll see some good numbers next November.

Prediabetes is an important condition not to be ignored. I hope that by sharing others will know to take this seriously and get help if they have this. Vegan isn't the only path to take, there are many ways to deal with this disease. The point I'm trying to make is to DO SOMETHING, don't ignore it. Please educate yourself and take care of yourself.

Catch up

I haven't blogged anything since October and now it's almost Christmas. It is time to catch up with what's been going on with us. 

In October we went to a local park, to the Hoyt Arboretum, to hopefully see some fall color. We were surprised by a few trees that were beautiful and one-the Birch-Bark Cherry Tree from China- that was unusual-it had rings around it. The Oregon Vietnam Veterans Living Memorial was also there and it was a beautiful and serene place, truly a place for reflection. 

      

   

Oct 22 we took our last kayak trip for the year. We went on our local river. Now it is too cold for this person to go. It was a nice trip with a beautiful clear day. 

   

In November we went to McIver State Park. We've been there a few times and it's a good place to go for a hike. We tried some of the trails that we hadn't done before. Mr UAW saw a huge deer and there are views of Mt Hood, Mt Adams and Mt St. Helens. 

         

   

Thanksgiving week we took a trip to CA to visit relatives and friends. Every year after Thanksgiving we go on a family hike. This years hike was great. It was in the Squaw Leap Recreation area. It's in the middle of CA in the Sierras. The Sierras have so much granite, something that is not prevalent here in the pacific northwest. It was nice to see. 

      

Every year the grandkids make a candy house. It's a ginger bread house but has soooo much candy on it they named it a candy house. It's interesting to see their creative work every year. 

      

My vegetable garden is done for the year. We now have frost in the mornings. It is now the beginning of December and the highs are in the 40's and the lows in the low 30's. Lately the wind has been blowing which makes all things colder. As I write this at 8:24pm it is 35 outside and the RealFeel temp is 24. We will be getting some rain in the next few days. When it rains it might get a bit warmer. We are enjoying the all the different seasons, something that we missed where we used to live in CA. 

I have a few projects that I'm work on and will save a blog post for each one. I guess that's it for now. 

Clear Lake

I have been wanting to hike around Clear Lake for about a year. I heard about it last year. I heard that the water was very clear and that about the second week of October was great to see fall color. The Forest Service says it is the headwaters of the McKenzie River. It is a lake "born of fire" because it's formed from a dam caused by a lava flow from the Sand Mountain. When the lake was formed it covered up the forest that was there and those trees are still visible. The water is so cold (31-41 degrees), with low nutrients, fed by water filtered through volcanic rock or the year round spring that is crystal clear. These factors help to preserve the trees in the water. It's not a "dead" lake. It has native cutthroat trout and it's also stocked with trout for fisherman. I noticed the fish as I hiked around it. They were very easy to spot, which means they can see me too. I'm not sure how successful I would be fishing there. The lake has a temperate forest on one side and sunbaked lava trails on the other side. There's a little bit of everything there. And we did manage to catch some fall color, it had peaked the week before we got there but it still had nice color. The trail around the lake is about 5.5 miles long and was not difficult for us.

   
            The water was so clear

We could see the 3 Sisters Mts 

Trail through some lava flows 

Some of the fall color 

We found a door!!!

One of the many bridges around the lake 

We would like to come back next year and bring the kayaks. It takes about 2 hours for us to get here. There is a camp ground so maybe we will camp and go kayaking. If so we'll have more pictures...