the big hike: day two: Strawberry Lake

After getting dinner yesterday, we went into the geology camp main brick building to meet with Oregon State University. I admire they have found thier passion for Geology in the field. 

Evening meeting is 7:00 every day, to follow up on what is the plan for the next day's scheduled. ther is a chalk bord that said "welcome heritage University" when we got there. It was a really nice unison welcmoe from 26 people including the Kitchen staff. It was nice. 

The Main Professor, instructed his students and let us know we were to go with Brennan tomorrow. It was "day off" for the staff, so there was on our own dinner.Lunch was out after, to prep for the next day. I think that has excellent organization, its essentially a henry ford line, and you pick what you want. Mostly, its either peanut butter & jelly, your choice of jam, ham or turkey, lettuce, tomato, the mayo, fixins, and snacks, such as sunflower seeds, fig newton, jerky, and other random sides, like a bag of chips, pears, some fruits. Good lunch set up. Literally, the fruits were so nice! And vegetarian options are there as well. mostly, the announcements are alwyas the night before, lunch made after evening meeting.

 I spoke to other students and they wanted us to stay near them too, but the area could not clear the R.V. we require to use. That was a bummer because of set up, we didnt really get a chance to hang out or get to know the others, just in passing at the showers or right before dinner. we were all separate mostly on daily tasks because of their work and ours. 

We left to Strawberry lake at 7am. Sharp. no "ndn" time here. Its a new routine. We had eight total on the H.U. Surburban, including our instructors. the OSU had 23 students, who were called out on by number. The roll call, so they would yell: roll call: 1,2,3,4,5,6, and so on because each person was a number. We'd just say: we have our eight! it was a funny addition. 

The trek up is S-T-E-E-P. bit by bit. but steep. 2-3 miles up, and back tot he first lake, Its seven miles toal.  Lots of Deet( bug spray) and water galore. a full up and down, was two hours there, then back. Made it to the first one, and I was DONE! it was beautiful. clear skies, mirror lake encrusted around by a high colum valley surrouding. it was beautiful. Worth the hike. As we got back, we stopped to gas up at a local store. I almost forgot about people filling up the gas for you in Oregon. We got back to camp, did regular stuff, blogs, then dinner. that ended the day. then back to the tent.