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Jubilee Lake, Umatilla National Forest, Oregon © Diane B. Reed
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We finally made it to Jubilee Lake in the Umatilla National Forest in the Blue Mountains of Oregon. Although it's not that far from home, we had never been there. Getting there involves a fair stretch of gravel road, but it's well worth the trip. The lake, which the Forest Service created by damming Mottet Creek in the late 1960s, is popular for swimming, fishing, and non-motorized boating including kayaking and canoeing. It's high up in the Blues at 4,824 feet so it's a popular spot in the heat of the summer.
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© Diane B. Reed
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There is a large campground at the lake and a number of picnic sites for day use. We had thought that it might be a nice place to camp for a weekend. But our day trip to the lake changed our mind. We were dismayed to see trash all over the place in the parking lot and in the picnic area. A walk along the lake trail became an exercise in dodging dog excrement. When we were trying to enjoy our picnic dinner at a picnic table a loose dog ran over, jumped on us and stole some of our food. So while the lake is a beautiful spot, we've taken it off our list of potential camping spots. We'd rather go over to Wallowa Lake State Park, a beautiful and well-managed campground.
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Mottet Creek © Diane B. Reed
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So enjoy these pictures, but keep in mind they don't show the garbage, loose dogs, or the excrement. It's a shame, because it's otherwise a beautiful spot.
Diane, while H. & I were traveling the state highways in OR, we always hoped we'd make it to WA or ID before we needed to use a rest stop, because the OR rest stops are so poorly maintained. I think the reason is the fiscal situation in OR. While I generally favor a state tax system weighted to the income tax & away from the sales tax, the fact that OR has NO sales tax means their revenues have really been off in recent years. The legislators need to address this disparity between the amount of income they have & what they can do w/ it, incl. maintaining rest stops, state parks like the one you visited, state highways & the number of officers available to patrol them, etc. I hope you pass the word along about your recent experience. Then maybe some good can come from this.
ReplyDeleteActually, Jubilee Lake is part of the Forest Service, so it's more a function of federal budget issues. But more troubling is that visitors show such disregard for the place that they trash the place. Over the weekend 3000 people trashed the Illia Dunes area on the Snake River, leaving garbage, beer cans, broken glass, and much more. The Corps of Engineers has had to close the area because they don't have the staff or the budget for cleanup. Many of the perpetrators may have students from nearby WSU. See http://www.nwcn.com/home/?fId=167706615&fPath=/news/local&fDomain=10222
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