We left the lake and began the climb of Ochoco Pass.
Skippy went ahead.
Swabbie ended up taking a break just before the
top.
(around a curve about 1/2 mile).
While swabbie was loafing, Scott and Darryl came by from a beer run and offered to put him
in the back of the pickup to hide while they ran him up to the
top.
Of course swabbie declined to cheat.
The
view
of the top was pretty impressive.
The bottom of Ochoco pass turned things back into shadeless brown again.
It was also getting pretty hot.
We climbed about 1/3 of Keyes Creek Pass to Mitchell.
Mitchell was mostly, but not quite a ghost town.
A few stores were open, but most were boarded up or otherwise closed and dusty.
Of course the captain found somewhere to buy beer.
The city park was free for camping, so we went to take a look.
Despite the general feeling that the town was past its prime, the
city park turned out to be a
nice campground.
There we ran into Eric (did we mention him back at Belkin Hot Springs?) again.
swabbie had suggested we eat at the Hotel we found as they claimed to have just hired a
"world renowned" cook. Although, why would a world renowned chef be here?
Eric introduced to a couple kids who were stranded there because their VW bus had broken down.
They were waiting for the girl's father to show up with his pickup and a u-haul.
They had eaten there and after their tale, we fired up our stove.
One thing Mitchell did have was a small visitor center.
It had showers that you could pay $2 to use over at the general store.
There we learned of Mitchells better past and the 30 foot flash flood that had come down main street decades ago.
The other interestng, perhaps a little sad, was the
Mitchell bear.
Henry lived in maybe a 20 x 20 cage at the local commercial gas station.
The sign indicated that Henry was happy but we had our doubts.
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