Panther Creek

This past weekend, we spent camping with our friends, Jan and Bill and also Val and Jim. We'd been out once before with Jan and Bill, who are old friends from way back. They are the boys' godparents, in fact (and have, indeed, sworn in front of a congregation to keep Satan's influence from our children). Swift Lake with Jan and Bill was delightful and we've meant to do it again, but we have not been successful the last few years.

This year, we decided to combine everybody and do one big happy camping trip. We were originally going to do Swift Lake, which is a tradition with Jan and Bill (who have a boat and can access the remote parts of the lake), however an earlier trip revealed that the water levels had overrun the beaches, the mosquitoes were rampant and loud, music-loving yahoos had invaded their sanctuary.

With just a quick week to figure out new plans, we settled on Panther Creek, in the Gifford-Pinchot, somewhat by accident.

The trip had the potential for disaster written all over it. Not only had none of us even been to the campground (and there were few reviews written about it online), but one of our party was overcome by nausea Saturday morning and spent much of the first day vomiting on the side of the road or trying to ignore the rest of us as we talked in hushed whispers and wondered if it were something more deadly than food poisoning. Eventually, he retired to his tent and felt chipper enough the next morning to make a run out to Carson for coffee and cigarettes at 5 in the morning, so all was well by then.

The other alarming development was the heat advisory for the weekend that was all over the papers the previous day. I checked the online weather reports and everything indicated that it would spike at 100 degrees or higher and that people were advised to lie low, check on elderly neighbors and to avoid going out in the heat as much as possible. It felt a little foolhardy to leave our nicely air-conditioned home for this type of extreme weather, but we could hardly back out of it by this point.

Happily, all the portents proved to be false ones.

For starters, the site was a very short drive from Portland (a little more than an hour got us there), the campsites were large and generously spaced apart from one another. Tall trees shaded our sites. We were a short walk to a lovely watering hole at the nearby Panther Creek. While the water was icy cold, the day was quite warm and those of us who dared the depths were rewarded with a feeling of pure refreshment.

While it was quite warm in the afternoon, it never felt that bad near our watering hole and we returned to the site only after the heat had subsided.

We hit the Panther Creek Falls, ably directed by our camp hostess, Jackie (dubbed "Calamity Jane" for her fetching pigtails and irrepressible attitude), who seemed to take a personal interest in all her campers. They truly were beautiful, but we decided to leave the Falls Creek Falls (given a spectacular 5 stars in one review) for another trip.

Dining was awesome, with Val providing a unique and spicy Cincinatti-style chili the first night with cornbread. We made pasta carbonara the following night, which is a favorite camp dish with us. By mixing up the goop and frying up the bacon ahead of time, all we have to do at the campsite is to boil the pasta and toss everything together. It was also very well-received.

Jan and Bill provided a truly wonderful breakfast fry up on Saturday morning -- potatoes, red peppers, sausages, onion.... pure yum! Sunday was more laid back: cereal and fruit.

Toss in killer brownies (Val) (definitely not South-Beach-friendly) and you have yourselves some very happy campers.

The verdict: Panther Creek rocks! And the group, which has never camped together before, may do it again next year.