SE Oregon, Steens, Alvord Desert

[zjsheller]

Headed out on Thursday in the Rain. First photo op is crossing the Willamette river on the Wheatland Ferry.

Met with Ryan at the fuel depot in Brooks. From there south on I-5 to 20 and off to our first stop, a quick shift into 4 wheel drive near Detroit Lake.

Then over the mountain, past Sisters, Bend, and onto Glass Buttes. Of course we lost the Western Oregon Rain once over the Cascades

HFN Thursday. (HFN= Home For Now). There are thousands of chips of obsidian everywhere. You can almost picture indians sitting under these trees making arrow heads. Neat place.

Friday tooks us to Burns, south on 205, couple of county roads, barbed wire gates, on to Riddle Mt Lookout. What was supposed to be a quick trip up the MT turned into a round trip back to Napa in Burns for a serpentine belt. My AC compressor froze and the belt broke. We had a back up but it was for a 4.0 w/ ac. Fortunately, the ZJ easily reroutes with a shorter belt. Problem solved.

Riddle Mt Lookout became HFN Friday.

Saturday off to the Steens and Alvord Desert.

The fall colors were turning the Aspens. Gorgeous.

Officially the highest Jeep in the state.

Down the southside, on to Fields for fuel then to the Desert.

Saturday was the 7+ hour drive home. Looking forward to spending more time here on the next trip. So much to see...

 

[nightfoam]

Great shots Brian. My longer drive home got me back a lot later. I'll work on pictures tomorrow.

 

[HenryJ]

We head to the Steens loop this weekend. Thanks for sharing the photos.

 

[1leglance]

wow what a variety of terrain you guys covered, pretty amazing to look at the pics and think that is all in one trip

 

[Mr. Leary]

Pretty area. One of those many places I would never know about were it not for ExPo. :drool:

Thanks for sharing!

 

[BEVAN]

Pretty area. One of those many places I would never know about were it not for ExPo. :drool:

Thanks for sharing!

Aint that the truth !!!

 

[nightfoam]

So Brian already made a post kinda describing how things went. I figured I'd just post a few pictures for now. I'll have a blog post up hopefully in the next few days. I'm redoing things over there a little right now so I've still got to get that figured out first.


As he mentioned, after fuel in Brooks, we headed over the pass. Plenty of moisture over on the west side of the mountains, but Detroit Lake is pretty low this time of year.

We continued east, stopping in Bend for fuel ($3.05) before heading out to Glass Buttes. Great view up there but way too windy for a campfire and a night in a tent so we headed back down the mountain a ways to a hunting camp we'd seen. Plenty of wind there but there was a nicely built wind shelter for a fire and a welcome mat right where I'd picked to set up my tent. Of course, there was also the problem of a number of large rodents running around camp after we'd gone to sleep, making lots of noise, and generally keeping me awake. Once the coyotes started in, I'd had enough and headed for the silence of my passenger seat. Not as comfortable but it worked alright for me. There were some nice views to be had by walking through the trees to our north, out to the edge of a hill.

Friday morning, we headed for Burns for fuel ($3.13) then down to check out the Diamond Craters. I decided since we were Backroad Driving, I'd take a backroad. We ended up on top of a small ridge, giving us a decent view of the surrounding valleys and a pretty large juniper tree.

From there, we headed up to Riddle Mountain for what was supposed to be a quick visit. It didn't quite work out that way but at least I got a few minutes to take some pictures.

I find it amusing that Brian didn't elaborate on what took place to get his shorter serpentine belt. It was actually a 4+ hour trip to Burns. We were fortunate to have cell service on top of the mountain so were at least knew the Napa would be open. It was nearly dark by the time we got back to camp so I started getting my tent set up and the fire going while Brian but on the new, shorter belt. We still had some time to sit around the fire and enjoy some cold ones even with the wind. It was noisy but at least there weren't any bugs...

Saturday, we hit the road fairly early, we needed the extra time to open and close all the gates. Whoever installed them must've had latch add because no two were the same.

Cruising down through the valley, near the small community of Diamond, I noticed a small herd of pronghorns in a field and, after closer inspection, I could see a coyote back there too.

The colors really were amazing, I'll definitely be back up there in the fall in the future.

Up at the East Rim Viewpoint, Brian and I struck up a conversation with a nice Scotsman who was visiting. We were very jealous to discover that back home, he had a D110. I exchanged blog addresses (his was yaditc.blogspot.com) I told him about EXPO so hopefully he'll show up here soon.

Headed back down on the south road, we got a nice view of Big Indian gorge.

Next up, we headed down to Fields for gas ($3.50) the up to the Pike Creek mine road. We drove up about two miles but I'd heard there was a partial washout further up so we decided to turn around and head out to the playa. We cruised across to the other side to see if the wind over there was any lighter (it wasn't) so we went back out to the middle, where we'd at least be away from any animals.

Camp was fantastic, the wind died down pretty quickly to just a gentle breeze, allowing us to enjoy our fire and the views.

The next morning, we parted ways, Brian wanted to get home sooner rather than later and I still had a little exploring I wanted to do. First up I stopped into Alvord Hot Springs for a quick soak. I was joined after a short while by two young ladies and a gentleman friend of theirs who all took advantage of the optional part of clothing-optional, sorry no pictures . After drying off, I headed for Fields where I had breakfast and caught up with a few locals and a few travelers, among them a couple traveling in their new-to-them MG, a ranch hand who'd chased a cougar off their land that morning, before breakfast and a ultra-light pilot who was camped on the Alvord with friends and had flown (literally) down to the store from some supplies.

I decided for my route back, I would take a bit of a longer route, first heading down OR-205 to NV-269 to Denio Junction, where I decided to top off my tank ($3.70 (ouch!)) so I could make it to a bigger city to do my final fill up on the drive home. I then headed northwest on NV-140, which turned into OR-140 when I crossed the border. That area has a whole lot of nothing, though I did see some more wild horses, along with a few wild Burros. Shortly after crossing the OR border, the highway drops down what is called Doherty Slide. Basically a thousand vertical foot cliff. Amazing views from up there, I stopped at a hang gliding lauch pad for a quick picture.

From there, I continued through Adel to US-395, then OR-31 through Paisly, Summer Lake and Silver Lake up to La Pine. US-97 to Bend, where I stopped for gas ($2.79, yeah, a whole $0.91 a gallon cheaper) then US-20 to US-22 to I-5 back up to Portland.

I gotta say, I was impressed by the Adel area and I think that might be my next big road trip.

Thanks to Brian for tagging along on my little adventure, I'm ready to get back out!

 

[mhiscox]

Thanks for investing the time and talent to share the photos and commentary. Very nice, and much appreciated.

 

[suntinez]

What a great trip report, I really enjoyed it. Some of these pics make me feel like I'm right there. I esp like the night time distance shot of your camp with the stars, beautiful!

 

[mangus7175]

Two of my favorites...

 

[zjsheller]

Awesome pictures Ryan!! Amazing!! Thanks again!!

 

[Nikson]

Great... Just great pictures... thanks for sharing...

P.s. Not to burst the bubble, but as far as we (SalemJeepers) have been told by local rangers, its not "okay" to come out on that part of the Marina on your vehicle... high risk of a big fine

 

[nightfoam]

Great... Just great pictures... thanks for sharing...

P.s. Not to burst the bubble, but as far as we (SalemJeepers) have been told by local rangers, its not "okay" to come out on that part of the Marina on your vehicle... high risk of a big fine

Ah, thanks for the heads up. I just followed the road down, didn't see any signs. I guess I won't do that anymore.

 

[mosupernak]

Amazing photos and beautiful spots. Thanks for sharing -Marc