Jhartung
Member
Trip date: July 20 - July 23, 2017
Route: Oregon Backcountry Discovery Route 4, Sisters to Seneca
Gaia Route: https://www.gaiagps.com/public/RL28fZwW1Xe7lFtDQC82y34x
Gaia Track: https://www.gaiagps.com/public/WBl5LdJ92GXVis9sArOExeJ8
I'm based in Portland, OR and just getting into overland with my 2001 Tacoma. I've got two kids and run a startup tech company, so it's not often that I get to go off on a "boys trip" and spend some time out of cell range. While work takes me all over the world, I'm rarely away long enough to enjoy myself (think 2 day trips to Germany). So when I bought my truck and carved out FOUR DAYS for an overland trip, I started planning early.
I wanted an easy introductory route I could do with only slightly less experienced friends with a variety of rigs, so based on a bit of handy internet research I decided on the Oregon Backcountry Discovery Routes. This is the Oregon version of a larger scale effort to make backcountry travel more accessible through the use of well-mapped routes over publicly accessible roads. Apparently Oregon was the original, but this effort has expanded to 12 states. I liked the look of Route 4, which goes from Sisters, OR (near Bend), along the Ochoco National Forest, then into the Malheur National Forest, before finally coming out just south of John Day, OR.
I started trip planning by purchasing the topo maps available at OOHVA and entering them into my Gaia GPS system. Gaia has a few neat features, but in this case I really enjoyed that it helped me plot the routes by snapping to the various forest roads it found on the map. You can check out the route I planned here. On the trip I downloaded the offline maps for the route to two different devices (iPad and iPhone), but I would still recommend you purchase the topo maps from OOHVA if you intend to do these routes. Even if you do feel confident in the function of your various electronic devices when your life depends on it, the BDR movement is a pretty cool deal to have available and is worth supporting with your dollars.
As the trip neared, I began to coordinate meals with the other 7 trucks/10 people I had invited as well as send out recommendations for gear to bring and things to check on their rigs. Apparently it was a deal breaker for everyone to not drive 250 miles on all season tires, because all but one truck bailed on me up until just a few hours prior to departure. The last crew promised they would meet me at a rest stop the morning of the second day, so on Thursday morning I crossed my fingers, hopped in the truck, and headed down to Sisters alone. Since I won't be inviting any of them along on any more outings, please let me know if you're in a similar family/work situation and are the kind of person who prioritizes recreation. I'd love to grab a beer and talk trucks.
I arrived at Space Age Fuel in Sisters at about 10AM and let a nice Forest Service officer know who I was, where I was going, and when I expected to be out. I was planning to be solo for at least one day, but still wasn't sure if the last truck would bail or meet me at the rest stop. I then pulled off onto the first dirt road, aired down to 15PSI, rolled down my windows, and took a deep breath. I love solo adventuring.
Everything that first day ended up being easy cruisers (the whole trip, really) but airing down really improved my comfort level. Before long I followed a little pavement and came out on The Cove Palisades State Park, which is a very strange body of water filled with party boats, but also very remote feeling.
I got to cross a very cool one lane bridge though
Pretty soon I was back on dirt and away from party boats
And eventually into camp. I only heard one other person the whole time I was camped on the edge of the Mill Creek Wilderness. In the morning as I ate my breakfast burrito in the sun, I was privileged to have a great blue heron fly a low and slow pass overhead, just a soft breath of air over it's wings the only sound. Camping alone is such a special and humbling experience.
The next morning I arrived at Indian Spring rest stop and waited for about an hour eating my extra burrito and drinking a little iced coffee I had left from breakfast. Suddenly the last truck appeared! My friends Ed and Andrea made it down in their 2017 Tacoma, already the right color! HUGE points to them for making it happen. Unfortunately the couple stragglers that were supposed to accompany them bailed. We aired down and got on our way.
Through beautiful fields of wildflowers
And burn forests
Even an interesting obstacle or two!
After many hours of driving, the daylight waning, we happened upon what we would find out is (supposedly) the tallest timber fire lookout in the US! Hopefully someone can corroborate this.
This structure was so tall I was shaking trying to climb it. I kept my head down and put one foot in front of the other. Amazingly the long spans of the stairways and railings felt solid, despite their obvious age and weathering. We were greeted by an incredible view.
We climbed down in time to meet another crew and chat for a bit. They were doing the route in one day and one of them in an ancient, carbureted Defender! Though I didn't get any pictures of that, I did snap one of the nearly disabled Range Rover Sport they left before the bumpy road up to the lookout. Apparently the driver had pinched one of the low profile tires on a rock and blown out the side wall. As Ed said, "that's why you don't buy the sport!" Luckily the spare looked like the most capable rubber on that "truck".
A few more miles down the road as the sun began to set
We found a tucked away campsite in a burn forest. We all wished we could have stayed on this ridge in the Ochocos until the eclipse a few weeks later.
The next day we discovered an old airstrip, with it's torn wind sock. This was one of the few places to get above the steep canyon we were navigating for many miles.
Dropping back down we surprised some horses near a small, very remote ranch. Later while waiting for a cow to clear off the path we reminisced about how people come into these type of in-holdings. Handed down between generations, I guess.
Nearing the end of the trip, we were eager to do more exploring. We headed off toward a "mine" icon on the topo and were rewarded with an iron mine and mostly complete smelter!
The caretakers cabin had Forest Service signs threatening all types of "we will mess you up" if we were to step foot inside. Peering in we could see old wall paper and an ancient bunk rotting away.
And then suddenly we arrived back on pavement! We turned north for burgers in John Day and a spin by the Kam Wah Chung Co, which was a grocery and refuge for Chinese miners and laborers back in the late 1800s.
A truly beautiful drive west along the John Day Highway delivered us shortly at the Painted Hills National Monument. Mercifully my cell phone had not yet started working.
We looked on at the Painted Hills parking area and had an uneasy laugh with the parks officer as we imagined the expected 40K people piling into this small refuge to ogle the eclipse. The Painted Hills are a delicate mud which show vibrant colors due to the oxidation of various elements within the soil. Every footprint, animal or inconsiderate visitor, is painfully visible. I hope it survived.
From there I parted ways with Ed and Andrea and cruised leisurely north back to Portland and the real world, eager to find the next adventure. The verdict: OBDR Route 4 is a perfect intro to remote vehicle operation - many road crossings and potential bail points make failure an option, but an unlikely one due to the mild nature of the roads. There are some tracks that would require a chainsaw in early season and elevations are high enough to hold snow, so plan accordingly. There were also extended areas of deep mud that had dried solid when we passed, but would present formidable obstacles if they were to soften.
And again, I'd love to hook up with local Portland professional/dad types for beers and trip planning. If you're serious about your recreation and you don't cancel on people via text message, first round is on me
Route: Oregon Backcountry Discovery Route 4, Sisters to Seneca
Gaia Route: https://www.gaiagps.com/public/RL28fZwW1Xe7lFtDQC82y34x
Gaia Track: https://www.gaiagps.com/public/WBl5LdJ92GXVis9sArOExeJ8
I'm based in Portland, OR and just getting into overland with my 2001 Tacoma. I've got two kids and run a startup tech company, so it's not often that I get to go off on a "boys trip" and spend some time out of cell range. While work takes me all over the world, I'm rarely away long enough to enjoy myself (think 2 day trips to Germany). So when I bought my truck and carved out FOUR DAYS for an overland trip, I started planning early.
I wanted an easy introductory route I could do with only slightly less experienced friends with a variety of rigs, so based on a bit of handy internet research I decided on the Oregon Backcountry Discovery Routes. This is the Oregon version of a larger scale effort to make backcountry travel more accessible through the use of well-mapped routes over publicly accessible roads. Apparently Oregon was the original, but this effort has expanded to 12 states. I liked the look of Route 4, which goes from Sisters, OR (near Bend), along the Ochoco National Forest, then into the Malheur National Forest, before finally coming out just south of John Day, OR.
I started trip planning by purchasing the topo maps available at OOHVA and entering them into my Gaia GPS system. Gaia has a few neat features, but in this case I really enjoyed that it helped me plot the routes by snapping to the various forest roads it found on the map. You can check out the route I planned here. On the trip I downloaded the offline maps for the route to two different devices (iPad and iPhone), but I would still recommend you purchase the topo maps from OOHVA if you intend to do these routes. Even if you do feel confident in the function of your various electronic devices when your life depends on it, the BDR movement is a pretty cool deal to have available and is worth supporting with your dollars.
As the trip neared, I began to coordinate meals with the other 7 trucks/10 people I had invited as well as send out recommendations for gear to bring and things to check on their rigs. Apparently it was a deal breaker for everyone to not drive 250 miles on all season tires, because all but one truck bailed on me up until just a few hours prior to departure. The last crew promised they would meet me at a rest stop the morning of the second day, so on Thursday morning I crossed my fingers, hopped in the truck, and headed down to Sisters alone. Since I won't be inviting any of them along on any more outings, please let me know if you're in a similar family/work situation and are the kind of person who prioritizes recreation. I'd love to grab a beer and talk trucks.
I arrived at Space Age Fuel in Sisters at about 10AM and let a nice Forest Service officer know who I was, where I was going, and when I expected to be out. I was planning to be solo for at least one day, but still wasn't sure if the last truck would bail or meet me at the rest stop. I then pulled off onto the first dirt road, aired down to 15PSI, rolled down my windows, and took a deep breath. I love solo adventuring.
Everything that first day ended up being easy cruisers (the whole trip, really) but airing down really improved my comfort level. Before long I followed a little pavement and came out on The Cove Palisades State Park, which is a very strange body of water filled with party boats, but also very remote feeling.
I got to cross a very cool one lane bridge though
Pretty soon I was back on dirt and away from party boats
And eventually into camp. I only heard one other person the whole time I was camped on the edge of the Mill Creek Wilderness. In the morning as I ate my breakfast burrito in the sun, I was privileged to have a great blue heron fly a low and slow pass overhead, just a soft breath of air over it's wings the only sound. Camping alone is such a special and humbling experience.
The next morning I arrived at Indian Spring rest stop and waited for about an hour eating my extra burrito and drinking a little iced coffee I had left from breakfast. Suddenly the last truck appeared! My friends Ed and Andrea made it down in their 2017 Tacoma, already the right color! HUGE points to them for making it happen. Unfortunately the couple stragglers that were supposed to accompany them bailed. We aired down and got on our way.
Through beautiful fields of wildflowers
And burn forests
Even an interesting obstacle or two!
After many hours of driving, the daylight waning, we happened upon what we would find out is (supposedly) the tallest timber fire lookout in the US! Hopefully someone can corroborate this.
This structure was so tall I was shaking trying to climb it. I kept my head down and put one foot in front of the other. Amazingly the long spans of the stairways and railings felt solid, despite their obvious age and weathering. We were greeted by an incredible view.
We climbed down in time to meet another crew and chat for a bit. They were doing the route in one day and one of them in an ancient, carbureted Defender! Though I didn't get any pictures of that, I did snap one of the nearly disabled Range Rover Sport they left before the bumpy road up to the lookout. Apparently the driver had pinched one of the low profile tires on a rock and blown out the side wall. As Ed said, "that's why you don't buy the sport!" Luckily the spare looked like the most capable rubber on that "truck".
A few more miles down the road as the sun began to set
We found a tucked away campsite in a burn forest. We all wished we could have stayed on this ridge in the Ochocos until the eclipse a few weeks later.
The next day we discovered an old airstrip, with it's torn wind sock. This was one of the few places to get above the steep canyon we were navigating for many miles.
Dropping back down we surprised some horses near a small, very remote ranch. Later while waiting for a cow to clear off the path we reminisced about how people come into these type of in-holdings. Handed down between generations, I guess.
Nearing the end of the trip, we were eager to do more exploring. We headed off toward a "mine" icon on the topo and were rewarded with an iron mine and mostly complete smelter!
The caretakers cabin had Forest Service signs threatening all types of "we will mess you up" if we were to step foot inside. Peering in we could see old wall paper and an ancient bunk rotting away.
And then suddenly we arrived back on pavement! We turned north for burgers in John Day and a spin by the Kam Wah Chung Co, which was a grocery and refuge for Chinese miners and laborers back in the late 1800s.
A truly beautiful drive west along the John Day Highway delivered us shortly at the Painted Hills National Monument. Mercifully my cell phone had not yet started working.
We looked on at the Painted Hills parking area and had an uneasy laugh with the parks officer as we imagined the expected 40K people piling into this small refuge to ogle the eclipse. The Painted Hills are a delicate mud which show vibrant colors due to the oxidation of various elements within the soil. Every footprint, animal or inconsiderate visitor, is painfully visible. I hope it survived.
From there I parted ways with Ed and Andrea and cruised leisurely north back to Portland and the real world, eager to find the next adventure. The verdict: OBDR Route 4 is a perfect intro to remote vehicle operation - many road crossings and potential bail points make failure an option, but an unlikely one due to the mild nature of the roads. There are some tracks that would require a chainsaw in early season and elevations are high enough to hold snow, so plan accordingly. There were also extended areas of deep mud that had dried solid when we passed, but would present formidable obstacles if they were to soften.
And again, I'd love to hook up with local Portland professional/dad types for beers and trip planning. If you're serious about your recreation and you don't cancel on people via text message, first round is on me
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