Eastern Oregon

Now that I do not have any doctor's or dentist's appointments for several months, I have started looking for places that I might like to visit this summer. Here is a video from TrailRecon showing a beautiful area in eastern Oregon where I have never been...

Checkout the photos on "A Hiker's Guide To The Owyhee Canyonlands".

Heading East

As much as I would have liked to continue exploring the Pacific Northwest, I am finding it near impossible to locate available campsites, particularly, for the weekends. Adding to the frustration are the prices most parks are charging: $50+ per night is the norm, not the exception.

If the above was not bad enough, the increase in the number of COVID-19 cases is causing local and state governments here to expand their restrictions. The City of Bend has even reinstated a travel advisory telling tourists to stay away until Labor Day (that's got to hurt a lot of businesses).

In an attempt to escape this madness, I am turning eastward towards Idaho and Utah. I have reservations in Burns, OR and Caldwell, ID which gives me hope that I am heading in the right direction.

Three Creek Lake

The temperature was 96 degrees this afternoon, so Keith and I took the Jeep up to Three Creek Lake, a picturesque mountain lake located in a glacial cirque, formed by the Cabot Creek Glaciation 13,000 years ago. Considering the remoteness of the lake, we were both surprised at the number of people who were there...

On the way back down the mountain there was a great view of the Three Sisters...

Tumalo Falls

Last Wednesday, Keith, Jayne and I tried to visit Tumalo Falls, one of the more popular waterfalls in the area, but it was so crowded that vehicles were lined up on both sides of the access road for several hundred yards before the trailhead. I did not want to risk certain death from all those masked people not social-distancing, so we skipped it and headed to the Dee Wright Observatory.

Today, I left my campsite early this morning and when I arrived at the Falls, there were only a few cars and two people in the parking lot. Unfortunately, the waterfall was still in the shadows so the photos were not as sharp as I would have liked...

I considered hiking to the top of the waterfall, but the mosquitoes were so bad I wimped out.

Paulina Peak & Big Obsidian Flow

Today, we visited Paulina Peak and the Big Obsidian Flow south of Bend, Oregon. The drive up to the Peak is a curvy, narrow, dirt, washboard road (vehicles need to be less than 23' in length) that takes you up to 7,984 feet in elevation where you are rewarded with this view...

Click on photos to enlarge

From here you can also see the Big Obsidian Flow...

At the Flow there is a loop trail you can hike and see some very impressive obsidian rocks of all sizes...

Dee Wright Observatory

This afternoon we drove up to the Dee Wright Observatory situated on a black lava flow at the boundary between the Willamette and Deschutes National Forests west of Sisters, Oregon. On the Cascade Range at 5,187 feet, this mountain observatory offers panoramic views of the Mount Washington and Three Sisters Wilderness areas...

Click on photos to enlarge

Boondocking With Friends

Arrived safe and sound at Keith and Jayne's site in the Deschutes National Forest northwest of Bend, Oregon. One of the advantages of boondocking is the ease of setting up your RV - put the slides out, lower the leveling jacks and open a cold beer - that's all there is to it.

Serendipity

Keith, a friend I first met nine years ago in South Dakota, saw that I was in the area and called to let me know that Jayne and he were social-distancing in a national forest near Bend, Oregon. He invited me to join them and promised to show me a bunch of waterfalls at a deeply discounted rate for his professional guide service. Not one to pass up a good deal, I am driving up next week. It will be my first time boondocking in the Jayco Seneca.

Crater Lake

A massive volcanic eruption 7,700 years ago left a deep basin in the place where a mountain peak once stood. Centuries of rain and snow filled the basin, forming Crater Lake. It is the deepest lake in the United States at 1,943 feet and holds 4.9 trillion gallons of water.

I had intended to drive around the lake, but the East Rim Drive was still closed due to snow. It looks like mid-July and August would be the best months to tour the park (talk about a short season). It was overcast today, so the photos do not quite capture the brilliant deep blue color of the lake...

Medford, Oregon

Medford, Oregon is the next stop on my tour of the Pacific Northwest. I chose Medford for several reasons:

• It has a retina center where I was able to schedule an appointment for my next macular degeneration injection.
• It is large enough to have all the amenities that I would want without the traffic/congestion of larger cities.
• It has several RV dealerships along with a Freightliner facility in case I might have problems with the Jayco Seneca. This turned out to be fortuitous in as much as the 7 pin connector failed to send power to the Jeep which left me with a dead battery. Fortunately, I carry a power pack with me so this was not a big problem. It turned out to be a blown fuse which was a quick and easy fix.

Oregon trivia:

• It is only one of two states nationwide where it is illegal to pump your own gas (if your car or truck uses diesel, you can pump it yourself).
• It has no state sales tax (I will be stocking up on anything I can use in the near future).

View from my site at the Southern Oregon RV Park

Wildfires

Unfortunately, the wildfires in Oregon and Washington have made travel on the back roads so problematic that I have cancelled my plans to tour the Pacific Northwest this summer. I am currently in Reno, NV where I will be working on a new itinerary over the next couple of days. As I once told Bobby Burns: "the best laid plans of mice and men sometimes go awry". Actually, I said "s**t happens" and he cleaned it up.

Oregon Scenic Highway

Just to get a feel for the area, I drove the truck up Highway 52 to Ukiah and then Highway 51 back to Sumpter. All in all a nice drive through some very pristine wilderness. In some respects, it was like stepping back in time.

Old mining operation

A piece of roadside Americana

I brake for fawns

Sumpter, Oregon

Is a historic gold mining town located in the Elkhorn Mountain Range that I have chosen as my base camp to explore the eastern portion of the state.

Population ~200

Just off main street is the massive Sumpter Valley Dredge which was last used to mine gold in 1954.

Each bucket weighs one ton