A journey to the Alvord Desert July 9th-13th 2009 (part V)

This is the fifth and final posting of a five part series on a trip I took with the Pacific Northwest Adventure Group

Monday morning. More like mourning. What a sad day. A return to civilization. Not something I was looking forward to. Though I still had several hundreds of miles of driving to do, I wasn't ready. First off, we headed up and over the hills to a old fire lookout tower, now being rented out by vacationers. Fortunately, when we got there, the current renters were just leaving and allowed us to go up and take a look. Somehow, I neglected to take a picture of the tower.



We didn't stay long since we had quite a bit of driving to do. Even skinny little Keegan could barely fit through the opening for the stairs



Near Long Creek, we stopped to check out an old ranch and a truck parked there that was nearly as old.



In the small town of Fox, we stopped to take pictures of the old church. While it looked good on the outside, a peek in the window made it clear that the church hadn't been used in a while





From there, we hopped back on the highway and made a beeline for Pendleton. After visiting at my Mom's for a bit, Keegan and I hit the road for home. Almost immediately, we noticed a smokey look in the sky. A few miles west of Pendleton, we found a 3500+ acre brush fire, which we watched for a while before heading home.

Brush Fire Slideshow


This was definitely one of the most amazing trips I've been on. It really got me thinking, I enjoy traveling in my jeep so much. Everything else I do is just to pass the time until I get to go exploring again. While chatting with some of the,,, more experienced folks on the trip, who were envious of my young age, I realized I need to take advantage of my lack of real commitments and travel.
My tentative plan is to take a year or so to equip myself and my Jeep to the proper level, then hit the road, traveling around the country taking in the sights and, hopefully, writing about it. Its a bit of a fantasy right now but I think there is no better time for me to do it than now.
I also want to apologize for taking so long to make a blog posting, I've been quite busy with life but hopefully I'll get more opportunities to do some blogging on some small day trips I've taken lately.
-Ryan

A journey to the Alvord Desert July 9th-13th 2009 (part IV)

This is the fourth of a five part series on a trip I took with the Pacific Northwest Adventure Group

Sunday morning we awoke knowing we'd be heading toward home. Mom really wanted to check out Alvord Hot Spring, a few miles north of our campsite. So, after packing up camp, we headed up there. Through the morning, several thunderstorms had passed through the area, though fortunately for us, mostly on the east side of the desert, allowing us to watch on without getting much rain.



From the hot springs, we could actually see two separate cells coming north.



From there we headed almost directly across the road and up an old mining road. We found an old cabin up there which had clearly seen better days.





We were able to find the remnants of an old tram, used to get the gold from the mine down to the area of the cabin. You can't tell but I'm looking nearly straight up in this picture.



While checking out the base of the Tram area, we could see another storm coming up the valley.



And a view back toward the mountain behind us, somewhere above is the old mine.



We quickly hopped back in the truck as we got hit by a heavy downpour which actually made the road pretty treacherous, especially in that big truck. But just as quickly, the sun came back out, as can be seen as we crossed a creek headed back down to the main road.



On the way down to Fields, we slowed for a picture of the old school at Andrews, all of which appears to be privately owned now.



Finally, we were in Fields, prepared to eat a famous Fields Burger! Here, Sandy is taking an order as our burgers sizzle away on the grill behind her.



Man, what a delicious burger!



We crossed back over to Catlow Valley and headed north, prepared to hear further west, through the Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge. First we had to pull over and check out some massive thunderclouds towering over Steens Mountain. In less than five minutes, we saw at least 10 flashes of lightning.



After an uneventful drive through the refuge, we dropped down toward Plush, where we saw this old house, with Hart Mountain towering overhead



After passing through Plush, we headed southwest, into the Fremont National Forest where we turned west, coming out on hwy 395 north of Lakeview. We turned north, passing Lake Abert and the Abert Rim, several thousand feet higher than the valley.



We stopped at a small rest area a few miles north of there. A rest area that was totally desolate. The only sounds were the occasional passing semi and the wind rattling a sign. Though there was nothing there and not much of a view, I for some reason found comfort in the area and would happily return.



We then continued north, passing through several stretches of road without a single curve for ten or more miles



That night we returned to the same area we'd camped at the first night south of John Day, though we chose this time to camp in an established campground. We were the only ones there, though some time during the night, an RV showed up and set up camp.