Sometimes when you start out for the day there is a destination in mind. Other times you don’t know where you’re going, and once in a while it changes mid journey.
Last week we had just that kind of day. It started with a trip to get sunrise images at Fort Rock, maybe grab photos of raptors, and hike up around the rim. It was a frosty morning, a bit too cold for a long walk, although we did pick up some great shots.
Generally speaking, we don’t like to return on the same route we came. With more of the morning to take advantage of, we pulled the maps and plotted a loop home that looked interesting. It took us over ground we’ve not yet explored … via forest service roads.
Bouncing around on small forest service roads is an adventure. Often not much more than a couple of ruts in the high desert duff, winding through the sage and pine that nearly always presents you with spectacular views.
Central Oregon forests and high desert lands are typically crisscrossed by a web of dirt roads. Probably because it’s pretty easy to cut a road in this country.
Even when there’s not a road mapped, a simple two track exists on the ground. This means you really need to keep a close eye to the USFS road markers, those flat metal posts at most junctions with numbers on them.
Standard kit in our car are BLM and USFS district maps to aid the GPS. The forest service roads are numbered at junctions, unless some stoop has used it for target practice. Main routes (arterials) get assigned two digit designations. Secondary or collector roads are a four digit number, and local, short access roads, have three digits.
Arterials can be paved, are often graded and usually travelable. But when you start down the four digit routes it gets a bit more dicey. Few of these dirt tracks are maintained with any regularity. Here you need to navigate with some caution as you can run into rough patches, downed trees and worse.
To the east of Fort Rock is a lava flow formation called the Devils Garden (scheduled for a separate day’s exploration). We start with USFS 18, skirting the western edge of that rocky structure, then turn on to 2431 and bump along the seam where forest meets high desert.
Our travels took a few different types of ‘4 digit’ roads that slalomed through second growth Ponderosa pine, offering frequent vistas out onto the Christmas Valley hay fields.
Eventually we wound up on the southern rim of Hole-in-the-Ground, a unique, if unimaginatively named geological feature.
We ended the day’s expedition on a state route headed East to La Pine and used the highway speeds to shake a bit of the dust from the Subaru.
We head along a scenic drive to explore the prehistoric past of Oregon and stop at the Clarno Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds. It is located 18 miles west of the town of Fossil, Oregon.
The Palisades are the most prominent landform and are ancient mudflows.
Oregon Trunk Railroad bridge is a steel arch built in 1910. Workers climbed rope ladders and waded through the river to get to the other side. Later, 300 feet above the gorge, they would “walk the plank,” crossing over on narrow boards that bounced with each step.
The Crooked River High Bridge allows pedestrians to walk the 464 feet over the Crooked River gorge to some dizzying views of sheer basalt walls leading down the 300 foot canyon face.
Speaking of jumping … one alarming note…there were many signs posted on the path to the gorge’s edge. They all offered a very explicit warning about the fate of many dogs (gulp).
Road trips started back up this week and the other day we headed up to Warm Springs to check out “The Museum at Warm Springs.”
The collection of baskets and bead work is worth the trip but there are also changing exhibits and on this visit we were treated to art from K to 12 students. The exhibit was great! These were class projects and most of them centered on native culture themes and made use of mostly recycled objects with a focus on traditional crafts and customs.
Oregon has lots of places to find craft brews. So many, there is often little difference between one or the other. Faced with way too many Indian Pale Ale and seasonal brews …sorry but pumpkin spice is really only palatable in scone form… we are always looking for something different coming out of the tap. This can be a brew style or even how the beer is being delivered to the glass.
A better way to have your pint without all the bubbles is to use a British style hand pump or beer 
We were really pleased to find