Travel – Page 9

March 21, 2021March 21, 2021

Waiting on Spring

A wind advisory (gusts of 85 mph) for Summer Lake killed any plans to visit the wildlife refuge.

All the signs point to the start of spring. However, the weather or rather the constant changes in the weather continue to upset our plans.

During the last few weeks we woke to snow three times and daily temps in or near 60º twice. That’s in one ten day stretch.

Winter keeps a grudging hold on us as Spring taunts us from the sidelines. We’ve managed to get on the river a couple of times during those warmer days. But each morning it’s a new forecast and shifts the day’s travel plans.

All winter the snows have been frequent but rarely more than a couple of inches and have always melted away in a week’s time, or less.

Past winters have seen a foot or more of snow sticking for weeks, but not this year. That may be why it’s so frustrating to plan a road trip. Destination set and then you wake to iced roads or the threat of a snow dump. For some reason the weather people are having a hard time forecasting more than a day or two in advance.

Saturday (3/20/21) was officially the start of Spring and for now that’s reflected in the forecasts. We continue to add locations to our itinerary and pack for a variety of weather … that’s just Central Oregon … but it has been a slow month as occasional sunny days hint at the potential for a real winter thaw.

March 7, 2021March 6, 2021

The Off Season

Trails edge the Crooked on both sides of the river.

Fly fishing makes up a major portion of our weekly excursions and winter weather can add some difficulty to our plans.

Late fall typically marks the end of the regular fishing season. Fortunately Oregon has waters that remain open year round. Fish don’t stop feeding when the snows come and the lakes freeze. Bug hatches still occur regularly, you just use smaller patterns or fish imitations of insects found subsurface.

The biggest adjustment to off season fishing is you need to layer up before going to the stream. A near freezing morning on a typical cloudless Central Oregon day can warm to shirtsleeve temperatures by afternoon. Fingerless gloves are also an essential addition to the ensemble.

Three streams with access all year are the Fall River, Deschutes River (middle and lower stretches) and the Crooked River.

When the temperature drops we might have to hike though a blanket of snow to get to the water.

The Fall River is a beautiful spring-fed stream flowing through rolling pine forest. It is open to fly fishing only and features brook, brown, and rainbow trout.

As for the snow Central Oregon is blessed with more clear than cloudy days. While Bend and La Pine can get accumulations of two or more feet, our roads are well maintained and in just a couple of clear days any snow pack is reduced at lower elevations.

The Deschutes and Crooked Rivers run through basalt column canyons that are sparsely timbered. This exposure to the sun seems to keep river banks clear of snow.

Closer to home, the Fall River wanders through a forested landscape and it’s banks hold snow much longer.

The river is a few hundred steps off a well traveled road with numerous pullouts and a clearly marked walking path runs along both banks.

Adding a splash of whiskey to hot coffee or cocoa is a regular winter treat.

The winter weather hasn’t been a deterrent in getting out. January cold spells mean we bundle up and add a shot of whiskey to the cocoa for extra oomph. We still like to enjoy the days outside.

February 21, 2021February 20, 2021

This way or that way

Every road trip starts pretty much the same way.

A lunch gets packed, extra clothing layers are added to a tote, water bottles along with coffee/tea tumblers are filled. Then gear and dog get loaded into the Subaru and we’re off. In winter this is often right at first light giving us the whole day to explore.

Sometimes you have a specific destination in mind, but even when that is the case, the route taken can be altered. The longer you travel an area the more often you find yourself on the back roads. Two lane county roads pass through better landscapes with a lot less hassle from other traffic.

Morning skies are a stunning mix of clouds and azure blue. We head north, then veer east towards Smith Rock. As luck would have it we arrive in time to see the sun light up the rock face.

We have a rule we hold to on nearly every road trip.

Don’t return on the same route. This is a bit more difficult, though not impossible in the mountains. When you’re traveling the high desert there are almost too many routes to choose from.

This road looks promising. Loaded with supplies of coffee, donuts, and gas, we follow this route for awhile, then eventually pull out the map to get our bearings.

This post initially started as a conversation about how it seemed all roads lead to the Crooked River. This is only partially true.

What is true … with the aid of good maps you can find alternate routes to treasured destinations from nearly anywhere. And the beauty of these alternate routes is finding totally new places to explore in and around favorite spots.

February 14, 2021February 13, 2021

Painted Hills Pictures

Painted Hills Overlook features a panoramic view of the hills. The trail is accessible year-round, but can be icy in the winter.

The otherworldly nature of the Painted Hills is why we keep coming back to this unit of the John Day Fossil Beds. The guidebooks suggest spring or fall as good times to visit. This just means that those are the seasons with the most visitors at the monument.

Mitchell, the closest town, is a two hour drive through the Ochoco National Forest. There are three units that make up the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument.

Painted Hills is at the southwest corner of the complex. An hour and a half north is the Clarno Unit or 45 minutes East is the Sheep Rock Unit. These three sites offer a great look at the paleontological riches of Oregon and as you can imagine the drive between sites is rich in geological marvels.

The Clarno Unit offers the oldest exposed layers and fossil encrusted rocks while at the Sheep Rock unit you can tour the Thomas Condon Center and view fragments of ancient animals under glass.

However, the Painted Hills Unit presents a much larger canvas where stratified layers of soil show off eons of earth history in a very colorful manner.

We make seasonal trips to Painted Hills and find that the colored layers are more pronounced in the winter and spring.

In the spring we plan to try hiking the Blue Basin Loop, at the northern edge of the Sheep Rock Unit, and take in a somewhat different ancient landscape.

February 7, 2021February 6, 2021

Back roads and weathered wood

I guess we were feeling restless and in need of a real road trip. Winter snows have yet to arrive so we headed north on Highway 97.

At the Northern end of our loop, I-84 and The Dalles Bridge

The idea was to follow this major arterial to the Columbia River Gorge and then wander backroads south along the east side of the Cascades – the more desolate the better.

The photographic target for this journey … abandoned buildings and weathered wood.

With no set destination our wandering led us to the discovery of the day … an old Catholic Cemetery with headstones dating back to the mid – 1800s.

The settling and re-settling of rural Oregon is most evident along the small state routes. Roads connect names on a map where the main structure of commerce is a grain elevator.

Once you climb out of the gorge there’s an expanse of furrowed fields with sprouts of winter wheat in perfect rows. These rolling hills of grain fields get broken by gashes cut in by seasonal creek beds. The road follows nature’s contours with minimal engineering.

This area offers a beautiful canvas for some wonderful cloud scapes.

There are trip planners on the Internet leading to ghost towns. In Oregon, agriculture and mining are featured as the driving forces in the creation of these markers to progress and shifts in the state’s economy. A large number of these spots are in Central Oregon.

Dufer, 20 minutes south of The Dalles, was once at the heart of an apple growing mecca.

Our research suggested this as a good area for photographic explorations. Aging wooden structures holding granaries and mills, as well as rural schools dot the area.

We toured roads named for mills, markets and local farms, as well as the slightly racist “Japanese Hollow” where we found an abandoned schoolhouse in a cow pasture.

Turning up fifteen mile road, which is more like sixteen miles up OR 197 from it’s junction with I-84, we were treated to postcard views of Mt Hood. The focus of this leg was to locate the old general store in the town of Friend. Unfortunately, it was closed to outsiders. I guess there was no friendliness to be found in Friend.

We climbed up the lower eastern foothills of the Cascades and onto the Warm Springs Reservation. Here we caught more great snow capped images and a well weathered stock corral before dropping back down into the Deschutes River gorge and reconnecting with Highway 97 and the trip home.