8th Annual boys fall camping - Alvord Desert (2021)

This year’s trip will be long remembered by the boys. We went to the Alvord desert in far southeastern Oregon to ride motorcycles.  3 dads and 9 boys!  

For mid-late October the weather was spectacular. Cold night down to freezing but warm days in the 60’s.   

It’s about a 4 hour drive from Bend. Just as we got to the edge of the desert one of the rigs got a flat so we did a fix on that hoping it wasn’t an omen for the weekend:). 

While we fixed the flat Noah started running across the desert. Our destination was likely about 6 miles across to the other side!  We actually passed him on the way over but I got a video of him running into our camp spot. 

Shots of the boys riding.  My favorite is the picture I captured of Hunter pulling a wheely at sunset.  

Pictures from around camp.  

Couple shots of the desert at sunrise.  Peaceful and beautiful.



Previous years:


Kevin’s Birthday

Kelly and the kids made my birthday really special this year.  Lots of cool gifts plus I got a really nice whiskey set from Pat and Sue! 

After church we drove south near silver lake and did a hike Hager Mountain. The tower is a working tower, so we got to see inside and see both the traditional and newer methods of scouting for fire. 

The main reason we drove down to that area is that Kelly booked us reservations months ago at the very famous “Cowboy Dinner Tree”.  It was an amazing filling steak dinner.

The Alvord Desert

This week the temps were expected to pop up close to 70 mid week. In addition it’s the end of the school quarter so the kids were off Wednesday and Thursday with Good Friday a holiday.  Since last year I have wanted to go see the Alvord Desert but spring and fall are best for temperatures.  

This week seemed like the ideal time to go!  The Alvord is in the far south eastern section or Oregon. Very remote. Here is a picture of the start of the route off of East Steens Road and Highway 78.  

We got to the Alvord Playa and it didn’t disappoint. What a wild experience. You can drive over the cracked ground that when dry is extremely hard. You will see pictures of water but it’s only about an inch deep. As it’s clay though - not something you want to drive through and get stuck. 

 

Murphy’s Law came into play on the trip. One of my tires went flat at probably the most remote place possible in Oregon. We got the spare out and limped along for the rest of the trip until I could get the tires replaced.  The boys have never seen a tire get changed so they thought it was cool. 

With the spare on, we went and found a spot to camp out on the playa. No shortage of space and with no people it was easy for social distancing!  It was quite windy so no fire in the evening but great for flying the kite!  

This week was a full moon (super moon too I believe) so we got some cool shots in the early morning of sunrise, moon set.  Also there was no wind so we were able to do a fire to warm up and take the chill out of the air.  

We likely would have stayed at the desert another night, but with the tire issue we needed to work our way back towards a repair. We limped to a crossroads called Fields, Oregon where I was able to pump up the spare more. From there, we headed to another small hamlet (everything is dead right now because of the Covid closures) called Frenchglen. Hunter and I stayed here a couple years back. We found an open spot near Frenchglen to hang out and camp for the night. 

Friday morning we made it to a Les Schwab Tire in Burns, Oregon where I got a new set of wheels on. From there it was a relatively quick and painless 2 hours back home. 
Great adventures in the Oregon Backcountry! 

Painted Hills & Blue Basin

This first weekend of our spring break was supposed to be in the 60’s. Our original plan was to go camping but all campgrounds and dispersed camping has now been closed down too. I wanted to get away from the hordes around the local Bend options so we decided to do a day trip to The Painted Hills in north central oregon. It’s about 2 hours from Bend so my hope was it would keep the masses away. There were people but generally it was pretty quiet. 

Our first stop was the Sheep Rock section of The Painted Hills. Here is a picture of Hunter and Noah with Sheep Rock in the background across from the John Day River. 

From here, we headed to a place a few miles north called Blue Basin. The rocks have a blue green hue to them. I am red green color blind so it wasn’t that impressive for me but everyone else thought it was pretty impressive. 

From Blue Basin we headed north west and stopped for lunch in Spray, OR.

Throughout the afternoon we drove through some amazing desert and mountain scenery on our way to The Painted Hills. We spent the late afternoon and evening exploring The Painted Hills and having dinner there. I brought our camp stove and we ate on top of the lookout.

There were beautiful earth tone colors on these amazing hills that only got richer as the day started to wind down.  


Alder Springs Hike/Swim

A warm, but not hot day for early July so we decided to try a water hole in the desert called Alder Springs deep in a desert Canyon.  north of Bend.  It was a rough drive in and very desert dry at the parking lot so we weren't sure what to expect.  We hiked in and down into the Canyon for a couple miles and found this beautiful hidden spot on the creek where we swam and played for the afternoon.  

The hike into the Canyon

Swimming and playing in the creek