Preston made up a song for mom and played the guitar!
Hard to believe how fast the time is going by. Hopefully this is the last post from formal lockdown as things are starting to open back up.
The kids did another round of meals for the family!
Date night - take out from El Sancho taco shop
The annual kids walkathon at school this year was virtual so we did a family hike up Black Butte! There was some snow near the top that freaked Kelly out a little.
The school dropped off a graduate sign for hunter and we made sure to follow social distancing for a picture with his friend Nathan
Noah and his friend (also named Noah) have been working on adding levels to the tree house tree and had a sleep over in it after we got the door fixed!
Holly chillin’
Hunter turned 15!
He got a new backpack from mom and dad along with some cowboy style work boots and some sweet new tools from Papa! Abbie made Hunters cake!
The weather was expected to hit 70 so we decided to try and find another somewhat obscure Oregon landmark in the Ochoco mountains about an hour east of Bend past Prineville called Stein’s Pillar.
However since we are all in lockdown there were about 10 other cars also at the trailhead today. Oh well it was still an amazing hike through ponderosa pines with a great view at the end.
Here’s a shot of the pillar from the road below. Very impressive rock feature that rivals Smith Rock’s monkey face pillar.
Spring is starting to show itself in many ways- birds, animals coming out of hibernation, grass sprouting and Abbie wearing sun dresses. Some memories from our 4th week of COVID19 lockdown.
Sunsets
Kelly doing a morning coffee get together with girlfriends ... on zoom
Kevin needed a haircut and not able to go to his barber.
Holly can’t believe her luck - that her peeps are home all the time!
Easter
Hunter is finding animals and bringing them into show everyone. He also brought in a snake too!
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!
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.
Just east of bend by the Oregon badlands there is a hike called Dry River Gorge. Today the weather was cool and clear so the boys and I decided to check this hike out. It was only 15 min from our house and unfortunately only accessible from sept- Feb due to nesting bird restrictions at other times of the year.
A great winter time high desert hiking option.
The weather in November continues to be nice so we went up to the lava cast Forest just south of town. The last time I was here it was with Hunter and Noah october 29, 2011 the day after PJ was born - probably to get them out of the house. This time we all went as a family.
The lava cast Forest is an area where lava flowed through trees slow enough to surround the trees but not to nock them over. When the trees died and rotted away they left these circular holes and tubes in the lava.
It’s a nice walk that is actually a paved path and flat most of the way for wheelchair accessibility. The kids of course took off all over the place.
Our annual fall trip this year was postponed due to harvest season in my new business so instead of our usual late September timing, we ended up going in early November and the weather could not have been more perfect - especially for November. Warm and sunny but not too hot during the day and cool crisp evenings.
This year, I selected a backcountry driving adventure that started in Christmas Valley in South Central Oregon and weaved north on backcountry fire roads eventually existing 100 miles north east of Bend on Hwy 20. We were joined by two other families this year - the Murphy Boys (Dad Patrick, and son Severin) who came with us last year to Big lake and the Swanson Boys (Dad John, with sons Shepard, and Ozzy). We had 3 main targets on this trip. A place called Crack in the Ground, the state champion Western Juniper, and Derrick Cave.
Previous years:
- 2014 - Sparks Lake, OR
- 2015 - Benson Lake, OR
- 2016 - Tam McAuthor Rim, OR
- 2017 - Deschutes River, OR
- 2018 - Big Lake, OR
After driving south and east of Bend for about 3 hours past fort Rock to Christmas valley and then north we hit crack in the ground. I had heard it was interesting but it turned out to be the hit of the trip! A mix of scrambling, canyoneering and caving all in one. It was way better than any of us had expected and probably one of the top places I have ever visited in oregon. We spent all afternoon exploring the cracks. All boys - kids and adults had a blast!
Given that its November and the days being really short, we decided to continue heading north to look for a potential camp site so we would have time to setup, cook and unwind before it got dark. About 5 miles north we came to Green mountain camp site which seemed perfect. A great high desert view, and not a single other person in the camp ground besides us.
We had a fire and told stories and of course had smores - of the gourmet variety with caramel/chocolate and peanut butter/chocolate.
The next morning arrive cool and crisp to start but quickly started warming up. We found a good spot facing into a hill and spend a couple hours allowing the kids to shoot cans. John brought a beautiful wood .22 rifle and I had a .22 pistol for the kids to plink with.
Late morning we got rolling north with our first target an old water pumping station we had heard about.
Next we started off to find the oldest western juniper in Oregon. This turned out to be quite a challenge with the spider web of fire roads that were not labelled correctly in many locations. Finally when we were just about to give up we found it!
After having some lunch at the state champion juniper, we rolled out to head to Derrick cave. Less than 30 minutes got us to Derick Cave which turned out to be an amazing very large lava tube.
On the way there PJ was with John and John let him steer his truck (an F350). PJ thought he was pretty cool.
One of, if not the tallest caverns I have been in in oregon. It had to be 70 ft in spots.
With the day getting late, we put it into high gear and headed north towards highway 20. The backroads were fun and uneventful with everyone getting home just after dark. A great adventure through the heart of the central Oregon high desert backcountry.