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!
