Oregon Backcountry Discovery Route Trip Report

[beachboyy]

Well we just got back from a couple days on the OBDR. We knew we were pretty early in the season going into this trip but thought we would give it a shot anyway. The original plan was to go from Prineville to just outside of Seneca. Then from Seneca up to the Olive Lake area outside of Granite. Then from Granite up to Meacham. And from Meacham up to Walla Walla. Well as we all know as overlanders, plans dont always go as planned and this trip was no different. We had 9 vehicles and a great group of people.

Day #1
We left Prineville at 6:15 am and headed out on Route 4 of the OBDR. We wanted to get a good early start because we knew it would be a long day. The total miles that day was supposed to be 155.



It was a beautiful sunny day with nice warm weather. The trail climbs out of Prineville up into the Ochoco National Forest and up toward Big Summit Prairie. The OBDR follows the "Summit Trail" which is conveniently named because it pretty much follows the highest elevations from peak to peak. Our first issues came when trying to get up and over Mount Pisgah. Although it has been pretty warm the last few weeks, the snow fall this winter was very high and there are spots on the northern facing slopes that still have super deep snow drifts. We were forced to reroute back down the way we came and head south and then east to get around Mt Pisgah.




By the time we got back to the route it was time for lunch!



After Lunch the route became more of a trail than a gravel road and since we were the first people on the route for the season we were definitely breaking trail. The high snow fall this year created a lot of dead fall. We had 4 chainsaws in our group and need them for sure. Progress was very slow as every couple hundred feet it seemed like we were cutting trees and pulling them out of the way with winches. We went 7 miles in the 3 hours after lunch. Ouch!!





After we got out of the thick stuff the route opened up to beautiful views and vast meadows. It was all about speed at that point as we were hoping to be into camp by 5 pm and we still had a very long way to go.






We got close to the end of our route and decided to take a little quicker detour so we could get to camp before dark. We really didnt want to but we ended up in camp at 7 pm instead of possibly getting in at 10 pm or later. We stopped in the huge metropolis of Seneca and got fuel before heading out to camp.



The campspot for night #1 was an awesome spot just outside of Seneca. It was a nice clear field right on a little creek. Plenty big to fit all 9 vehicles. Just as we had set up camp it started to rain!! We knew we were going to have some rain but the forecast wasnt calling for rain until later in the day Saturday and it was only Friday. Oh well. Its an adventure.





I will post day #2 in the next post. I apologize that I am no photographer and most of my pics are on an iphone and a cannon point and shoot. Some of the other guys had awesome cameras and even drones. I will get those later on when everyones done compiling their footage.

 

[beachboyy]

Day #2
We woke up on Saturday to pouring rain! Camping in the rain is bad enough, but packing up camp in pouring rain is even harder. But what do you do? You cant control mother nature so we endure.
Oh and I think everyone should have a wife that is willing to climb on top of your lifted vehicle in pouring rain to help put the RTT away. My wife rocks!



The rain eventually stopped and it was pretty nice for the first half of the day. We were now in the Malheur National Forest. We headed East out of Seneca and wouldnt hit pavement until we reached the town of Unity for fuel. First order of business was a water crossing of the South Fork of the Malheur River.






It was just deep enough to have fun but not too beep that anyone has issues. The next leg of the day was pretty fun. It was slow going on some more technical trail, but we were fortunate enough to only have to stop and cut a few trees. We stopped at an awesome spot for lunch at our second water crossing of the day. The North Fork of the Malheur River. One person got some awesome drone footage of us crossing here that I will have to get ahold of. This would be an incredible camp spot! Also the biggest casualty of the trip happened at this crossing. After getting some incredible drone footage of everyone crossing the river, Ben decided to try and pull off the incredible feat of filming himself crossing while flying his drone. Everything looked good for the first 50 feet or so. That is when things took a turn for the worse. What we all thought was Ben doing some fancy flying and trying to get a low level shot, turned into the drone deciding to try and land in the river. It succeeded in landing in the river and luckily Ben jumped out of the truck and ran through the water to save the drone before it went down through the rapids and was lost. I really hope this footage survived. Time will tell.

This is where the day got "Adventurous." Our route climbed from where we crossed the North Fork of the Malheur River. We started running into small snow drifts at around 6500 ft. However, they were fairly small and we were able to push on. We peaked out at around 6900 ft and thought we had made it since we made it over the highest elevation. However, we were wrong. As soon as we started down the north side of the peak we hit deep snow. I broke trail a couple hundred yards down the route before radioing back to the others that this wasnt going to be passible for everyone and that we should reroute back. By that time a few more vehicles had followed down the route and were now stuck. What followed was a couple hours of trying to get everyone back up the hill. On top of all of that, a very large (at least to what I am used to) thunder and lightning storm decided to roll right over top of us. So we are on top of a mountain, in the snow, with multiple stuck vehicles, in the pouring rain with thunder and lightning! This is what we live for right!?? Haha. Cant say we werent frustrated at the time but that is just part of the adventure.



(Photo Credit to TacoSupreme)

We finally got everyone back out of the snow and back up the hill. At this point it was already 5 pm. We were 7 miles from the end of the route where it joined back up with the main roads to Unity. However, because of the snow we had to reroute way back and around. We ended up dropping down into Prairie City and then continued on the highway up to Sumpter. This is where our plans took the biggest hit. First the only gas station in Sumpter was closed for the rest of the day and everyone was running pretty low on fuel. Next we found out that because of the elevation of our planned camp spot up by Olive Lake, it was impossible to even get to because of the snow. Also the rest of the Route all the way to Meacham was impassible as it is almost all over 6000 ft and often pushes 7000. So the plan turned into camping just outside of Sumpter and then unfortunately all heading our seperate ways back home the next day. We were pretty bummed about cutting the trip a little short but what can you do? We will have to come back later in the summer to run the last day or two of the Route 5.
The camp spot was 3 miles outside of Sumpter and was beautiful.





So Sunday morning we all said our goodbyes and went our seperate ways. We will have to try and complete the rest of the journey at another time (preferably later in the summer). I have lived in Oregon my whole life and through this adventure my eyes were opened to a whole new part of the state that I never new existed. I cant wait to get back out there and explore the seemingly endless country that the Ochoco and Malheur wildernesses provide.

On the way out we stopped at the old Gold dredge that you can tour in Sumpter. It is an incredible piece of engineering for the time and is open to the public to walk around in. The last day of operation was in 1954. Each bucket on the line weighs 2000 lbs and holds 9 yards of dirt!!



Like I said I am not too good with words and I'm definitely not a photographer. I just wanted to start a thread that everyone on the trip could add to. I know some of you go some great shots! I am glad it was such a great group of people and I wouldnt hesitate to go on adventure with any of you again!

 

[PortFJ62]

Looks like a good trip with some great memories. I will hope to join the next round. Thanks for the post.

 

[retrofive]

Enjoyed the write up. I've spent some time in Granite and Sumpter. Only once with my 80 however.

 

[Br3wtus]

I checked the memory card, and I did get all of the footage from before the drone decided to become a submarine. If it doesn't survive, I think I'll be looking at replacing it with a different brand; this whole making decisions on its own thing is not ok; that's how skynet started. When I can get a few minutes free, I'll parse through all the pictures and videos and get them uploaded to my OneDrive and I'll send everyone a link.

 

[tacosupreme]

We just got home about half an hour ago, we spent yesterday searching for the elusive Morel mushroom on the South face of Strawberry mountain. We found some Snow mushrooms, but no Morels. We had a great weekend despite our minor reroutes here and there, and we now have 17 more friends. My personal lessons learned:
1. CB's suck. Might as well buy a 10 pack of Motorola talkabouts and pass them around. They are more rugged and the range seems about the same. Communication is really important in a group this size with a tight time table. At the least the tail gunner/sweep driver needs to have some way to talk to the lead (even if someone in the middle has to relay) otherwise it's easy to get the group scattered and the lead ends up waiting for 30 minutes at every major intersection. HAM's are awesome, however 99% of the people on the run won't have one.

2. I need to get a dedicated GPS! The Motion-x iphone app just doesn't work well enough to navigate with at speed, as it's very easy to blow by a turn and not notice for 300 yards.

3. Bring a spare spark plug for the chainsaw. I fouled mine on day one and even after cleaning it and burning the fuel off of it the saw never ran quite right after that. Still managed to burn up two tanks of fuel cutting trees though!

4. Air lockers also suck. I knew this one already but this trip confirmed it. The seals are leaking internally. I have a Detroit locker in my Tacoma (it also has a 9.5" LC axle) that might get swapped with my air locker.

5. I really didn't need any spare fuel even at single digit mpg, however it was nice knowing it was there. Like most of you, I also overpacked and brought all kinds of stuff I didn't need. I had two electric impact guns...why I don't know for sure. There was so much stuff crammed in the 80 I couldn't get at the stuff I needed like the tow strap, shackles, chainsaw, chainsaw gas and bar oil, etc. Next trip I'm going to simplify a bit.

It was great meeting everyone, and I hope you enjoyed your time on the free side of Oregon! I know a lot more places to go out here too, maybe an Imnaha/Snake River/Wallowa run next? Head for the desert? Saturday May 21st is the annual Seneca Oyster Feed if anyone is interested. All you can eat oysters, a burger stand, softball tournament, golf tournament, and some years a canoe race if the water isn't too frigid. See you next run! Logan and Nina


The fun part is drying everything out!

 

[beachboyy]

Here are the GPX files of our tracks if anyone is interested. You can see where we had to reroute a few times. But I can guarantee there are no trees across the trial on the route we took!!

 

[cruzerDave]

Thank you for the great report, and for clearing those trees! My 12" chainsaw would've been pointless for that big one!

 

[estoddart]

Looks like a fun trip. I'm bummed I couldn't make it

 

[ZackR]

Looks like you guys had a great time! I was watching this thread before the trip started and considered joining but knew there would be a lot of high elevation snow involved. Since my rig is still stock and unlocked I didn't want to become a liability.

If there's another central or eastern Oregon trip in the near future count me in. I'd really like to explore the Steens but haven't made it out that way quite yet.

This photo is from a LaPine - Hole in The Ground - Fort Rock - Crack in the Ground - Christmas Valley Dunes - Lost Forest - back to Brothers and Bend loop we took earlier this year. So much to explore out here and it feels like you have it all to yourself.

 

[boozewz]

Very much enjoyed reading this!

Thanks for taking the time to post up the trip report.

Cheers