Oregon Backcountry Discovery Route Trip

Jerem and I took a awesome 4 day trip through the Oregon Backcountry and this is our trip report.

The Oregon Backcountry Discovery Route is a series of gravel and offroad/4x4 trails that leads from the California border all the way up to the Washington border along the eastern edge of the Cascade mountains. It is primarily US Forest Service roads, some of which are maintain, but a lot of them have not seen any cleanup since the last person who ran the route.

We started out heading to Bend, Oregon, camped the night and met up with Patrick and his dad whom we were doing the trip with. From there we headed to Laekview, Oregon, where we began our trip. We didn't go all the way to the California border, as it was an additional many hours drive to get to the start point for only a few more miles. We figured Lakeview was close enough, and in reality, the terrain was identical, so we were not missing anything.

Here we are all packed up and ready to go!


On the road to Lakeview.


Jerem and I with our FJ Cruiser.


Patrick and his Dad and their FJ cruiser.


A Dust Devil on the dried up lakebed of Summer Lake.


The mountains above Lakeview.


An old abandoned cabin along the way.


A huge mountain meadow that ended at a tiny butte.


The road along a cliffside.


Patrick eating my dust! We swapped the lead back and forth throughout the trip, so I had plenty of chance to eat his dust as well :)


In the mountain forests NW of Lakeview there was plenty of active logging going on. Here we couldn't go any further forward due to the massive pile of branches and pine needles.


We had to go around, only to find our detour blocked by a large fallen tree.


We decided the best solution was to pull it out of the way.


Once past this tree, we found our detour to be filled with many other fallen trees and boulders. After chain sawing through the other trees and digging out the boulders, we made our way to the top of one of the mountains overlooking Summer lake, the same lake we drove by earlier.


Jerem and I at the top.


Another view from the top.


Throughout the entire trip the roads ran trough active ranching areas. There were always lots of cattle around, sometimes even across the trail. Here we ran across a few who started a mini-stampede down the trail. I was thinking of getting spurs for the FJ...


A view of the landscape coming down from the mountains.


A short jaunt down the road to Christmas Valley.


Here is a picture of the underbody lights at our second campspot on a hilltop overlooking Christmas valley. It is not a very good representation of the light given off because of the camera settings.


Here is better picture of the lights in my garage using a tripod to stabilize the camera.


A picture of our campsite on the hilltop overlooking Christmas Valley.


A big puddle across the road. These are always kinda scary the first time, as you never know if there is a big hole in the middle.


Under a shade tree at the Christmas Valley Sand Dunes recreation area.


The long road across the high desert. Many miles of hot dusty trails!


Our third campsite just outside of Seneca at Pioneer Cabin campground.


On the road again!


One of the fire lookout towers in the area. Unfortunately they wouldn't let us go up to the top.


Another awesome view!


Crossing the river at Malheur Ford.


The Malheur river valley.


The hills back outside the river valley.


My turn to eat Patrick's dust!


That's one dusty FJ!!


Late afternoon in the hills above Unity


Entering Unity the 4th night. This is where we ended our Journey, about 2/3rds of the way to Washington. Our plan is to do the last 1/3rd next year.


We had a great time and saw a lot of wildlife and great wilderness and can't wait to finish the rest of the route next year!

Jeff




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