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Tour of the West Cascades, 2019

Post author:Occidental
Post published:2019-07-12
Post category:Exploring Truck Camping
Post comments:4 Comments

A while back now, while perusing some guidebook or other I ran across a list of scenic drives to take in Oregon. A lot of them were your standard (yes, scenic, but still standard) state highways. But one in particular caught my eye as it linked together some very developed but a bit more out of the normal flow of traffic roads to create a route up the western side of the Cascades in Oregon from Oakridge to Estacada. Portions of it have been closed by landslides and wildfires ever since. Until July 1 that is. It just so happened we didn’t have any other plans for the following weekend, and off we went.

We didn’t quite make it to the byway on Friday night, but we did make it just to the west side of the Cascades, and spent the night at Gold Lake. The mosquitoes were still alive and well, but not as bad as our trip to Miller Lake a couple weeks back.

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Grande Ronde River, 2019

Post author:Occidental
Post published:2019-07-05
Post category:Exploring River
Post comments:1 Comment

As the snowmelt pours off the Oregon mountains each spring it becomes prime time to find yourself on a river or two. We found ourselves on the Wallowa and Grande Ronde in June. The Wallowa was still ice cold and made for an eye opening early morning launch. It was a grey day with a few sprinkles, which didn’t warm us up either. Isn’t the eastern half of Oregon supposed to be dry and warm in June? Ah well. We were off and covering miles, down the Wallowa to the Grande Ronde.

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Spring, 2019, A Reservoir, A River and High Mountain Lakes

Post author:Occidental
Post published:2019-06-17
Post category:Exploring Fishing Truck Camping
Post comments:0 Comments

The end of May and first part of June have been a bit of a whirlwind. The weather turns nice this time of year, and there are a lot more options of places to see and things to do. The last few weeks we’ve had the opportunity to enjoy a variety of nice water, including a trip to a reservoir, a wild and scenic river and a couple nice high mountain lakes.

The Reservoir

We tried to go to Prineville Reservoir last year when we heard of epic crappie catches. Then the water dropped too low and we just didn’t make it in time. This year we hit it at full pool and the crappie bite was still on. They were delicious.

Camp on the Crooked River below Prineville Reservoir

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