Back in May (full trip), we'd attempted to run the northern 40% of the Oregon Backcountry Discovery Route, from Seneca to the Washington border. A day in, we chose a more reasonable goal: Seneca to Unity. And at day three, we called it quits - less than 50 miles from our start point.
So you can imagine that we were excited for a second chance. Redemption as it were.
Our plan was to run Route 5 - from New Pine Creek, California to Walla Walla, Washington - in a week. It would mean approximately 150 miles per day (assuming no major re-routes) which we knew was a lot, but we hoped we could do.
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Return to the Oregon Backcountry Discovery Route (Jul 2017) - Back in May, we'd attempted to run the northern 40% of the Oregon Backcountry Discovery Route, from Seneca to the Washington border. A day in, we chose a more reasonable goal: Seneca to Unity. And at day three, we called it quits - less than 50 miles from our start point. So you can imagine that we were excited for a second chance. Redemption as it were. In the month leading up to the trip, we got ready. Alcan leaf springs, a new HAM radio, and an ARB fridge were going to make us more capable, safer, and well fed.…
OBDR Day 2: There's always a go-around. - July 30, 2017. After a long day, we'd fallen asleep quickly and slept soundly by Moonlight Mine at the top of Crane Mountain. Morning light brought a bit more time to explore the mine and make breakfast out of the fridge - scrambled eggs, spicy sausage, toast and strawberries - delicious, and ready for @mrs.turbodb when she climbed down from the tent at 7:45am. The anti-condensation mat worked fantastimagically, and there was very little condensation under the mattress - the only morning we'd have any. Even with the condensation, it was on the floor of the tent, away from the…
OBDR Day 3: Crazy Day - July 31, 2017. The wind having woken us up a few times throughout the night, we were up at sunrise above Summer Lake. The smoke was still light as we rolled out of bed and made breakfast - just cereal and blueberries this morning - and packed up camp for an early start - our goal was to make it from Summer Lake to Riley by 7pm. After a few final pictures, we were on our way. As we traversed the northern half of Winter Ridge, a small detour took us to the top of a peak to some of…
OBDR Day 4: Flying Debris Ahead - August 1, 2017. We slept soundly through the calm night and woke up just as the sun was painting the sky the next morning. Well rested, we were excited for the coming day of travel - the plan was to reach Seneca, the town where we'd set off on what turned out to be Mission Impossible: OBDR, back in May. Once again, we enjoyed a hot breakfast before packing up and heading out; we were on the road by 7:45am. The OBDR wasn't far from our camp site, and by 8:00am we were through the first gate and making our…
OBDR Day 5: What Were We Thinking in May? - August 2, 2017. Having gotten in late, we woke up a little later - you know, 6:30am - the morning of Day 5. The day was full of anticipation for us, since this was the leg that had bested us in May, so we were immediately out of bed and exploring Frazier Lookout. Turns out that it's been closed (too dangerous) since 2007, but that didn't stop me from climbing up a couple of levels to check out the view. We also explored the super-sketchy lookout house, which was still in reasonable condition on the outside (save some broken windows)…
OBDR Day 6: Lookouts - August 3, 2017. Mornings were becoming routine. Beautiful sunrise, tasty breakfast. Such a tough life. Of course, we suffered through it as we talked about the day ahead. While the previous day had been one of our longest (distance-wise at 180+ miles), today was going to be one of our shortest - only 110 miles or so, since we'd tackled 20 already after hitting Granite early - ending near a small town that even the locals (when we stopped for gas) - had never heard of: Kamela, Oregon. There's a spicy sausage in that breakfast sandwich. Yum yum! And then…
OBDR Day 7: Out of the Mountains - August 4, 2017. Somehow, we were ahead of schedule. Having made it 15 or so miles past Kamela the evening before, that meant we had only about 85 miles to the end of the OBDR for our final day. That was fine with us because we woke up to pea-soup levels of smoke - enough to completely obscure Summerville in the valley below our middle-of-the-road camp. We rolled out of camp early, heading down our ridge on our way through the last of the Blue Mountains on our way to Walla Walla. Travel today would be on the easy side…
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Other Backcountry Discovery Routes
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I often see people refer to "the" Oregon Backcountry Discovery Route, and when they do, it always seems to be some version of Route #5. Luckily, we also have Routes 2, 3, 4, and 6, and next year (2023), an actual BDR-sponsored route!
It's true, Route 5 seems to be "the" route people refer to - I think because it maps most directly to the BDR (oranization) style route through a state - South to North, etc. I'd really love to run Route 3, and 6 seems interesting as well - perhaps to get back to the highway after running 3.
It'll be interesting to see what the RideBDR guys do with Oregon - there's a lot that the current routes miss (in the SE section of the state, largely) and I know that the RideBDR guys are over there with some Stage X stuff, so at least they're looking at including some of that. Will be a bit of a bummer to have there be competing "BDRs" for Oregon, but I suppose it's inevitable.