Oh Oregon — YOFO Adventures

We mean, really, what do you do after Glacier-Waterton? You just spent a week sorta freezing your buns off camping (well, the ‘with indoor plumbing’ version), hiking, and gawping about to find yourself getting run out of a bucket list park by an impending snowstorm. How do you follow that up?

In true YOFO fashion, we really had no idea. The weather reports seemed warmer and drier if we headed west, so we did a longer drive and plunked down in Spokane. It was a convenient stopping point- another in a series of nice Air Force FamCamps, with a commissary to reprovision and close enough to get the truck’s oil changed. Necessary stop for sure, but not of the glamorous or scenic varieties. Having said that, there are some things to explore in that area...we just didn’t prioritize them. From there we saw a couple of small specs of green on the map and determined that these particular State Parks were not shut down for winter! You’d be surprised at how many things shut down mid-September regardless of temps or conditions - pshaw.

Hells Canyon - hellacious for more than just wagons.

We knew from the name that we couldn’t pass up Hells Gate SP on the northern and Idaho side of Hells Canyon Natl Rec Area. It was a fun park located on a beautiful stretch of the Snake River. On the drive in, we learned that settlers and the Army burned caches of Native Americans’ food stores so that they couldn’t move back into an area. Without getting into politics or dangerous terrain, damn can white people be a bunch of assholes. In more fun news, we did a trail run along the River and got to check out cool basalt formations and get the stink eye from some mountain goats! Winning!

Our next spot of green was Wallowa Lake. We didn’t realize it until after we arrived, but it turns out the Oregonians call this area their Little Alps. We honestly were expecting hills - nope, we saw them off in the distance and both had the same thought “dang, those are actual mountains!” It’s kinda fun when you’re driving along and both basically say the same thing at the same time. Don’t worry though, we’re not going hive mind on you, it really was that the scenery was that good. We camped at the State Park and did some hiking, and tried some microbrews. Not sure that life gets much better than that, even if the temps were 40s and raining!

Wallowa Lake and Mountains - and did we mention the fall foliage was spectacular?

There’s a lot going on in the Wallowa Lake Area - a little bit of history, some modern microbrews, gorgeous terrain, and apparently really good fishing. We still haven’t busted the Snoopy poles back out, but we were tempted for sure. We did bust out the trekking poles though (our “magic sticks”) and tackled one of the areas must-do hikes. The trail along the West Fork and up to Ice Lake was gorgeous. Starting along a scenic, boulder-strewn river, crossing a log bridge, switchbacking (yup, it’s a verb) higher with mountain views, and getting the pb&j-with-a-view payoff alongside an alpine lake made for a great YOFO day. There’s another highly recommended hike in the area up to Aneroid Lake...because at least one and probably two of us are essentially 12 year old boys when it comes to humor, we kept referring to it as “Hemorrhoid Lake”...which explains why we picked Ice Lake! The Eagle Cap Wilderness is a fun one to explore - even if you know you’re staying on developed and well marked trails, there’s just something fun about self registering for a wilderness permit and heading off into the semi-unknown.

We did consider an overnight backpack trip. We solved the fuel and fuel bottle problem and fired up the stove! Minor victory! Unfortunately it was short lived as we discovered a crack in the fuel regulator. While we crazy glued it back together...we opted to pass on setting fire to ourselves or the gorgeous scenery. Fie! We shan’t be thwarted much longer!

As we departed we decided to go by the Northwood Manufacturing plant in La Grande - basically where the YOFOHome was born. They gave us a super cool tour and it was fun to see the guts of how they make the 5th wheels and other travel trailers. After owning our mini-home-on-wheels for well over a year now, we are big fans of this company and it was interesting and informative- they fielded all our crazy questions and had some good maintenance tips and tricks.

Someone is soon going to receive this beautiful YOFOhome under construction!

We continued our brief fun with Hells Canyon at the southern (still Oregon) side at a place called Farewell Bend. This was an important spot along the Oregon Trail, a key migration route in our history. We talk sometimes about how our country’s history feels young but it’s wild to think that we were standing, taking pictures and looking up facts on our phones in the exact spot where folks had passed, on foot and riding in wagons some 170 years prior. Crazy. And in a bit of comic relief from the details of massacres, dysentery, and general misery - we had better cell reception standing in the wagon ruts than we did in the campground. It felt appropriate, somehow.

Hard work and no play...nah, hard work on steep slopes for fun ends!

We opted to head back into Idaho and plunk down at Mountainhome AFB outside of Boise so that we could visit the Morley Nelson Birds of Prey National Conservation Area. Say that three times fast. Soooo many raptors! We missed some of the migratory fireworks, but had a nice time driving about checking out some sort of badlands-like terrain and trying to do bird identification.

You find your own trail at Bruneau Dunes...and Mother Nature will cover your tracks soon enough.

We’re not sure who told us about Bruneau Dunes in Idaho last year, but we realized we were about 30 minutes away from it. Of course, we had to go visit, especially when we discovered that they had an astronomy program scheduled! Hiking the dunes was a trip and it’s definitely a weird and wonderful place to visit.

We got a close up of the moon through some giant binos, viewed solar activity through a special sun scope, and viewed a distant nebula in The Andromeda Galaxy.

We were running through options for “where next” in our head but determined that we were basically going to freeze our tuckus-s off. There was a cold snap moving in and everywhere we wanted to visit en route west had lows forecasted in the low 20s. Alas, we are weak and unmotivated and opted not to boondock and bypassed Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge and the Malheur National Forests in search of lows in the 30s. It worked out great for us - we finally got to spend time in Bend, Oregon! Which leads to the next post...

Nature. In all its glory. Bet their campstove doesn’t have a cracked regulator.