Tag: Tip

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Winter hiking

Chalk this up to cabin fever. Tired of walking neighborhood paths, we headed off to a “year around” trailhead. Rim Rock Springs wildlife area is listed as “open all season.” Because it is pretty much out in the open, there was hope the trail would be somewhat snow clear or at least passable. It wasn’t.

The trailhead is a few miles east of Madras on Highway 26 and the real draw for this mile plus loop trail is an abundance of wildlife.  Despite being located in basically a barren landscape, there is a marsh and with it lots of birds and critters in the area.  For now, we’ll move it to the ‘a bit later’ spring hiking list.

Heck…we’re in the car pointed east why not see if there is some snow cover on the Painted Hills? Forty minutes later we are in the John Day formation and yeah, there was a lot of snow.

The road had been plowed, so we did manage to get to the overlook and of course JQ shot a few frames.  We had a picnic lunch. Tip chased a ball and sniffed some sagebrush. The only thing we didn’t get in was some hiking mileage. Just have to double up on the neighborhood loop tomorrow.

Another sunny day road trip success!!!

 

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Walking the Badlands

There are lots of options for hikes around us, but none of them transport you back in time like the Oregon Badlands Wilderness. High desert and Central Oregon landscape really don’t begin to explain the terrain you walk through on this complex of trails just 20 minutes east of Bend.

Weekends from May to September, the parking lots are packed from sunrise to sunset. The place is just that popular.  However, if you come out on a winter’s morning you’ll often find no one around.  Like we did on this day. For us the cold, today it was 17 degrees at 8am, is preferred to the heat of a summer day.

Gnarled ancient junipers, desert sand paths, and jutting igneous rock make for a very different view from our typical walks along streams and rivers. The place is very dog friendly and the trails are wide and not technically challenging.  We went out on the Flat Iron Loop looking for a good sunrise and thoroughly enjoyed the quiet morning.

 

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A turn at every road

In traveling Central Oregon roads, you’ll notice that in this high desert country there are no shortage of side roads. Dirt tracks, some of which have a USFS number, others are just a couple of tire tracks off a road apron. The open understory of these forests make it pretty easy to lay out a road and unlike the rain dense forests on the West side, the understory doesn’t overgrow even some ancient logging tracks.

What happens is that even with a winter snow, you can find walkable side routes and Tip has grown accustomed to these impromptu walks. So much so, that as we are heading up for a day hike or other excursion, he will ask to stop. OK, so technically he’s not saying anything, but he’s developed a series of huffs and nose whistles that are as good as any established language. Everyone in the car understands what is being communicated.

This is in no way a complaint. To the contrary. We have made some interesting discoveries prompted by Tip’s suggestions. And many of these brief stops have found us exploring a different direction. After all, the idea was to get out and walk, so this may be as good a place as any.

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Holiday birding


Turns out we don’t have to go very far to do some bird watching. The Sunriver Nature Center is on a small lake that is home to a nesting pair of Trumpeter Swans. And JQ’s camera captured one, along with numerous Canada geese all hunkered down on a crisp winter morning.

We visit this place often when we want to get in a little walking and take in the
 seasonal changes. Sunriver isn’t the easiest place to find your way around, but after a couple of trips we’ve mastered the route with it’s four different roads and two traffic circles.

In the summer the trails are full of bike riders, but late fall and winter there is hardly anyone around and the birds don’t seem to care that the pond is clogged with ice.