Summer camping got into full swing this week. We are doing short one and two day trips to fine tune the systems in our Eurovan camper. We will eventually do longer trips but for now we are working out kinks.
On a recent Crooked River trip we were treated to an afternoon summer storm. Watched it roll over the canyon walls and in about 30 minutes it was gone.
It took the muggy warm day and left us with a very pleasant evening. Fishing wasn’t all that good but we did get caught up on our reading.
First summerlike day and we headed to the Crooked River. It started as a Euro Nymphing practice session. The river was kind of high and turbid so we didn’t really expect much action. But the cooler was full, the kindles loaded up … so we were ready for anything.
As I was rigging up the nymph leaders, I noticed that JQ was taking a great deal of interest in a juniper near the stream’s edge. There was a Black Caddis Hatch and the tree’s branches were alive with the tent winged bugs.
Didn’t see much surface feeding, so I continued with the wet fly rig. This was moderately successful. But what got my attention was all the rises just downstream.
I headed back to the car and got out a dry fly rig. The rest of the afternoon was spent catching six to ten inch Red Band Trout.
Oregon’s roads present us with so much more than a means to an end. Each turn presents new vistas, viewpoints, historical markers, even whole roads designated scenic byways. This day it was a cattle drive.
A Fort Rock area rancher was moving his herd to new pasture using Highway 31 west of Summer Lake. The wait was much more entertaining than a construction zone. Complete with cowboys on horses and cattle dogs.
We pulled to the side of the road, rolled down the windows and uncapped our lenses. Except for the blacktop you might have been sitting on the sage prairie two hundred years ago. Then 20 minutes later we are back on our way to Summer Lake and another roadside treasure.
Winter in Central Oregon requires you to shovel. The average snowfall in our area is two feet. Although, we got a fraction of that in 2017, the year before saw a roof-bowing four feet of the white stuff.
The previous owners of our house left us a snow shovel, which was nice of them, as it has come in handy.
So far this year, we’ve had a half dozen winter storms. One dropped nearly six inches in one day. Currently, there is about four inches on the ground, and this morning we had a couple of new inches added. The forecast fluctuates between rain/snow mix up to a foot of accumulation. It’s been a strange week for weather forecasters in Oregon.
Predictions for this week’s weather… looks like I’ll be using the snow shovel. It’s not as bad as I remember from the Montana winters of my youth.
That said, it is the most shoveling I’ve done in many years. All in all, we are enjoying the snowy winter weather of Central Oregon.
Usually when we are on the Crooked River, we’re on the other side of the road, rod in tow and knee deep in the stream. However, today it was a scramble up one of the many dry gullies to the east for a look out over the Crooked River canyon south of Prineville.
Chimney Rock is a distant cousin to the more famous Crooked River basalt formation Smith Rock.
But here again, we are talking about a much lower attendance on trail and of course much less technical hiking.
There is a short climb up the side of the river canyon to a juniper and sage ridge. The trail then meanders along crossing and re-crossing a dry creek bed. Ancient juniper trees are literally poking out of rock outcroppings. The surrounding canyon walls are home to a conspiracy of vocal ravens.
The day offered an interesting prospective on a stream we often camp along, and provided a delightful hike on a sunny winter afternoon.
