Exploring Oregon’s Remote Mountains
With bad weather in the forecast all across Colorado, and backpacking weekends starting to dwindle in number for the season, we started looking on Wednesday at alternate options for a backpacking trip that weekend. Once we ruled out all driving distance locations because of equally bad weather, we started scouring our map of trips that we want to take - and cross-referencing that against Google Flights. Flights into Portland were expensive, but we found reasonable flights into Boise, Idaho. We booked the flights for the next day and started packing our bags for a 3 day backpacking trip.
We rented a Chrysler Pacifica - our favorite rental car - and it proved valuable even on the first night. As we were driving in the late hours of the night we kept seeing cows on the road - leaving us a bit confused as to whether or not we were really heading towards the mountains. We camped in the back of the minivan at a BLM campsite after our late flight arrival and we were the only ones camped there - despite how beautiful the rock formations were.
Our plan was to start hiking into our backpacking route the next day, but it appeared the bad weather followed us from Colorado. There were thunderstorms nearby with hail so we sought shelter for the beautiful Chrysler Pacifica under some trees at a local park and hoped for the best. As the afternoon progressed, we decided it was time to start hiking and hopefully the weather would become more calm. The hours started to pass and dusk greeted us on the trail - in full force with a bear just off of the trail. We kept moving, but it was a bit startling and kept us on our toes.
The alpine lakes back in this area were spectacular. They far exceeded expectations and the weather improved drastically - which we were thankful for, especially after traveling so far to avoid the stormy weather in Colorado. We enjoyed the few days back in this beautiful, isolated zone and the few people that we did see in the area.
We were quick to hike out on our final morning because we were motivated by coffee and breakfast - shocker! We quickly hiked the approximately 9 miles out of our final campsite and tried to make great time because we had a flight in the afternoon. I somehow fell face first twice on the exit because I was moving quickly and not paying attention, but we recovered well. We went to a great coffee shop for breakfast sandwiches and coffee and started our journey back to Colorado. It was a very last minute, spontaneous trip, but we loved it. The spontaneity of it made it even more memorable and special - and gave us a great opportunity to visit a place we’d been hoping to see.