GlowBoy's Story: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4
Sparty's Story
Late last year Dan AKA Glowboy and I planned to do a five-day BOB tour of the Owyhee canyonlands in the southeastern Oregon desert this June. On June 4th our big day finally arrived, and at around 11:30am last Wednesday we found ourselves beating the lunch crowd into Burns, Oregon's El Toreo restaurant for some Mexican chow. Burns is about 250 miles east of Eugene. Here Glowboy holds down the back end of my truck. (BOBs are in the bed.) Even though Glowboy and I are both singlespeeders who frequent this board, I admit we didn't do this tour on singlespeeds, so if you're offended by the sight of geared bikes among stunning desert scenery, now's the time to hit the "return to message board" link. But personally, I hope you'll stay. We tried not to shift.P.S. Unfortunately sometimes we needed our granny gears. In fact, that's an understatement.
Day 1
The first climb
With the farms and ranches of Idaho far in the distance, we hauled our 60-ish pound BOBs up the first grade -- a five miler. The truck is parked down there on a flat section of ground beyond the sage covered rise that Glowy's grunting up.The high country
After five miles of semi-brutal climbing, we gained Owyhee Ridge. Just in time -- the desert was still green and the landscape was striking.Glowy descends...
...into one of the dozens of valleys we crossed during our trip. Some were harder than others to climb back out of. This one was fairly easy. Doesn't the road on the opposite side look level? Well, it's not.Camp 1
Here's a photo taken Thursday morning showing our first campsite. When searching for a campsite the prior evening, we settled for a grassy spot without trees, obviously. If we'd insisted on riding until we found trees among which to camp, we'd have been on the road until about midnight, as we discovered the following day. And even then, it would have only been two junipers next to a dry creekbed.Day 2
Breakfast time
Glowboy prepares gourmet grub at Camp 1. Between us we carried about three gallons of water, of which we'd used about half by the time breakfast was done. This fact would play heavily on our tour later this day.Wild horses...
...couldn't drag us away from this place. At every bend we were stunned by the scenery.Hot and dry and down and up
By the time we were several miles beyond the wild horses, we'd descended thousands of feet into a network of canyons (called "gulches" in the desert) separated by parallel ridges. We would ride into one gulch and then up the opposite side to a ridgetop, only to descend into yet another gulch followed by yet another ridge ad infinitum. It was exceptionally hot among these lowland gulches and minor ridges. Around 1:30pm, we ran out of water. To make matters even more concerning, we were not confident of our position on the map. Ended up we had much farther to go to get out than we initially thought, plus we came to find that our exit from this land of hot gulches was an unexpectedly steep climb. What could we do? We pressed on.In another week...
...this "creek" would no doubt have been totally dry. But we lucked out. As soon as we saw the mud puddle we realized that lifesaving water was nearby. We hopped off our bikes -- Dan ran up the creekbed while I ran down it. Sure enough, we found a deep spot where water had pooled, and we wasted no time filtering a few liters. That water tasted better than the finest wine. We named this Salvation Creek.Leslie Gulch
This sign sits at the top of an eight mile descent that goes through one of the most stunningly beautiful places on this particular planet and probably many others. We never had to turn a crank for eight miles. I guess you might say we were finally singlespeeding.Day 3
Camp 2...
...on the shore of Lake Owyhee. We went swimming. We ate a lot. We drank a lot of water. We would spend two nights here, with a relaxing day of rest in between. We'd covered 35 miles and gained at least 5000 feet the day before. The BOBs were heavy. Why rush?No, it's not cold
This was taken at breakfast Friday morning. We're wearing long sleeves but we're not cold; we're wearing them because we are out in the sun. I think it was already around 80°. I'm doing my Glowboy impression on the left. Dan sits in front of my tent, which I kept as cool as a cave by using my (double!) down sleeping bag as an insulator. By the way, my Arabian headgear worked like a charm in staving off sunburn. My upside down BOB table sits at my feet. We're happier than we look, but I admit we were tired when this shot was taken.Day 4
5:59am Saturday
When we went to bed Friday evening, we knew we would face a 2100 ft climb right off the bat plus 30-40 miles to cover the next day. So we agreed to get up early and start riding out of Leslie Gulch by 6am Saturday morning. We departed Camp 2 before the sun's rays struck it, and as we rode our bikes into the light of day I snapped this photo. We gave ourselves till noon to get out of Leslie Gulch, carrying all the water we could hold up the long climb.Vulture Rock
Couldn't resist snapping a photo of this rock on the way out of the gulch. We did not take this as a bad omen.2100 feet done
Nine miles of road plus 2100 feet gained, we posed like champions. We'd given ourselves till noon to get here. It was 9:30am. Good on us, but the day was not over.That's our road
Can you see the dirt doubletrack disappering into the distance? That's our road. The tall formation near the center of the photo is called Three Fingers Rock. You'll see it several times in the upcoming photos. We ended up riding right past it; we even climbed up on its flanks.Glowy climbs through Shangri La
Shangri La
One of my favorite places -- anywhere.On top of the world
Although the crags of Three Fingers Rock are just out of sight on my left, I'm standing on its flank. The road we took to get here is barely visable behind me on my right. This rewarding side trip was just beyond the top of Shangri La.The road from hell
Actually it wasn't as bad as it sounds. In fact by now we were used to it. From the spot I took Dan's photo we were only about seven or eight miles from the truck, and it was downhill almost all the way. Hey, there's Three Fingers Rock again, 1/3 from the left in this photo.By the time this day ended, we'd pulled our BOBs 38½ more miles and gained who knows how many vertical feet. It was hot and we were tired and stinky, so we drove 180 miles back to beautiful downtown Burns for showers and a hot meal. What a fantastic trip! Dan, I can't thank you enough for planning a fantastic route through this awesome place. I'll never forget this experience. I can't -- I shot 120 desktop photos.
GlowBoy's story
The trip started Wednesday afternoon a couple miles from the Idaho border, where the irrigated flatland of the Snake River?Plain gives way to desert hills and canyons. My BOB trailer weighed in at 60-65 pounds, depending on how much food and water it had in it at the moment. I don't know how much Sparty's weighed, but it was noticeably more. Here he is, rolling out from the truck:
Almost immediately we had to climb 2000 feet up onto Owyhee Ridge. That took a couple hours, and then we found ourselves cruising along some nice rolling terrain:
Here's our first camp, on top of the ridge. Sparty's busy reading the directions on his Tuna Helper:
And that's it for Day 1. More to come.
Day 2
Thursday starts out with miles and miles of rolling terrain like this:
Here's a spot we nicknamed Wildhorse Basin. Two purty wild horses are our company for a little while. Three Fingers Mountain is on the left-center of the picture:
Davey checks out a weather station we find in the middle of nowhere. It has a radio transmitter, and it turns out that both current and archived readings can be found on the World Wild Web:
(Next few pics are a little fuzzy because I accidentally left the camera in macro mode) Here's our lunch spot at a place we named Quarry Mountain. The terrain on the left half of the pic is what we're about to ride down into.
Look out ? here comes Davey Sprocket, King of the Wild Front Tire:
Nice break point here. These two juniper trees are the only shade for miles:
Here's Three Fingers again, viewed through a canyon from a completely different direction than before:
We ride through miles and miles of this terrain, up and down and up and down:
It appears that we have descended off cool Owyhee Ridge into hell. It is now in the 90s, we've been in the sun since 6 am, and we still have a long way to go:
We are also running low on water. Earlier in the day we'd had a chance to filter some water out of a stock tank, and declined because it looked a little (and only a little) skanky. What were we thinking? That's what water filters are for. We're regretting that decision now, but at least the scenery kicks ass:
Or maybe I should say it kicks our ass. Here's what we've just ridden across in the midday heat. You can see our road snaking around, first on the right part of the pic and further back near the middle of the photo:
Just 3 weeks before, I'd been out in this very same area, when the weather was still wet, and found all the creeks flowing with clear water. I figured it would be a month or two before the creeks all ran dry, but I was wrong. Fortunately, just after we run out of water (and almost make a wrong turn up a very long dead-end canyon), we finally find "Salvation Creek", with a little water left in it. We each drink a couple liters on the spot.
A few more miles of climbing, and we finally arrive at the summit of Leslie Gulch. Dave begins the descent:
Pretty soon the Utah-like scenery begins:
And gets better as we go:
It is so stunning we fall off our bikes:
The descent is 9 miles long. The spectacular rock formations keep going ...
... and going ...
Eventually we reach the bottom at Lake Owyhee, after a day of 35 miles and over 5000 feet of climbing. We ride around the bend and find an eye-popping stretch of beach, with no one else around. It is now time to pump some fresh water, go for a swim, cook dinner (that'd be more Tuna Helper, in Dave's case) and take it easy:
Day 3
We ride our bikes less than two miles on Friday. Dave has brought Babybel cheeses, Country Time lemonade mix, Triscuits, and Oreos. You da man! We spend the day eating, lounging in our "insulated" tents, eating, swimming, washing clothes and eating. Not a bad place to be:
Naturally, being Sparticus, he has brought a Hercules plate to eat from. He's really packed well, and if you look in his left hand you will see that he even brought the proverbial kitchen sink:
Yeah, this is the life.
The fish were jumping nonstop, all day and all night. We saw lots of birds, including a pair of pelicans doing their mating dance. Also some other loon or duck like birds, that we think were Grebes (Goons? Grucks?). Another nice sunset on the lake:
One very odd phenomenon we experienced was these gnat-like bugs that would hover in the air nearby, using our heads as a windbreak. They made a creepy Blair Witch-like whining sound. They wouldn't bite or anything, they'd just hang out, and then after about an hour they'd go away. Happened both nights. Weird.
GlowBoy's version - Day 4
Saturday morning we know we've got to climb back out of Leslie Gulch, so we get an early start. Up at 5am, packed up and rolling out at 6. Too bad we have to leave this place:
Here's a panorama of our lake view at sunrise. Did I mention it's too bad we have to leave?
Partway up Leslie Gulch is one spring that's still flowing. No need to filter this time!
View up Dago Gulch. This was the canyon I rode up 3 weeks ago. We shall return.
We're Number 1!
Some nice steep slickrock, for mountain bikers braver than ourselves. That's about an 8' drop at the bottom:
The 9 mile, 2000 foot climb only takes us until 9:30, rather than noon as we had feared, and we finish it well before the heat really sets in. Once that climb is out of the way, here's what we have ahead of us. Note Three Fingers Mountain (again) just left of center:
We nicknamed this spot Paradise Valley. No sagebrush, just tall grass waving in the wind. Next time we come here, we're driving vehicles to this spot and using it as a base camp for day rides:
I think Sparty is thinking of moving here:
Saw lots of flowers blooming ? pink phlox, purple lupine and penstemon, yellow balsamroot, and one magenta-colored paintbrush. Don't know what this one is, but she sure is pretty:
Let's just call this nasty spot Dead Calf Trough and move on:
Too bad we'd already used the name Paradise Valley before we got here. After some thought, we decide "Shangri-La" will do just fine:
Our entry into this valley is actually the one time on our trip I was genuinely scared. We cross a cattle guard, and just off the side of the road is a gigantic (and not very friendly-looking) bull, along with another, smaller bull. Fortunately he just stares at us as we ride by. Glad the valley has turned out to be so nice though, because Shangri-La is a much better name than Gay Bull Valley, which is what we would have called it otherwise:
Sparty looks like he'd be happy to climb 10,000 feet of terrain like this:
Check out the jeep road he's coming up to:
This leads to the base of Three Fingers Mountain's summit block. Time to ditch the trailers and make a quick side trip:
The road we've come up is way down in the center of this pic:
We mostly stick to doubletrack on this trip, but there's a lot of cow-created singletrack out there. Dave finds a sweet piece of it right here:
Descending the Road to Hell:
... and finally to the valley where we started:
We had originally planned to spend 4 nights on the trail. Given our water limitations, though we decide to head all the way back, which still makes for more than 72 hours away from the vehicle. That's longer than any backpacking or bikepacking trip I've ever done before. Dave's blasting down the home stretch:
Final ride stats:
I can say this is one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had on a bike. I ride in the desert several times a year, but usually just do day rides, and have never done anything remotely like this.
Thanks to Sparty for suggesting this trip, and for being an awesome riding companion. We were both on the same page pretty much the whole time, riding about the same speed and wanting to do about the same stuff throughout. Amazingly, I was already preparing to name my writeup "GlowBoy and Sparty's Excellent Adventure" when I saw that he had already used the same title!
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