2017-08-20 44 -119

Location

In a heavily wooded area near a creekbed in Ochoco National Forest.

Participants

Frogman (talk)
Higgs
Justin
Jess

Plans

We saw that this seemed doable, and it was on a day where nothing else was planned, so we decided to try out a geohash in this virgin graticule! During planning, we noted that the hashpoint was very close to, but not on, private property. We adjusted our route to avoid any inhabitants of the private property, if there were any.

Expedition

After about an hour and a half of driving through some beautiful Central Oregon vistas, we ended up on NFS Road 12. It goes through some ranch land and into the National Forest itself. As we entered the National Forest, we saw that we were arriving in an already crowded area of the forest. It is almost certain that these were eclipse campers! It looked like an excellent place to stay. We continued on.

Road 12 turned from asphalt to gravel as we approached the next turn. Unfortunately, the road that Google Maps told us to go on looked like it had been abandoned long ago! We were out of cell phone data range, so we decided that instead of updating our route to avoid this road, we would just hike the route that Google Maps initially suggested.

After a good length of hiking, where we briefly lost the trail a couple times, we arrived on another gravel road -- Forest Service Road 600. After a short jaunt on that, we took a brief turn into the woods. Down a steep hill, past a creek bed, and into an uncharacteristically thick part of the forest. We reached the hashpoint, took a short rest, and then retraced our steps back to the car. By then, the eclipse campsites had extended to nearby, so our drive out was a good bit more crowded than our drive in.