2023-04-28 43 -119

Fri 28 Apr 2023 in 43,-119: 43.3809107, -119.6136029 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

In the sagebrush plains east of US 395.

Participants

• Michael5000

Expedition

After 2023-04-28 44 -121 and stops in Sister and Bend, I headed out into the sparsely inhabited southeast quarter of Oregon on US Highway 20. After 120 miles or so, there's the junction with US 395, and I turned south there and drove down to the same turnoff I used for Expedition 207 -- not at the hashpoint itself, but the place I stopped before the hashpoint to go running. That time, I ran west up Squaw Butte Road, a well maintained gravel lane. This time, I got out the bicycle and headed east up Big Stick Road, a pair of ruts that clearly hadn't had any human traffic since at least the last time it rained.

Two and a half miles on the bicycle got me within 1.13 miles of the hashpoint, which was somewhere out there on a plain of sagebrush. Checking the time until sundown and the batteries on my equipment, I headed out. Walking across a sagebrush plain isn't really much harder than walking down a sidewalk, so aside from the curious feeling of vulnerability a city person feels when they can see for a few miles in all directions and yet they are the only person present, it was really little more than a pleasant stroll. Naturally getting to the third hashpoint in one day felt pretty good.

Back on my bicycle, I came up from the downwind side and startled an antelope grazing by the road. I mean, I was fairly startled too, but the antelope seemed to be well and truly freaked out as it disappeared towards the horizon. Admittedly, antelopes probably didn't have a lot of bicycles in their evolutionary environment.

After backtracking to US 20, I continued east to the remote town of Burns, arriving just as dusk fell. After two hashpoints in the forest and one in the desert, I was as filthy as a child after a long summer day of playing outdoors. And perhaps as happy.

Photos

• 

  The starting point on US 395.

• 

  Through the gate...

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  ...and into the desert.

• 

  Leaving the bicycle for the last stretch.

• 

  There!

• 

  Triple-hash satisfaction.

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  Southwest from the hashpoint.

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  Northwest...

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  Northeast, back towards the bike...

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  Southeast.

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  A pretty little flower that lives at the hashpoint.

• 

  Casting a long shadow.

Achievements

Michael5000 earned the Multihash Achievement by reaching 3 hash points on 2023-04-28. It's a Triple Hash.

Michael5000 achieved level 7 of the Minesweeper Geohash achievement by visiting coordinates in [[Prineville, Oregon]] and 7 of the surrounding graticules.

Michael5000 achieved level 6 of the Minesweeper Geohash achievement by visiting coordinates in [[Hampton, Oregon]] and 6 of the surrounding graticules.

Michael5000 achieved level 6 of the Minesweeper Geohash achievement by visiting coordinates in [[Prairie City, Oregon]] and 6 of the surrounding graticules.

Michael5000 achieved level 5 of the Minesweeper Geohash achievement by visiting coordinates in [[Hines, Oregon]] and 5 of the surrounding graticules.