2011-07-16 44 -119

Location

Many miles off pavement in the Ochoco National Forest

Participants

Expedition

There were three possible roads to this very isolated hashpoint, but none of them looked at all like a sure thing. As it turned out, we gave all three of them a try.

Antone Road (east entrance)

This road, labelled a "Highway" at its intersection with U.S. 26, started off as a bold blacktop road but quickly turned to gravel. The quality of the grading deteriorated over five or six miles until, about 7 miles from the hashpoint, the road passed a large ranch compound and immediately deteriorated into a dirt track. Lacking bicycles or four wheel drive, we retreated.

Antone Road (west entrance)

Supposedly the same road, this one leaves Highway 26 some dozen miles to the west. On the map and from the air it looked like the most likely access route. However, immediately off the highway, nine miles from the hashpoint, we were denied a right of way.

National Forest Road 12

I was skeptical about this road, but it turned out to have several miles of good paved surface followed by a well-graded gravel surface. We passed through range country....

...and into the National Forest, and were making excellent headway towards a distance where we could simply hike our way to the hashpoint. And then:

Since we were not at all prepared to deal with this emergency in a safe fashion, we were in a bit of luck not only that another vehicle happened along a few minutes later -- quite a coincidence in itself -- but that it was driven by a friendly guy who had been a fleet maintenance manager for a large utility before he retired. Needless to say, he was more than able to walk us through the steps of changing over to the spare.

Unfortunately, since our priority was then to get back to blacktop as soon as possible, this first ever attempt on the Kimberly graticule had to be abandoned, just as it was starting to look doable.