Well this is actually more of a picture slide show than a ride report. Every year my family takes a week long trip into the Deserts of SE Oregon, mainly the Guano lake area and the Alvord Desert. Next summer a group of friends and I are going to ride the OBCDR (Oregon Back Country Discovery Route), it's a 900 mile dirt trail that goes from Walla Walla, WA to Cave Lake, CA. Just about every kind of riding can and will be had on the OBCDR.
Anyways...Here is a picture of the OBCDR route and some pictures of my family past adventures into the Deserts of SE Oregon.
This is the OBCDR, 900 miles of dirt fun through some of the most remote country in the USA. There are actually several different routes that you can take....Slight variations in trails ect.
Here are some of our past Desert Adventure Pics. Sorry, no TW shots
, these pics were taken before be bought the TW. A lot of these pictures are on the OBCDR route.
My old XR400R, Sitting on the lake bed of the Alvord Desert. This lake bed is so cool, rock hard and miles long and wide. Great place to see what your bike will top out at. I no longer own this bike but still love the XR400's.
VERY COOL! Old Abandoned Ranch in the middle of now where. Must of been a hard life out here. Very cool to explore! It's now a Haunta Virus hotel.
Better view of the ranch. I've never seen mosquitoes as bad as they were around this ranch. All I can say is 100% Deet!
So we are exploring the abandoned house and my father says "You know every old house has to have a dump somewhere", so we looked around a bit and found it. Here my friend Travis is exploring the dump. Lots of fun looking around here. :thumb:
Pretty wild home made fork lift sitting in the dump. The welds were terrible! That's my ugly mug standing on the sweet machine :D
Found this up on a hill not far from the ranch. Later some "locals" told us a bank robber had passed through the area and was involved in this shooting.
Resting by a vertical mine shaft, over looking the Alvord Lake bed. We found several mines in the area.
They were all Cinibar mines, (Mercury mines). This particular mine was caved and could not be entered. The other two were in stable hard rock and were fun to explore. The wet looking area at the base of the lake bed is a natural ALVORD hot springs. We soaked for a good hour that night in the springs and it was great.
Miles of Nothing! So Cool!!! We really needed larger tanks with those bikes, they weren't the best bikes to take out in the desert. With a little more fuel capacity the TW would be a great desert machine. (We're currently working on the TW fuel problem
Neat old cellar, the roof was built using old flattened oil cans! When you live this far out in the middle of know where you had to make due with what you had.
Although I didn't know it at the time, this is on the OBCDR route. Very cool to find fresh cool flowing water in the Desert. Get out that water purifier and top off your water supplies!
Endless Views!
Ok its not a bike, But...It did carry our bikes to the Avlord Desert that year, plus all our gear and a 55 gal drum of extra fuel! I owned this truck for a while, it's a Mercedes Unimog S404. Ex Swiss Military. This thing could go anywhere (as long as you weren't in a hurry). Mechanical Diff lockers front and rear, portal axles, 112:1 in low gear :shock:
Hodakaguy