The Oregon Backcountry Discovery Route, Day 4

Day 4; 198 miles (744)

Day 4 started with mechanicals; bolting on the rear wheel, then investigation as to why the GPS was failing. We found the problem quickly (described below for the gadget-oriented and trail-McGuyvers).

We crossed the Malheur river and were instantly rewarded for following the original OBD Route! There's a little spur that takes you up onto a rocky bluff that's like riding on a moonscape, near the Monument Rock Wilderness. The track is difficult to follow because of sparse usage. Hopefully OBDR users will locate and preserve one main track and not mar the stunning lunar landscape across this ridge. GPS is essential for locating this part of the route. GPS can further protect the landscape because there's less messing around (provided your data is good, and you are paying attention......) Once again the ethic of following the existing track and not making new ones is important! This might be difficult when the OBDR is so new (11 months old at this time).

We ate lunch in Unity and gassed up again (138 miles) and rode to Granite, where we bought more gas (83 miles) and dinner. We left granite at 5:00PM and arrived at our camp at Oriental Creek on the N. Fork John Day River at 7:00PM (52 miles). There was a sign on NFD5506 claiming road closure due to washout, but it was so vague, we went anyway, and the washout turned out to be just a trickle. There is lots of primitive camping along FR5506.

Tom's GPS power supply crapped out but we found the problem and resoldered it with a tire iron heated on the camp stove. What a couple McGuyvers! We jettisoned the cigarette-lighter-adapter's plastic casing and wrapped the voltage converter circuitboard tightly with duct tape to prevent any further vibration failures.

Side note regarding Garmin powercords with internal voltage converters.

photo © Richard Sainct 2000

I still can't get over how the Oregon Parks Department put such a great route together, they must've had to fight to be allowed to use these adventurous roads.

This is what the GPS tracklog and routes look like when overlayed onto a scanned USFS map.

The Blue line is our point-to-point prediction of the route we must follow, determined by looking at the OOHVA maps and finding the roads and intersection on the CD-ROM. This "Route" is then loaded by computer into the GPS. The red line is our actual path as recorded by the GPS.

You can see that most of the time we went right thru the CD-ROM generated waypoints.