Overnight in the Ochocos and to the Painted Hills: Part One

We took a quick overnight trip to the Ochoco Mountains outside Prineville, Oregon. Here's a map of where we ended up traveling:

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We took off around 4:00pm after a friend's birthday party and headed through Prineville past Ochoco Reservoir into the hills. My google directions got us fairly close to our ultimate destination, Walton Lake. The roads along the way were twisty and the scenery was amazing.



There were Forest Service signs that took us away from our directions but in the end saved us some time/miles. At one fork in the road, a cow was munching grass in the "vee" of the road. Open Range for sure.




As we pulled up to the the tiny seven acre lake, a sign out front informed us the camp was full. We made a loop around the lake and headed back down the way we came in search of a nice, secluded, dispersed campsite. We saw a sign at the vee with NF-2630 (where Cow was now nuzzling on his friend, Other Cow) with two campgrounds listed as 1 mile and 3 miles up the road. We went for it. The view out Totoro's dirty windows was so incredible. Late evening light coating pastures, valleys and forests in dripping butterscotch. We climbed the smooth gravel road and went past one mile with no sign of any campground, past three miles, and over the top of Ochoco Pass at 5289' with no camps to be seen.


Turning around, we headed back to a sign we'd seen at a tee saying HWY 26 was 4 miles away and found a couple guys in a pickup at the intersection. They said down that road toward the highway there was a prairie with a spring and a few roads leading off into the surrounding forest. We headed down and found the turn into the fields, past a horse camp and up into a little spot with a long dead fire-ring. It was dinner time for sure so I got a fire going for some turkey dogs and heated up some chili. E crashed with Sommer pretty quick after dinner, while the Bos and Sis stayed up with me playing with the camera.




After they snuggled into there sleep ing bags in the tent I was left alone to watch the fire die down and the meteors fire up. I saw a few tiny flashes among the countless stars. I listened to Sis and Bos talk as FRIENDS for the first time in forever. Their subjects: Sharks, Mythbusters, etc. I listened quietly, I think they forgot I was there as they forgot about annoying each other. It was getting cold so I took a couple rocks form the fire ring, wrapped them in my flannel and put them a the end of the bed as I climbed into Totoro. It was my best idea yet! Sommer really appreciated it as the down comforter trapped the heat around our feet. As I was drifting off to sleep, a super bright meteor burned across the entire slice of sky i could see out the top of the back window.