Those Things You’ve Always Wanted to Do…
In my prior post, I talked about taking action on doing some of the things we’ve always wanted to do. Have you made a “Life List” of things you’d like to experience or accomplish? It is too easy to allow those things to just float around in our minds. To see them as something we’d like to do “Someday,” without a plan for making them happen.
Sometimes just naming those things, and telling someone else, moves them a little closer to reality.
This past month, I was able to do a couple of things on my list.
One of those that I mentioned in my last email was seeing more of my home state of Oregon. I wanted to see places I had not been before, taking roads I’ve not driven. The other was to re-engage with fly fishing, something that has been an on and off activity since I was a teenager.
I was able to combine both of those goals, and do it all with my adult son and a couple of lifelong friends. A big win!
My son Alex and I had planned for some time to do a driving trip around eastern Oregon. Over the past year he has developed an interest in fly fishing and fly tying. A passion for it, in fact! This has given me a reason to re-engage in something I have long enjoyed, but haven’t done much in recent years. I could see that this is an activity we can do together, and build some new memories. It also gave me a reason to completely update my equipment.
So, we decided to do a fly fishing road trip around Oregon.
I promised in my last post that I would write an update after our trip, so here it is.
A good friend of many years, Bill, lives in the Boise area, and he regularly fishes Oregon’s remote Owyhee River. This is way down in southeastern Oregon, near the border with Idaho. I had been there with him once before, in 2017, but I had done little fly fishing since. We made plans to camp and fish on the river for several nights.
Since it is a long drive down there from Portland, Alex and I decided to extend the trip for several days before and after our time on the Owyhee River.
I had never been in northeast Oregon, other than driving through on I-84. So, we spent a couple of nights up in the Wallowa mountains area, fishing the Wallowa River. We took some roads that were new to me, through small towns such as Enterprise and Joseph. This part of Oregon is extraordinary, reminding me of the Ponderosa ranch on “Bonanza.” Wallowa Lake, outside of Joseph, is a 300′ deep natural beauty, formed by glaciers in the Pleistocene era. All of this was a new experience for me, even though I have lived in Oregon for most of my life.
From there, we headed down to meet up with Bill for our stay on the Owyhee River. This area was not brand-new to me, as I had fished there with Bill several years before.
Except that this time, we caught a lot more fish.
We arrived at our undeveloped campsite in late afternoon and decided to check out the river before setting up. We could see fish rising to an insect hatch, and decided to fish first and set up camp later.
Within the first 15 minutes, Alex caught a fat 16″ brown trout. This was the first of a number of fish between the three of us over the next couple of days. Nearly all of them were 12 inches or more. Bill caught one that was at least 18 inches.
The photo at top is of Alex and me with the last fish he landed right before we left. I included that because we’re both in the photo, not because it was even the biggest fish.
Needless to say, that leg of the trip was a success!
Besides catching fish in one of Oregon’s best brown trout fisheries, we were surrounded by the spectacular desert scenery of the remote Owyhee River canyon.
After taking leave of the Owyhee leg of our trip, Alex and I made our way through other roads in Oregon’s southeastern desert area, including a 2-hour drive on gravel road past the eastern face of Steens Mountain, and the Alvord Desert. In a state known for rainfall, this is the driest place in Oregon, with less than 6 inches of precipitation a year. This area is not far from the Nevada border. The Alvord Desert is a 12×7 mile alkaline flat, a dried up former lake bed. We drove a mile or so out onto it, which was a unique experience. At 84 square miles, the Alvord Desert is twice the size of the famous Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, but is less well-known due to its remote and less accessible location.
I had always wanted to see Oregon’s Steens Mountain and the Alvord Desert. It took me 64 years to get down to that part of my own state, but now I’ve done it!
By the end of that day we had made our way around the southern end of Steens Mountain and up to the little crossroads of Frenchglen (population 11), on the west slope of the mountain. We spent the night there in the historic Frenchglen Hotel, built in 1916. It looks more like a farmhouse, and has only eight rooms. The best part of staying there is the dinner served family-style with the other guests in the rustic dining room.
The next day we made our way westward through more of Oregon’s high desert country. This trip reminded me of the vastness of the American west. Oregon, only the 9th largest state, is larger than the entire United Kingdom, and at least half of the state’s geography consists of high desert type of terrain. People often associate Oregon mainly with big fir trees, rain, moss, the coast, vineyards, etc. But in fact much of the state is high and dry.
We did pass through the “metropolis” of Christmas Valley. This is a community of 1300 where the main industries are ranching and alfalfa hay. Just to the west of Christmas Valley is Fort Rock, an imposing extinct volcanic remnant arising out of the entirely flat landscape. Alex and took and hour or two to climb around within its walls, which rise 200 feet above the desert floor.
An interesting side-note on Fort Rock is that the world’s oldest known pair of shoes were found here in 1938. This is a pair of sandals made of sagebrush bark, between 9300 and 10,500 years old. So, it turns out that Oregon has been a site of the shoe industry long before Nike made its headquarters here!
We planned to spend the last couple of nights with another old friend of mine who has a cool log home on a beautiful spring creek in Central Oregon. We had a great time, catching some more fish and catching up on one another’s life and family.
It was here that I caught my biggest fish of the trip, a very colorful brown trout of about 16″. I had long wanted to catch a fat brown trout on a small spring creek (only ten feet wide or so), on a light fly rod. Now I’ve done it!
After leaving Central Oregon, we made our way back over the Cascade mountains. We used another road I had never been on, and back into the valley and home to the Portland area.
This was a simple trip around my home state.
I was able to visit some places new to me and gain an appreciation once again for the vastness of the west. We drove 1400 miles, nearly all of it without leaving Oregon. I live in the “wet” part of the state, but I like exploring other areas too.
This was a great way to accomplish my goal of re-engaging with fly fishing, and to do it with my son and a couple of good, lifelong friends. I’ve been fortunate to travel to a number of other countries, and see some amazing things. But I find that often some of the best things are close to home.
If you are still reading at this point, I would like to encourage you to do some exploring of your own, wherever you are. I know I have readers from all around the United States, and from other countries as well. Many of you live not far from amazing and unique experiences or things to see. Make your own list, and make a plan to see some things, to do some of those things you’ve always wanted to do. You won’t be sorry!
