2022 Hikes, 2022 John Day Trip

John Day Painted Hills

Today was another hiking day. We went to the Painted Hills unit of John Day National Monument. This has a number of short hiking trails that you’re expected to drive between. We picked three.

The first was Carrol Rim. This out-and back goes up along the ridgeline, with a broad overlook of the rounded hills. The hills are so smooth they look fake, like a low-resolution PS2 game.

Next was Painted Cove. This went around and through a few of the hills. Up close you could see the cracked dry clay texture.

The last trail we went on was Leaf Hill. This went around a hill which had been excavated and bore some 20,000 leaf and plant fossil specimens. Cataloging all that sounds like a job for some poor grad students.

After that we went to find lunch in Mitchell, then found a true Oregon delicacy — self service gas.

2022 John Day Trip, 2022 Rides

Questionable Route. Answer: Yes please

Anne planned this route, but got some mixed messages on the surface quality. Ride With GPS claimed that most of the loop was unpaved, which doesn’t make for a good ride. Google Street View doesn’t cover the roads, but the intersections it does have seems to show paved roads. And we checked out a bit of it yesterday in the car, and it appeared to be paved. So we went for it.

We knew it would be on the hot side — upper 80s in the afternoon, without much shade. So we tried to get an early start. The goal was to rollout at 6. But not surprisingly, we didn’t actually get moving until a little after 7. The kids (mostly Ruth) were grumpy at the start, but warmed up once we got going.

We’re just doing day rides this trip, so don’t need to bring nearly as much stuff. But a lot of it (tubes, repair kit, first aid) is valid on any isolated ride. Plus lunch, food, and jackets for the cooler morning, and it still adds up to a lot more than my commute.

The ride started with a 10 mile slight downhill down OR 19. This was a great start to the day. Traffic was light, the downhill kept us fast but was shallow enough we could pretend we were just strong. Plus we could examine all the cool rocky hillsides, with the layers of basalt in various configurations eroded by the John Day River.

Then we turned north on Alder Creek Road for our first big climb for the day. Over the next 10 miles we would climb some 1500 feet, winding along the hills. For the most part the climb was gentle, but portions were real work. The sun came out, which made what shade we could find under trees, behind hills, or under clouds very pleasant. Alder Creek was even quieter than 19. Across the whole time we only saw about five cars, including the mail carrier and a FedEx truck.

We rode along various ranches, including open range and cattle grates. For most of our rides in California the cows barely seem to notice us. These ones were much more eager to check us out and/or avoid us. We had Frank Sinatra playing on the speaker when passing one group, which joined some of their friends and ran along with us on the hill side. We decided Frank Sinatra must mean its feeding time.

After lunch, the climb kicked up a notch. I was hot and starting to run out of steam. We did zero training for this trip, and it showed. But we made it both to the false summit and the real one, then zoomed down five miles of descent.

Then we just had a short second climb, split into two pieces, before a final steep descent into Spray.

I was ready to be done, but the ride was really quite excellent. The road surface stayed paved. Traffic was light, and we avoided the worst of the heat. After some grumpiness getting started, both kids were very pleasant for the rest of the ride. The terrain was beautiful, and the climbs quite manageable. Even if this is the only bike ride on this trip, it was worth bringing the bikes.

2022 Hikes, 2022 John Day Trip, 2022 Rides

Island in Time

After last year’s tour, we decided the kids were big enough that our next tour would be on a pair of tandems. We finally got around to ordering the tandem for Ruth and me earlier this year. But with things how they are, we’re hoping to have for a weekend tour at Thanksgiving.

That left this summer open. We ended up with a modified tour. We drove up to Spray, OR, near the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. We’re using a rented house as a base of operations for a mix of hiking, non-loaded biking, and general lounging.

Today was a hike day. We started at the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center, for a brief 40 million year history of the fossil beds. Then we headed to the Blue Basin trailhead.

After some lunch, we decided on the shorter out-and-back Island in Time hike instead of the longer loop. It was already fairly late in the day, and we didn’t need to burn through all our kid (and adult) goodwill on the first day. The hike brought us along the canyon floor, though we didn’t find any fossils.

Now we’re back at the house for lounging. Tomorrow we’re hoping for an early start on a bike ride.