A friend and I are taking our boys out for our annual overlanding week in July and this year we're going to do the North half of section 5 on the ORBDR.
I'm starting this thread early to solicit advice on things to see in the area. I'm pretty sure the eclipse viewing thread on the old site last year mentioned some kind of abandoned airport? military installation? in eastern/northeastern Oregon? does that ring a bell to anyone?
Any other ORBDR advice?
Thanks for sharing! I agree, the maps are expensive and kind of hard to follow. We did route 6 and route 2 last year and used both the maps and gps routes that I mapped out and uploaded to our Garmin. Thursday we leave on another trip and doing route 6, route 2, route 4 and 5-2. I‘ve mapped them all out and have them on Gaia, but will have the paper maps along also.
Again, thanks for sharing!
-Julie
Day 5 we had to head home for family obligations. My battery was giving me some trouble and I now had a useless spare, so we hit Les Schwab in La Grande OR before cannon balling home.
We bought the maps for routes 4, 5-3, and 5-4 - but we only did half of 4 and most of 5-3. The maps were expensive and accurate, but kind of hard to use. I ended up using them to map the route in the Gaia GPS app beforehand which worked great.
Day 4 - On to Unity, OR and a side trip to Beaver Mountain.
We stopped at Table Rock lookout, seen in the distance here.
Several roads were temporarily closed which made the trip to Unity about 30 miles longer than expected. We got lunch and gas there and then headed out to Beaver Mountain thanks to JR's coordinates above.
We then looped back to through Sumpter for more gas and back to the route off of hwy 26.
We attempted to traverse a long-unused road (that was on the route map) and were eventually thwarted and had to turn around.
When we stopped to camp, my rear tire promptly went flat.
Day 3 - Seneca to Cane Creek Campground
The day started with a tree across the road.
We stopped and played for a long time at Malheur Ford.
Then eventually drove through and continued our journey.
The campground is at the intersection of two creeks, with a water crossing to get into camp.
Day 2 - Eastern half of route 4 to Seneca.
we had the camp ground all to ourselves
Stopped at Flagtail mountain lookout.
The one gas station in Seneca opened back up for us when we arrived at 7:05 pm. We were hoping for a restaurant dinner to celebrate my son's birthday, but there were no restaurants in town, so we settled for camp stove s'mores (no fires allowed) camped beside the road.
Day 1 - a long stretch of pavement down to Mitchell OR via the Painted Hills, then dirt roads to intersect the ORBDR route 4.
Here you go.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/44%C2%B035'10.6%22N+117%C2%B047'13.1%22W/@44.5862911,-117.7881687,435m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x0:0x0!7e2!8m2!3d44.5862886!4d-117.7869807
Not sure if it's near the OBDR but would be a neat area to explore in any case.
JR