Winter Solstice in the Snowy Woods

A warm little cabin deep in the snowy woods on the winter solstice.... almost sounds too good to be true, but it certainly is, and here is the story.

The Highline Trail

Oweep Basin 

The Highline Trail has been on our list of things to do for a long time. Recently we completed a 70 mile traverse of the High Uintas Wilderness from Chepeta lake to Mirror Lake Trailhead. 

Jarbidge Wilderness

Lisa and I had a mid-summer chunk of time off which was prime for a high country backpacking trip.

beaten silly by the East Fork of the Jarbidge

Lower Deschutes River

Finally made it to boat the Deschutes from Shears Falls to the mouth. It was good to be on a Northwest river, back in my home stompin' grounds. I always love to get back to the columnar basalt and the deep canyons of central Oregon.

Columnar Basalt: A NW original

Oregon Backroads

On a recent trip to the NW we decided to take the scenic route, so we took five days, winding through the Oregon backroads.

An Old Oregon Pine

Happy Canyon Overlook

Poison Spring Cyn; background / Happy Cyn; foreground 

Our trip into Sams Mesa Box Canyon settled the question of a possible future backpacking trip. The next morning I sat in the sun looking at maps and drinking coffee. We didn't want to spend a bunch of time driving around so we settled on driving about 20 minutes further out onto Sams Mesa. The contour lines on the quad begged exploration along the north rim of Happy Canyon out to a point that forms between Happy Canyon and the Dirty Devil River. Long story short: We walked 11 miles for a picnic!

Sams Mesa Box Canyon

For a good while now I've been eyeing the map with the hopes of making a non-technical 5 day backpacking loop trip, out of two canyons that are popular among canyoneers for technical challenge. We lucked out by having a spell of days in the upper 60's during spring break so we gassed up and rolled south where we had 4 days of sunny solitude.