Here we go!
Spent about 17 - 18 hours, covered about 350 miles and burned up a tank and a half of gas. The area we looked at went from Hwy. 18 in the North to the Siletz river in the South, the Pacific Ocean in the west to just shy of the old town-site of Valdez in the East. The TJ is covered in dust and plant life. Lots of new brush pin striping. The turn signals and emergency flashers stopped working altogether.
That area is solid industrial timberland. It's also steeper than my home turf, if that's possible. As much as I bad mouth Weyerhauser sometimes for their gates and land access policies, the are doing a really good job of managing public access along the Siletz river. Kudos to them. The rest of the Timber Companies down there are a mix. LOTS of gates, some open, some closed and some unused. Surprised me that the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife had signage everywhere announcing "Closed to Motorized Access" signs everywhere! That had me stifled, until the Wife read the fine print. (Pee stop) We got lucky and it's only between a day before bow hunting season until the end of rifle season. That was on the signs in very fine print at the bottom of the sign. If you didn't get out of the rig and walk up to the sign to read it, you would have thought that the areas were just plain closed to motorized access. The whole area down there is shut down for public access during the work week.
The fly fishing on the Siletz river is amazing. Miles of perfect river to flip a fly on. Everyone we talked to had caught fish, and there are some monster trout swimming around in there. 16" to 18" was about average. Most folks were fishing "catch and release", which was good to see. You do have to hike down into a canyon to access about half the river though, so be prepared for strenuous physical activity to earn your fish.
There's a ton of game down there, and most of it is unused to humans. One big, pretty Doe stood in the middle of the road for two minutes flicking her ears to chase fly's away while staring at us and trying to decide if the TJ was a threat or not. She decided that we weren't a threat but ambled off to get out of the way eventually. She stopped about 25' up a hill and watched us drive slowly past. No bears (sign) and no cougars (sign) were sighted. No Elk (sign) were to be seen either.
Lots of flowers this time of year! We overnighted in a small clearing that was waist deep in daisies. Tons of other flowers are covering all the slopes and openings in the forest.
The roads are steep, steeper than up in our area. Well covered in 3" minus gravel though, with the occasional rock in the road. No skid roads to speak of. Everything is harvested by Highline down there, and has been for a long time. When you see the hills, it's no wonder why. Spit off the edge, and it will be a long time before it hits ground. Which brings up a point. I spent the weekend in first and second gear mostly. 31" tires and 4.10 gears absolutely suck balls down there. Seriously! A lot of the roads are steep enough that the 4-banger was trying to lug in second going up. Driving around in first gear is a lousy way to spend a weekend.
A note on maps of the area. Useless. Completely useless. The terrain is correct, but the road network is wrong in a lot of instances. Roads that are shown to connect, don't. Roads are there that aren't shown, roads that show aren't there. Positions are off by miles. It's no wonder people get out there and get lost. We gave up on the maps and started navigating by getting in a clear cut at the top of a hill and looking. Only way to go down there. We also ran two high end GPS units for redundancy. You are screwed if you loose your backtracks.
