Yet another road trip

[StG58]

Went on yet another road trip this Sunday. Made the loop up through Timber, Vernonia (all roads lead to Vernonia), Mist, Birkenfeld and Jewell. The weather was OK, but it's winter time in NW Oregon so you take what you can get, right? There wasn't any snow on the roads, but enough to be interesting along side the roads in places.

Ended up getting the stink eye from a couple of herd bulls along the way. They really don't like the red Jeep much, it seems.

The wife got an MP4 video of the herd making tracks for the tree line, but the quality was very poor.

 

[JP98]

That's something that you just don't see down in GA.

 

[StG58]

But, you see other stuff down in GA. We saw four or five deer along the way as well. There is just a ton of wildlife around here, once you get out a little ways. It looks like the herds came through the winter in fine shape. We saw three more in addition to this one.

 

[Chris]

One nice thing about Oregon is how much country we have. It's basically nothing but open country for as far as the eye can see!

 

[StG58]

One nice thing about Oregon is how much country we have. It's basically nothing but open country for as far as the eye can see!

Once you get out of the valley... Just looked it up for another thread, and only 39% of Oregon is privately owned. The rest is publicly accessible in one form or fashion or another. Even a lot of that 39% is publicly accessible as well because a lot of the timber companies allow public access a lot of the time.

 

[Chris]

Once you get out of the valley... Just looked it up for another thread, and only 39% of Oregon is privately owned. The rest is publicly accessible in one form or fashion or another. Even a lot of that 39% is publicly accessible as well because a lot of the timber companies allow public access a lot of the time.

That's a cool factoid that I didn't know!

 

[StG58]

Kind of makes Oregon Jeep heaven. If you can't find the kind of place where you like to off road, you're not trying very hard. It's also why there aren't very many off road parks, as such. There's a few OHV areas, but mostly it's just hundreds to thousands of miles of dirt and gravel roads. I mess about in an area that's about 80 miles by 100 miles. There's no way I'll ever see it all or drive even a fraction of the roads and trails just in that one small area.

 

[Chris]

And that's part of what throws a lot of new guys off (it did for me when I was new to it as well), is that you assume you can only go off-roading at OHV areas, but in reality you have access to all this public land that includes fire roads and much more.

Of course if you're going to go that route, don't be a douche bag and leave a huge mess behind you... No one likes that.

 

[StG58]

And that's part of what throws a lot of new guys off (it did for me when I was new to it as well), is that you assume you can only go off-roading at OHV areas, but in reality you have access to all this public land that includes fire roads and much more.

Of course if you're going to go that route, don't be a douche bag and leave a huge mess behind you... No one likes that.

Very true. The OHV areas are kind of fun because of the social aspect, and you get to see some pretty nice rigs up close and personal. You also see a ton of tore up trails and random asshattery. I might ghost through an OHV on occasion, but mostly I just avoid the whole scene.

It takes some time, and talking to the locals, to learn an area. As an example, up in Nacelle Washington there is an access point to the back country that looks exactly like a local's driveway. But if you drive past the house and barn, and turn onto the powerline easement, you can access square miles of backcountry. You wouldn't know about it unless a local told you about it. Lots of that type of stuff around here.

On the douche baggery front there's not much to be said, other than it can be a self limiting problem. If you're that person you are going to get broke down or hung up in short order. Personally, I've left several of those folks stranded in the backwoods on a Sunday evening. Just smile and wave and keep on truckin'. Karma can be a real bitch.

 

[lowranger]

We have similar situation here in Northern California. A lot of National Forest and BLM land to roam around on. Just in our back yard here we have the Mendocino National forest to explore, hunt and fish and then the Shasta-Trinity National forest borders the north side of that, then the Six Rivers National forest borders that, then the Klamath National forest. We could go all the way into Oregon just staying in our National forest. We have the Tule elk here close to us.

 

[Stinger]

Elk is really tasty!

 

[StG58]

Elk is really tasty!

Really, really tasty... Missed my Elk last season. I only had a two day hunt. Got on the herd the morning of the first day, and unfortunately moved them to the other end of the bench they were hanging out on. Second day, I got fixated on a really nice satellite bull and chased him around the top of a hill for hours. I could hear him and hear him talking, and smell him. Caught glimpses of him moving through the brush and timber. Never got a good shot at him though. I guarantee that he was laughing his ass off the whole time. Proved two things, I'm dumber than a bull Elk, and Elk are way better at moving through the brush than humans are. This year maybe. Sure hope so, there's only about 15 - 20 pounds of Elk left in the freezer.

 

[lowranger]

My wife got a nice bull in Idaho 3 years ago. We are almost out of elk now. The venison and wild pork keep us going, nice to mix it up.