13 replies to this topic

[craig333]

I loved the big campgrounds as a kid. The rangers in their funny hats. Singing songs at the amphitheatre. Glad my dad did both kinds of camping. Though I prefer the quieter kind now you should never forget our national monuments, parks, etc are there for a reason.

P.S. great trip report

[Dughlas Stiubhart]

Thanks for the report and pics, Ugly!

[ntsqd]

Great thread! Thanks for calling up my own memories of the area. My grandparents lived in Powell Butte and we went camping at least once every summer. This was back when Walton Lake was unknown and only the fishermen really knew about the Crooked River Gorge section there between Prineville and the dam. We only camped in that gorge once, but it is one of the spots that I most clearly remember.

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By the way: Next time you're in the Prineville area and headed east (or in the John Day/Canyon City area heading west) I recommond taking the highway/road that runs south/east from Prineville to Post (geo-center of Oregon), Paulina, Izee then connects to US395 south of Canyon City. A nice secondary highway to explore (though NOT a shortcut) with a real middle-of-nowhere feel in places. Mostly open country with big views in places. Can be beautiful in spring with wildflowers. Lots of gravel/dirt roads take off into the National Forest and BLM both north and south from that road. I've done it as a day-drive loop from Bend (in combination with the main Highway 26) more than once.

A little story about that road, as told to me by Pat Miller of Miller Ranch near Paulina and confirmed by Clyde Quigley - log truck driver & former Redmond Coast to Coast owner. The northern of the two 90* turns in that road on the Section Lines about 1/2 way between Paulina and Prineville has(had?) a large tree in the triangle of the current radiused highway turn and the original sharp 90 turn. It is a nice spot to take a break. Back when they were logging the Strawberry Mtn's it was sometimes filled with a log or two. Seems that when the weigh station is open and a driver thinks that he might be heavy they pull down in there and peel a couple off the truck.

You ought to have seen the firewood stack that the ranch house between those two turns had........

BTW, in the Kershaw Knives catalog there is a model called the "D.W.O." That stands for Delly Wade Officer, of the Officer Ranch SE of Paulina at the foot of the Strawberry's. He was killed in a hunting accident of some sort. How exactly the knife came to be I do not know.

[Silvertip47]

Thanks for sharing!! I've driven by the signs many times but never stopped. Now I need to do that!!!