We spent two mind blowing days exploring the John Day area with its painted hills and fossil beds. The river is called John Day River but it turns out that John Day never even came to this precise area. He was an early hunter who in 1811 was robbed near this area and the river was named after him.The painted hills were amazing but unfortunately the photographs don’t really do the colours justice.
It was HOT on the walks, which are effectively in a high desert, so we were glad of a strong breeze.We camped near the river at Priest Hole – Fred’s first real off road experience and met a couple of cool locals, Taylor and Ruby. They gave us tips, local insights and the most amazing homemade cookies!After a morning swim in the fast flowing river, we went to the John Day fossil beds. Thankfully the walks to see the fossils were only short because it was extremely hot with only a slight breeze. Stunning landscape though and thankfully no sightings of rattle snakes.
At some point, we also seemed to manage to be in the middle of a hot rod drive out meet. Pete took lots of photos!!
Next we climbed altitude and cooled as we arrived at Mount Hood. We were greeted by snow and people heading up for Spring skiing and snowboarding. $73 for a day pass for two lifts to ski on a tiny amount of slush was not appealing so we took a look around the historic Timberline Lodge instead (built in 1937 and used in the film, The Shining).
In contrast to the skiing we saw some folks with all their mountain biking gear who said, while there was still quite a bit of snow at the start, it was possible to ride the Timberline to Town Trail. So the next morning We got the shuttle bus up to the Timberline Lodge at the top of the mountain for only $2 from Welches.
We struggled to find the right trail under all the snow and somehow ended up on the Hidden Lake walking trail – oops.
Through all the rhododendron and across rivers there was only one crash in a steep ravine. Luckily no broken bones and Pete was impressed that I cared so much about the $500 deposit that I hung onto the hired bike even though it looked like my arm may break. We eventually got to the road just in time for the next shuttle back up to the top again.Second time lucky, we decided to follow the Glades trail down until it crossed with the Timberline trail and then we were set. We followed berms and single track all the way back to the town of Rhododendron and then on the road to our van in Welches.After ice cream and some carb loading pasta we drove down to Sandyridge trail centre to ride the trails there. Glad of the cooler evening temperatures we slogged up the road for an hour and then whooped and hollared down trails called Rock Drop, Three Three Eight and Hide and Seek. What a great day !!!! Topped off by a lovely shower in the car park and a great campsite by the river near Lolo Pass.
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