The long-promised pictures from the FS-18 road commute into Bend (PIC HEAVY).

[DemoTex]

The FS-18 is also known as the China Hat Road. It is a cinder road, kind of what I picture parts of the old Al-Can highway to look like.

When I use the FS-18 road I am off pavement for about 30 miles (the last 10 miles of the FS-18, closest to Bend, are paved). If you are in a two cars formation you want to make sure you are the lead. Ask Dr. D. about that.

Sometimes I see vehicles on the FS-18 from the lookout, especially down to the south toward Fort Rock, and the dust cloud looks kind of like a jet's contrail at 35,000 feet or a flight of Smokin' Fours (F-4 Phantoms) heading into North Vietnam.

The bottom line is the fantastic scenery along the FS-18. On the drive into Bend, I start off in Lodgepole and Ponderossa pine forest, transition to an open range of sage and cheat grass, pass through an area of bleak desert and cinder cones, pass a couple of tell-tale burn scars from forest fires past, and end up driving through an area of mixed Douglas Fir and pine. All the while the Three Sisters and Mt. Jefferson are on the horizon along the spine of the Cascades. And there is not any significant water to be seen in my desert sector, until one crosses over the Newberry Volcano Rim, or hits the Deschutes River or one of many Oregon canals near Bend.

Thanks to DU's EarlG for allowing me to post these dispatches in the GD Forum.


Sage and cheat grass with a lonesome pine or two on the open range. Cattle graze here with deer and antelope.


Along "The 18 Road" on my commute into Bend. Terrible traffic, eh?


The FS-18 road is gray. The FS-21 is buff colored. The FS-700 is red. It all depends on where they extracted the cinders. But amazingly they managed to keep each road's color consistent.


A lonesome pine in a desert gulch (Horse Ridge in the background).


A red cinder cone with Black Butte (still on fire) to the distant left and Mount Jefferson in the center background.


Coyote Butte has a red cinder pit. Somewhere there is a red road from this pit.


Along the last ten miles of the FS-18 (paved) going into Bend.


It sure beats billboards on the Interstate

[LearnedHand]

1. Wow. Just wow.

I'm liking YOUR workplace better than mine. Thanks for posting.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. lovely. all of it. thanks for posting them. K&R

Our nation has treasures that we will never realize their worth.

[slipslidingaway]

3. Gorgeous scenery and I have enjoyed all your reports, thanks :) n/t

[Arctic Dave]

4. Awesome pics.

Makes me want to go there and do some mountain biking.

[DemoTex]

8. Before I left the lookout this morning, a guy comes up on a mountain bike!

I'd seen him out there once before as I drove down the butte road on my way into Bend. He had two dogs with him then and today - a Bouvier des Flandres and a little mixed breed. That is one hell of a steep bike ride from the forest floor to the top of my 6500' butte.

Anyway, I stood there at the base of the lookout talking to this guy for two solid hours! He was fantastically interesting and shared a wealth of info on everything from flora and fauna, to out-of-the-way eateries, to great hikes for my visitors (coming in tonight, or rather tomorrow morning around 2 am after a 4 hour delay at DFW), to where he had seen careless campers with shaky campfire arrangements (I passed that on to my relief lookout).

Oh, he had been a USFS firefighter in a past life. He looked to be mid-50s and in great shape.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. You lucky guy!

I love those mountains! And the scenery is fabulous too...

Great commute indeed!

Thanks for sharing!

K&R

[DemoTex]

22. I am lucky, in a lot of ways.

If I could not share, like DU and email and Skype allow me to do, the experience would be somewhat diminished. But, then again, maybe not. Kerouac did fine after his 63 days on Desolation Peak without anything but US Mail for contact with the outside world.

[WatchWhatISay]

28. If you had not shared

a lot of OUR DU experiences would have been somewhat diminished.

Thanks for all of it.

[NYC_SKP]

6. Kick, Rec, and Props to DU moderator EarlG.

:applause:

Great pictures, and love your dispatches... :P

[Hissyspit]

7. Are the deer and antelope playing?

[DemoTex]

11. Deer and antelope playing indeed!

However, I have not seen any buffalo roaming. But the skies are not cloudy all day. Know wht I mean, Vern?

[Hissyspit]

14. Good to hear that they get along. Skies were pretty much cloudy all day here in North Carolina.

And now it's foggy.

Looked you up on Google Maps and am now looking down on you from satellite.

[Hissyspit]

17. Is the photo of Mount Jefferson looking north from your position?

[DemoTex]

19. Yes, basically north.

On a real clear day I can see Mt. Hood from the lookout tower.

[DemoTex]

18. Yep, I'm in the hotel in Bend. Nick is watching Jim Cantore on the Weather Channel.

Cantore is set up on the Outer Banks today and tonight. Nick loves the Weather Channel. I love NC!

[Hissyspit]

29. I love the Outer Banks, too. Ockracoke in particular.

Damn, Oregon is huge.

[MADem]

9. Beautiful! Love the sky! K n R! nt

[LynzM]

10. Wow...

So amazingly beautiful... I hope to be someplace like that, someday... :) Thanks for sharing!

[tabatha]

12. Great photos - you are really lucky.

Question - "extracted the cinders?"

[DemoTex]

13. Mined the cinders?

I'm not sure. It's a mineral, I guess. I started to use the term "quarried," .. hell, I don't know! Bwaa haa haa haa!

[roguevalley]

27. volcanic rock everywhere around there. TOo bad the pics can't let

you have the sweet smell of the land around there. I love Bend. My aunt and uncle and mom came from Lakeview. That whole part of Oregon is a gem.

[tabatha]

34. Thanks - I thought maybe it was a term I did not know.

Quarried is more familiar :-)

[madrchsod]

15. ....what a nice drive to work....

[sazemisery]

16. I really hate it that you are forced to live like that.

All those blue skies and snow capped mountains. Must really be a burden.



lol

What a great job you landed. Love the updates.

[DemoTex]

23. Yep. The Gorgeous Gulag.

But if one can't deal with a small modicum of solitide, and wilderness living, then this job could indeed be a prison sentence. But like I told my boss today .. I LOVE IT!

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Gorgeous country

thanks

[Suich]

21. Great pics!

When I was a kid, we used to camp a lot in Central Oregon...Metolius River, Warm Springs, et. al.

Your pictures bring beck very fond memories! Thanks!

:hi:

[DemoTex]

24. Some of the points the guy-on-the-bike (see above) recommended to me.

:hi:

[Suich]

25. My Dad used to work with the Warm Springs tribe (consulting forester)

and we were going to Kahneeta when it was just a hot springs...no resort, golf course, casino, etc. They had tepees you could rent but we used our own tent!

Hope you get a chance to do some serious exploring around there!

[DemoTex]

26. Gary Snyder, the Pulitzer-winning poet/writer, worked at Warm Springs and loved it.

Snyder also staffed the Sourdough Lookout in Washington in the early 1950s. He wanted to return for a second season, but he was blacklisted by the McCarthyites at the USFS for some past union affiliations.

Kind of along that line, I was notified by my boss today that I have to be finger-printed. He is not happy because the original hiring letter from the USFS said no background check necessary. He is working it so that it happens on USFS time. The last time I was finger-printed was for my Top-Secret Special Intelligence Crypto clearance in the late 1960s. I guess it is some more PATRIOT Act bullshit.

[TahitiNut]

30. What? No piss test?

Slackers. :silly:

[Barrymores Ghost]

40. One of my best friends used to man the lookout on Wolf Mountain in the Ochocos...

...still one of the tllest around, I belive. When I visited him, we'd climb up onto the roof to star-gaze...it was effin' incredible. When the wind blew, you'd swear to god the thing was going to topple over.

If you've never been to the Black Canyon wilderness area, you really should make the trip when you have a day off.

[Barrymores Ghost]

41. The teepees at Kah-Nee-Tah always smelled like dried dog piss...

...which is why we always used our tent, too.

Used to sunbathe on the flat rocks next to the bridge that crosses the Deschutes right by the resort. Ahhh, I miss it.

[PretzelWarrior]

31. I love it. Wife and I just hiked to Angel's Rest in Columbia Gorge

last Friday and up some water falls.

Oregon is GOD's COUNTRY! Best kept secret in the U.S.

And for cities, Portland isn't too shabby either!

[scubadude]

32. Very nice, what's it like in the winter?

Looks semi arid, but Montana does too, and the winters are pretty tough up there.

I have never been to Oregon before.

Thanks,

Scuba

[Barrymores Ghost]

39. Colder than a witch's tit. When it snows, it sticks for weeks.

And the air is so dry on the eastern slope of the Cascades that your nostrils freeze together when you breathe through your nose.

When you're up on the summit of Mt. Bachelor on a clear day, you can see pretty much the entire state before you head down the slope. It's an incredible place to live.

[scubadude]

42. Well, I live in Chicago, and it gets very cold here too.

But the snow may stick for months. My guess is that you get snow, but not much and when you do it's the dry stuff that drifts. Is that right? The coldest I have ever been in is about -40f. That was pretty cold to me.

I can imagine how beautiful it must be when winter lays upon the land. Wind calling out, speaking in sighs to all those who would listen. Peace upon the land.

Best,
Scuba

[Barrymores Ghost]

43. You nailed it...

...although we used to get much more snow when I was a kid. Bone-dry, great for skiing.

Oh, and I've walked up Michigan Ave. in January when a 40-mph wind was coming off the lake, and yeah...THAT's cold.

[angstlessk]

33. I want to pull a travel trailer off the road on the right in that last picture

what beautiful country you are in!

[Generic Other]

35. This is a pretty stretch of road

Thanks for posting!

[Xithras]

36. Last summer...

Most of my family lives in Oregon on the coast near Newport, while I'm stuck down here in California. Last summer my wife and I piled the kids into a rented RV, and we did a driving tour of Oregon. She has always loved the thick and cool coastal forests, but absolutely hated that stretch of central Oregon. Too dry and desert-like for her.

I've always loved that part of Oregon best. The coastal forests are beautiful, but there's nothing quite like listening to the wind hiss through the grasses of the open forest ranges, or hiking to the top of a cone and just picturing the power and violence that built them up. I hiked to the top of Belknap a few years back, and was in absolute awe the entire way.

Lucky you.

[Blue_Tires]

37. a man can really get lost out there...

[Barrymores Ghost]

38. That was pretty much my window view for more than 20 years...

...and thanks for sharing these photos. They serve as a nice reminder of how I shouldn't take some things for granted -- like the incredible natural beauty of the area I grew up in.

Incidentally, you might mention that many of the trees in the top three photos are junipers which, along with the sage brush and ponderosa, give the C.O. high desert its distinctive, almost exotic smell.