Alvord Desert! Eastern Oregon

Another crazy group camp.

This time in the Alvord Desert of Oregon. We had 4 teardrops and a full size camper out there. Great time. Hot and smoky though! Was an experience for sure.

 

I am so jealous! We hope to make it some year soon, with a new moon.

 

You told that poor dog you were taking him surfing. Shame on you!

 

OK...To each his own. I get it.

Maybe I don't understand something. Other than isolation (which frankly to me is almost always good) whats is the appeal?

 

To say we did it mostly. Our state has so many different biomes, we enjoy experiencing all of them.

The goal was to get as far away from light pollution as possible. It was a new moon and we wanted to stargaze. The smoke threw a little wrench in that, but was still quite impressive viewing.

It was also great having literally no one around us. At night, I could walk away from camp for as long as I wanted, set down my reclining chair and literally be just by myself with the stars for an hour or so. A few of us did that. Separated out for that true self isolation moment in the night with the stars. Taking a solo walk at night, no headlamp or anything until the starlight no longer illuminated our camp... no worries for anything to trip over and finding my way back... was great.

We did a couple top speed runs in the vehicles which was an absolute blast. Being able to launch the balls / frisbees for the dogs without a care was nice. Being able to walk in any direction for as long as we wanted was eye opening as well. The views were stunning. We could blast our music as loud as we wanted.

I did very much miss my trees and river or lake that is my usual camping spots, but this was on such a different spectrum. I feel it was very well worth it. I would actually do it again, although on a much cooler temperature day...

 

OK....I didn't even think of night sky watching....then this absolutely makes sense. Probably would have put up a few model rockets while there

A standout memory I have is going to Mackinaw Island area in michgian - and having a nigth sky dark enough to see the gas clouds -- there you have the cheboygan, Ignace, and Mackinaw lights....if this is darker than that, then absolutely this starts to make sense!!!

 

Thanks Grasshopper. I wasn’t really aware of Craters of the Moon, just seen it on a map before. Looks very cool, and only 9 hours away…