Friday, July 24th, 2020 – McDermitt, NV to Lakeview, OR
OK, so not the ACTUAL Oregon Trail, but our path DID go across Oregon, so… there you go.
Leaving early in the morning is a delight. Temperatures are cool (this morning about 57 degrees), traffic is negligible, and sunrises, majestic.
We departed McDermitt, NV around 6:25 am, and traveled no more than 200 yards north to cross into Oregon.
Immediately our journey commenced up into, and across the remote and wide-open expanse of, Southeastern Oregon. After 100-or-so miles, we arrived at Fields, OR – a virtual oasis in the midst of an almost incomprehensibly vast expanse of open plains.
Here we encountered one of the very few TAT riders we would meet during the journey – a gentleman from North Carolina, riding a KTM 1290 Adventure, who, only a few days earlier, had become stranded in the very demanding terrain of Black Dragon Wash in Utah (see our Post, Day 19).
This brought into sharp focus the risks associated with riding in these rough, remote areas – not to mention on a LARGE, HEAVY bike – but especially ALONE.
After hours of attempting to free his motorcycle from rocks and deep sand, he was forced to “Press the Button”.
The SOS button, that is.
Fortunately, he was running a Garmin inReach Mini Satellite Communicator, and within several hours, help had arrived, freed his bike, and left him with a fresh supply of water. (As an aside, we had redundancy in this safety department; Dan had a Spot Locator, and Rob, the inReach Mini above). One does not ask in such situations what the bill was…
From Fields, we continued westward toward the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge, and the unincorporated town of Plush, OR, where, frankly, we encountered far more cattle on the open range than antelope!
Our next stop was Lakeview, OR, where we arranged for lodging for the evening, and then decided to do some afternoon sightseeing through the trails of the Winema National Forest. It did not disappoint.
Tomorrow, more of Oregon!
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