Oregon hot springs September 20-25, 2016

[larrie]

My wife, our dog McKenzie and I met Jason, from the Gitout Forum, at the High Desert Museum near Bend, Oregon on Tuesday and headed south via Deschutes National Forest road 18 to Fort Rock. The 58 miles took us about 1-1/5 hours. The road was a mix of good gravel and washboard. From there we were on pavement to Summer Lake Hot Springs.

The campground is nothing to write home about.


Summer Lake was having a dust storm while we were there but he metal building over the hot pool kept us out of the wind. Summer Lake Hot Springs is clothing optional after 9:00 pm.


That night the sunset was spectacular.




The next morning we got gas in Paisley and headed to Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge and its hot springs. The 83 miles took us three hours that included a stop for lunch. The road was good gravel with some bad washboard sections. Lunch was at the campground at the base of Hart Mountain.

The road up the mountain was steep and gave a great view of the valley below. The washboards were the worst we would encounter on our entire trip.


We got a couple of campsites next to a creek and close to the hot springs.


The hot springs actually has three pools. One has a concrete deck and is surrounded by a very nice rock wall that acts as a wind break. The next a small pool that is surrounded by grass and has a muddy bottom. The third is very small and has green scum growing on the top.

While I was cooking this guy decided to have dinner too. He was about 50 feet away.


The next morning we woke up to about two inches of snow and decided to head out.




The road from Hart Mountain to French Glenn is gravel with a mix of washboards, rock, and high speed gravel. The trip is 53 miles and took about 1.75 hours. After we got back to pavement outside of French Glenn we became part of a cattle drive. It is standard practice for ranchers to drive their herds on OR 205.


We got gas in French Glenn and then headed up into the Steens Mountains. the road is all gravel with the expected washboards and rough spots. We were treated to spectacular views on the way up.




We met another truck coming down from the top. They were turned back by slippery conditions caused by snow on the road. Jason and I discussed it and decided to give it a try. The snow was about three inches deep in spots and the road was slick but we made it to the 9,500 foot level without problems.


From there it was all down hill to South Steens Campground. We spent about 1.5 hours getting from French Glenn to the campground, 37 miles. After lunch we decided to push on to Alvord Hot Springs because the temperature was going to drop to around 19F at the campground. It was already near 30F.

The drive to Alvord Hot Springs is about 80 miles and took abound 1.75 hours on a mix of gravel and pavement. The road in provides for some spectacular views of the Steens and the lake bed.




Alvord has a campground and cabins. The campground is even more rustic than the one at Summer Lake but it did have picnic tables. The campground also has access to Alvord Lake. Just don't turn left when you drive out on the lake bed. The springs has two pools. Both are open air but one is surrounded by a metal wall on 3.5 sides that acts as a wind block. The other pool is wide open to the surrounding view.


The next morning we headed to Willow Hot Springs on the opposite side of Alvord Lake. Looking at the county maps we saw that Serrano Point Ranch Road would connect us with another road that would lead us to Willow Hot Springs. This road started off well but disintegrated into deep ruts that were filled with dust. My van got buried up to the axels. We broke out the traction pads and attached a strap from my van to Jason's Jeep. I was able to back out with Jason's help. The dust was about five inches deep in the ruts and two inches deep between them.




Rather than continuing on we decided to backtrack and take the long way to Willow through Fields. On the way we got gas and ate lunch in Fields. From Fields is is about 34 miles to Willow and took us an hour on pavement and then gravel with the usual slow spots. Willow is on BLM land and is undeveloped. There is a hot pool and a cool pool.


The next morning Jason headed back to Portland and we headed north to Crystal Crane Hot Springs. Once we were off the gravel we took OR 205 on the west side of the Steens. It took us about two hours to cover the 120 miles. Crane Oregon has a good restaurant that also has fuel.

The hot springs is a commercial venture that has a combination of cabins, RV and camping spaces. It is the best developed campground that we stayed at.



The hot pool is very large and has a beautiful view.


The next day we pointed the van west towards home. We stopped at the Black Bear Diner in Bend for lunch and then drove the rest of the way home without incident.

The stats
Total miles = 830
Approximate gravel miles = 310
Fuel Tumalo 10.567
Paisley
French Glenn 12.9
Fields 12.1
Burns 17.891
FM OC 13.844

[rockbender]

Thanks for the follow up, Larrie! Looks like you hit some fantastic fall color as well as that amazing sunset. I love the Alvord area - looking forward to spending a few days down that way next month. Glad to see you putting the van through it's paces!

[macmcintire]

Great report thanks. How did you get so many pictures in one report? I haven't figured out how to do that yet on this new forum site.

[86Scotty]

Nice report Larrie. It's cool to see my old van being used and enjoyed.

[shenrie]

man, that looks wonderful!! wish we could have met up with you guys instead we got to replace our hpop. booooooooooooooo hissssssss!

thanks for all the pix and great report larrie. gives us some great options and its nice to see some of the surrounding areas for reference. ive been eyeing a few of these springs in the book for a while. once we checked out snivley and three forks, the Oregon springs were on my radar.

[WhitH]

Great report, thanks Larrie! I've wanted to get out to SE Oregon for years and just haven't done it yet. This gives me some more motivation.

[larrie]

Originally Posted by macmcintire

Great report thanks. How did you get so many pictures in one report? I haven't figured out how to do that yet on this new forum site.

Mac, I was wondering that myself until I forced myself to sit down and figure it out. Here is Howe to do it in two parts. First the Upload steps and then the insertion steps.

1. Go to your user control panel and click on Pictures and Albums. This is under the Networking heading.
2. On the next screen Add Album or click on and existing album.
3. If you clicked Add Album you will see a screen where you can enter the title and a description for the album.
4. Click Submit
5. On the next page click Upload Pictues.
6. On the next screen click Choose File and navigate to the photo location on your computer.
7. Select the file and you are returned to the Chose File screen.
8. Repeat step seven two more times and then click Upload Pictures.
9. The next screen allows you to add a caption to the photos. This is very desirable.
10. Click Save Changes and your photos are now in your album.
11. Repeat steps 5 to 10 to upload three more photos.

Note: This process works great on a computer. It does not work as well from an iPad. There is a bug that gives each photo the same name on an iPad so only one photo is uploaded. There is no work around at this time, October 2016, that I know of.

[larrie]

Here is part two of inserting more than three photos in a post. Part one talked about how to upload photos into an album and is right below this post. The easiest way to insert photos from an album into a post is to use two browser windows.

1. Creat a new thread or reply to a thread as usual.
2. Type in the text.
3. Open a second window in your browser.
4. In this second window go to the Sportsmobile Forum and click on User CP.
5. Then click on Phictures and Albums.
6.Click on the album that has the picture you want to insert into the post being created in the first window.
7. Click on the photo you want to add. The photo will open. Just below it are the caption, Picture URL and BB Code.
8. Select all the text in the BB Code text box and copy it.
9. Switch back to the first window that has the text you typed into it previously.
10. Position the cursor where you want to insert the photo and paste the BB Code text you copied from the second window at that location.
11. Replete steps 6 or 7 through 10 to add additional photos. You can add as many as you want.

Note: There is a bug, as of October 2016, that prevents an iPad from copying the BB Code or Picture URL from the text box. The workaround is to use a keyboard with the iPad or do the work on a regular computer.

[Otter]

Great instructions, Larrie.

But I use my IPad everyday for uploading pics. Here's the trick to getting the BB code:

First tap the photo to open it out of the album. Hold your finger on the first word [IMG] till it highlights. Then, tap on the lower right "dot". That will highlight the entire code and allow you to copy the code. Then paste it into your content. Warning, it is temperamental and you get one shot at it. If it doesn't work the first time, use the back button and then click on the photo again. Also, it often wants to cut off the first bracket before [IMG], as in my example below. Just add it in when you paste.

EDIT: Here's some illustrations to help. Oh, also, when you upload, you can change the Image name to any caption you want.





What it looks like when it leaves off the first bracket:

IMG]http://www.sportsmobileforum.com/forums/members/10206-albums1002-picture32676.png[/IMG]



Corrected:



.

[larrie]

Thanks Otter. Will have to give it a try.