We headed out for Spring Break to a new riding destination this year along with two other families, the Hedgpeths and & Barnharts. We’ve ridden with both families before and the Hedgpeths have ridden the Alvord Desert before. We arrived on Saturday, March 28 and left on Wednesday, April 1. Our first day there the temps were in the upper 50s and we thought we were in for a warm spring break. Then the weather set in and we had one nasty evening of extremely high winds, 50MPH plus. All of our RVs were rocking and rolling pretty bad and we didn’t sleep much, the next day was bitter cold so we pretty much just stayed inside. The other days the weather was much better, still downright cold most of the time but we had the right gear.
View of the Alvord Desert dry lake bed, about 12 miles long and 7 miles wide
View out of camp, and our goal for an afternoon ride
We headed up one of the mountains to try to get a better view, but the snow quickly set in on us
View from the mountains behind camp, the white spec on the right is our base camp
I was able to get a photo of camp though, our wagons circled to block the wind... didn’t help though
Road to no where, with the bad weather setting in we turned around and headed back to camp
Sean on his Honda Recon on the dry lake bed.
View of the dry lake bed
Part of our group with the Steens Mountains in the background
View from my perch, the AWD seemed to give a bit more traction, got up to about 60 MPH
View towards camp, the small spec in the lower left is base camp
Logan & Sean, and all the kids were pretty into horse bones we came across
Second day we headed out to Big Sand Gap, the gap between the mountains is our goal.
Closer view of Big Sand Gap and the desert terrain
View back towards the Steens along the Big Sand Gap trail, saw some wild horses but they were far away
The 3 families taking a break on the Big Sand Gap trail
On the third day we headed up to Mickey Hot Springs
Tad bit hot, but on our way back by we found a couple of the hippies taking a dip
Fourth day we headed to Borax Lake, about a 33 mile one way ride
Just a tad bit of dust, I happily took up the rear
Dang, no fresh water here
One of the hot springs at Borax lake, more impressive in person
That’s not snow, that’s the dry stuff we road on much of the time we were around the lake bed
The Sightseer loaded with the modified ATV trailer
View of the Alvord Desert dry lake bed, about 12 miles long and 7 miles wide
View out of camp, and our goal for an afternoon ride
We headed up one of the mountains to try to get a better view, but the snow quickly set in on us
View from the mountains behind camp, the white spec on the right is our base camp
I was able to get a photo of camp though, our wagons circled to block the wind... didn’t help though
Road to no where, with the bad weather setting in we turned around and headed back to camp
Sean on his Honda Recon on the dry lake bed.
View of the dry lake bed
Part of our group with the Steens Mountains in the background
View from my perch, the AWD seemed to give a bit more traction, got up to about 60 MPH
View towards camp, the small spec in the lower left is base camp
Logan & Sean, and all the kids were pretty into horse bones we came across
Second day we headed out to Big Sand Gap, the gap between the mountains is our goal.
Closer view of Big Sand Gap and the desert terrain
View back towards the Steens along the Big Sand Gap trail, saw some wild horses but they were far away
The 3 families taking a break on the Big Sand Gap trail
On the third day we headed up to Mickey Hot Springs
Tad bit hot, but on our way back by we found a couple of the hippies taking a dip
Fourth day we headed to Borax Lake, about a 33 mile one way ride
Just a tad bit of dust, I happily took up the rear
Dang, no fresh water here
One of the hot springs at Borax lake, more impressive in person
That’s not snow, that’s the dry stuff we road on much of the time we were around the lake bed
The Sightseer loaded with the modified ATV trailer