Rocks, fossils and cycling

[SadieKate]

Anyone explored the John Day Basin with the Oregon Paleo Lands Institute? Salsa, maybe you?

http://www.paleolands.org/find/time/here

They have some very interesting classes as well as cycling trips (you have to download the catalog to find them). There's a really nice cycling guide also.

Just thinking about next year. The bighorn mapping trip (non-cycling) sounds incredibly interesting.

[salsabike]

The whole thing looks fabulous, and I want to just move in and go on ALL the trips. Oh baby!

Our only trip was on our own and it was all within a hundred or so mile radius of Redmond/Prineville area.

Now you know why we're so hot to come back and go further east.

Wow!

[SadieKate]

I thought you'd like it! How long is the drive for you? The village of Fossil is only about 115 miles for us so pretty easy.

I joined so I'll get the frgx newsletter.

[blueskies]

Thanks for posting that!

[salsabike]

Drive is probably about six hours. It's perfectly do-able; it just has to be planned around a week or more vacation time. Next year...Chris is drooling over it also.

[boy in a kilt]

I'm not sure how they are defining this region, but I've spent a lot of time intimately close with most of the Smith Rock Group. I've also hiked around Paulina Lake, Black Butte and ridden my bike from K-Falls north.

I'd never really thought of there being such a thing as the Crooked River Caldera. I'll need to have another look to see what they are talking about.

The whole area is geologically weird.

Near the base of South Sister there are obsidian boulders the size of vans with gorgeous of streaks of, I think, rhyolite running through them.

Smith Rock is such an amalgam of rocks. Mostly welded tuff with a good mixture of basalt and rhyolite and one large (two-story house sized) basalt boulder just sitting there away from all the rest of the basalt. Almost on the geologic Group W Bench. Then you don't see much of that until you get to Hole In The Ground. If you took that structure and dropped it in the Smith Rock area, it would absolutely not look out of place.

For those interested in riding, the state park outside of Bend (Tumalo) has a gorgeous hiker-biker area. Take the back roads from Bend to Redmond. Great views of the Cascade volcanoes. And lots of cows. For some reason, I get fascinated by cows when I've been on the bike a while.

However, as easy as the ride from Terrebonne to Madras may seem in a car, it's not. That is a hilly region and the nearest camp ground is Lake Simtustus about 10 miles northwest of town. Another big basalt boulder at the south end of the camp ground.

[SadieKate]

Thanks for all the info.

The Paleo Lands Institute cycling tours concentrate on the lands around the John Day River Basin so it is northeast of the area you mention, more around
http://www.blm.gov/or/resources/recreation/johnday/index.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Day_Fossil_Beds_National_Monument

BTW, it's now mostly horses, alpacas, llamas and goats on those backroad between Bend and Terrebonne. The cows are the minority.

More on the Crooked River Caldera
http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2007CD/finalprogram/abstract_120471.htm

[boy in a kilt]

Would a geology-focused bike tour be too nerdy?

Pick a bunch of interesting formations and spend a few days riding from one to the next. Say Bend-Prineville-John Day-Burns-Bend. That's probably about six or seven days of riding and hard riding at that.

Too bad about the cows.

[SadieKate]

I'll take hordes of prancing baby alpacas any day! Seriously, there is a place with a 100 or more alpacas on each side of the road and apparently this is the right time of year for the young to be pretty small. I also had no idea that alpacas, pantaloons bobbing, would run through the pasture to keep up with a cyclist on the road. It's like a giant stuffed toy come to life.

Oh yeah, the horses, alpacas, llamas and goats not only smell better some of the goats are responsible for Juniper Grove Farms cheese. I have a very hard time not swerving into the drive.

Speaking of semi-wildlife, we've had a group of Lewis's Woodpeckers in and out of the yard all day. You can keep your cows.:D