Part 2 – The Oregon Outback – Never Underestimate a Good Sidequest

Day: 3 – PM – The Red Sauce
Monday, May 25, 2026

Distance: 31.5 miles (181.7 total)
Fort Rock to Sand Springs Campground (Link to Route)

Well if you read my last post you know that Andrew made the tough call to head home so it’s just me and Austin from here on. (We did have enough service to check in on him, and after having some sitting time in the AC he is starting to feel better, and should be back to normal in no time!) Since we waited until we knew Andrew was in safe hands we didn’t leave the Waterin’ Hole Campground in Fort Rock until shortly after noon.

The stretch following Fort Rock is one of the longer stretches without reliable water. Because of that, Andrew had originally planned for us to do another 70 mile day to make it to the Prineville Reservoir. That wasn’t gonna happen with our late start (and I don’t think Austin wanted to do another long hard day anyway even if we had left earlier). So instead we set our goal at Sand Springs Campground and loaded up on water. I filled an empty Gatorade bottle I had leftover from the day before as well as one of my water filter bags putting me probably close to 6 Liters. Good thing I’m strong.

Fortunately the weather was slightly cooler and we got to enjoy a 22 mph cross tail wind. So, even though we were riding in the hottest part of the day it wasn’t nearly as bad as the previous two days. You could even feel the wind giving us a boost whenever we struggled.

The ride out of Fort Rock was really pretty. We travelled past a sea of sage brush. At one point we paused for a rest in a shade puddle, looking back we noticed Fort Rock looming in the distance – we had gone so far so fast! We slowly transitioned into a forest, albeit a burnt one, the trees offered a nice change of scenery and the route came with some cool not quite mountain bike trails.

After Fort Rock there is a section of trail lovingly referred to as the “red sauce“. For some reason I thought it was after Prineville so when we reached a section with the red sand like surface I began to dread what the “red sauce” section must be like. It didn’t take long for me to realize, no, we had indeed found the dreaded “red sauce” section.

The “red sauce” was my least favorite part of the ride thus far. I’m sure it’s tainted a little because Andrew had to leave us, but damn that section sucked. It was slow going and demoralizing. There were occasional nice bits, but there was a lot more fishtailing than nice. The sand grabbed at your wheels like you had the resistance on a stationary bike turned all the way up. At least the chunky ‘levels’ on the OC&E were still fun in a challenging way.

The red sauce continued all the way up to Sand Springs Campground, our intended spot for the night. In theory it’s only supposed to last 20 miles or so total so I’m very hopeful that we are near the end of it.

While riding through the sauce we caught up to three of the other tourers we had seen previously resting and chatted with them for a bit before passing them. Their plan had been to go on a detour to Brothers where there’s maybe water at a rest stop? But instead they got to Sand Springs (20 miles before Brothers) as Austin and I were finishing our dinners and decided they didn’t want to go on any further and ended up camping with us.

Speaking of dinner, I’m fortunate Andrew had planned an easy meal of “Thanksgiving” (instant mashed potato, gravy, craisins, and vegan jerky). I just had to add hot water, and now I have an extra serving of it!  Since Andrew normally does the cooking it’ll be interesting to see what I come up with when we resupply in Prineville.

Around 7pm it actually started raining on us. I guess we didn’t have to freak out about water so much! Hopefully the rain stops by tomorrow morning, but temperatures will definitely be cooler. With the chillier temps, rain, and our weary legs Austin and I both decided to call it an early night and retreated to our respective tents.

Unfortunately in the flurry of transferring stuff between Andrew and my gear I accidentally took the leaky air pad! Andrew’s had gotten a small hole two nights prior. And with Andrew feeling sick I had taken the leaky pad last night and forgot to switch back when he left! I have a patch kit, but the hole is so small we couldn’t figure out where the leak is coming from. So silver lining I guess is that I only have to blow it up once or twice over night but it’s still a pain.

By the Numbers:

Ice Creams Consumed: 0 (2 total)
Reptiles spotted: 0 (27 total)
Discarded Beer Cans: 2 (10 total)
Other Bike Tourers: 0 – no new ones at least (6 total)
Bike Mechanical: 1- Austin dropped a chain and actually had to stop to fix it. Apparently he drops chains often enough to fix it on the fly so I haven’t been counting those (6 total)

Day: 4 – So Much For Hot Weather
Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Distance: 69.5 miles (251.2 total)
Sand Springs Campground to Ochoco Lake Campground (Link to Route)

I don’t know why we didn’t see this coming; Austin and I had both ditched some of our warmer layers with Andrew when he bailed. Well it was FREEZING this morning. The high for the day barely got over 60! And the Garmin said it was about 35 degrees when we left camp just before 8am. My knee warmers didn’t even take up that much space! Why did I send them home? Oh well we survived, and I suppose too cold is better than too hot when water supplies are limited.

Out of camp we still had a little “red sauce” to ride through, but either the rain from the night before or maybe the near freezing temperatures made it much smoother riding. We were very thankful for that. Apparently some other riders who caught up to us later and rode through the entire Red Sauce section today had zero issues, but could still see all of our skid marks we had left in the sand the day before. So they at least knew how lucky they were to have solid dirt to ride on instead of that dreaded sauce like sand.

With the easier riding spirits were high between Austin and me as we started our morning off. It was a little comical taking “finger warming” breaks instead of shade cool down breaks. Regardless, we rode the first 25 miles with relative ease and speed. We even passed through a couple more cow pastures and fancied ourselves as cattlemen as we “chya’d” them away.

Then, we hit a hill. The route on our Garmins had us turn left on CC Dunham Road for the climb. It was more of a double track trail than an actual road, nothing out of the normal based on the route thus far. Granted it was a little more rugged of a trail. Imagine if one of the tracks was also a small ravine. Riding it involved focus for the climb. The hill was supposed to last 2.5 miles, but about one mile into the climb, the road ended at a barbed wire fence and a huge log pile that looked very intentional.  Austin investigated for a route around it but the trail seemed to disappear on us!

There had been a fork in the double track road a little ways back that didn’t really match our GPS (or show up at all on our maps) that is possibly the correct path our route was trying to follow (we forked left, the mystery road goes off to the right). Neither of us were keen to risk it and explore the other path and instead opted to head back to the Crooked River Highway we had been on previously and continue on it until it conveniently reconnected with the original route. We did move a few branches and write in the sand “dead end?” So that hopefully those other 3 tourers wouldn’t needlessly have to climb that same hill.

We later learned that turning on CC Dunham Rd was a mistake with our downloaded route. Not sure what had happened, but the official Outback Route has you do what we ended up doing, that is, staying on the Crooked River Highway all the way to the Prineville Reservoir. So I guess that was just an us problem. If you want to climb some bonus miles feel free to copy us.

When the Crooked River Highway turned to pavement we cheered at the break in difficulty and the speed increase it would bring. I was hopeful we’d be going around that aforementioned climb we had already wasted energy on, but instead it combined the next three climbs forecasted on our Garmins all into one! At least it was on pavement, but Austin left me in the theoretical dust-I hate climbing.

Once we reached the summit we had a sweet, albeit cold, downhill toward the Prineville Reservoir. It was beautiful. It would have been a fabulous area to camp had the circumstances been different.

There are several campgrounds near the reservoir and we made it to the first one, Big Bend, around lunch. The plan had been to fill up water at their spigots but sadly they didn’t seem to be working. The river is right there so it would have been easy to filter but with only 20 miles to get to Prineville we decided that we had enough water to make it to town and so didn’t bother filtering. (For anyone else doing the Outback route on a hotter day, the seasonal creek noted on the official route did have a decent amount of water when we went past it. But it didn’t seem particularly easy to get to).

Had it been a hotter day we may have stayed at Big Bend and hung out at the river, but it was still very chilly and even rinsing off the dust from our bodies sounded miserable. And I was really craving a shower, today I had to add the caveat – a hot one.

Based on how the morning went we had assumed the next 20 miles would be a snap. It was all paved and mostly down hill after all. But the weather seemed to be against us today, not only was it much cooler, but we also suffered through a headwind. I hate those more than climbing!

Fortunately the road and views at this point was spectacular. This area is part of the Crooked River Scenic Bikeway. I would highly recommend it for its beauty and quiet roads. It was like riding through a mini version of the east end of the Columbia River Gorge. Huge basalt walls towing over us on either side. The whole area was dotted with campgrounds along the river that any other day would have been so refreshing and serene to stop and hangout at.

In Prineville, Austin was really craving a burger, especially since we had been deprived one in Fort Rock. We are riding past a bajillion cows after all. I was sold because the diner we chose, Tastee Treet, had lots of ice cream options and I was able to get myself a burger, fries and banana milkshake!

After eating a second lunch/early dinner we resupplied at a grocery store, and Austin was finally able to grab some hardware to fix his panier (he’d been holding on to his rack with Paracord since it broke on day 2).

After Prineville we detoured from the bikepacking.com Outback route on purpose. We had 8 more miles to get to our chosen camp, Ochoco Lake Campground. Fortunately we were turning east, so the wind was now more of a cross wind instead of a headwind. There had been a couple sprinkles from the sky so I was eager to get to camp to set up just in case the sky opened up on us. About 1/2 mile from the campground turn Austin paused to take a picture and appreciate the view of Ochoco Lake. I however was on a mission, so I passed him and continued to camp.

I made it to the campground, and chose us a site. (they used to have hiker biker sites at Ochoco Campground but the price was gone so I’m not sure if it’s only seasonally offered or what and it was also the camp host day off today so we paid via honor box). As I was returning to the front to go pay our site fee, I saw Austin ride right on by the campground. I guess he was in the zone and couldn’t hear my shouts. I tried to call and text him but unfortunately service was next to null. Welp, I wasn’t about to go after him. Fortunately he did eventually figure it out and make it back to the campground.

At camp I was pleasantly surprised to find that my wish was granted, they had hot showers. (And free too!) I let out a squeel of excitement upon seeing them (Austin could hear my joy from the men’s side of the bathroom building). It had been 4 dusty, dirty, sweaty, hard days since my last shower after all. Oh what bliss it was to have that hot water. I felt like a new person.

By the Numbers:

Ice Creams Consumed: 1 – banana milkshake! (3 total)
Reptiles spotted: 2 snakes! (29 total)
Discarded Beer Cans: 43 – okay some of the cans may have been red bulls, but seriously people, be better! (53 total)
Other Bike Tourers: 0 (6 total)
Bike Mechanical: 1 – Another chain drop for Austin; man this internal hub is apparently saving me a lot of chain drops. (7 total)

Day: 5 – We All Have Our Own Hills to Climb
Wednesday, May 27, 2026

Distance: 43.1* miles; 4,705ft of climbing (294.3mi total)
Ochoco Lake to Skookum Rock Camp (Link to Route)

We had a bit of a lazy start this morning. Having a real bathroom with power outlets will do that. But we did still make it out of camp by around 8 am. We started with a little highway riding to get to our turn. I wasn’t a huge fan just because cars, but at least the shoulder was a decent width the whole way. (I believe this stretch of highway 26 is part of the TransAmerica route, it was definitely part of the route Andrew and I had taken 3 years prior.)

When our turn off the highway came, the road was paved for a short bit which kept our speeds decent but unfortunately we had a slight headwind…again.  On the bright side, the headwind only lasted a little while as we did get into some tree cover relatively quickly.

In less than 10 miles we came up to the turn for Steins Pillar so it was still pretty early in the day. Austin told me the night before he had no intention of doing a hike, and therefore had no intention of climbing the 2 mile steep 800ft climb to get to the trailhead.

There was a lot of wavering on my end, deciding if I wanted to do the climb and hike solo or not. But in the end I decided I should do it because this was my one goal for the trip. Honestly, seeing this arbitrary geological feature felt more important to me than finishing the Outback route.

Thankfully Austin was willing to wait for me at a nearby campground (Wildcat) so that I could do the hike without us separating too much. We counted out and decided it would probably take me about 3 hours (45 min up, 2 hrs to hike the 4 miles, and 15min down).

I hid my panniers and some heavier things from my frame bag behind a tree at the base of the climb and I started to make my way up the hill. Per usual I was pretty slow, taking breaks as I needed but only getting off the bike to push when it got to 15-16% grade! Fortunately the terrain of the road itself wasn’t bad. It was small chunky embedded rocks which I decided gave me extra grip for climbing.

It was a sweet relief to see the trailhead sign at the top.  The hard part was done. Hooray! Now, I hope this hike is worth it! (A lady at the diner yesterday did tell me it was worth it – granted I doubt she biked up that hill).

As I approached the trail sign I realized bikes were allowed on the trail! Sweet maybe I’ll be faster than anticipated. I was able to ride a fair bit of the trail. But I did have to carry my bike across a small branch filled creek and around miscellaneous large rocks. There was also a lot of pushing up (and down) steep sections. Would it have been faster to just hike? I don’t know but it was nice to have all my stuff with me.

A little past a mile into the hike I decided the terrain was such that I didn’t want to take the bike any further so I grabbed some essentials and left Pablo (my bike) on the side of the trail.  Not even two minutes later I was like, “damn I could have ridden this part” but my mind had been made up and I continued without Pablo. (I will say if anyone else follows in my footsteps I would leave the bike at the trail head or if taking it like I did, I probably wouldn’t take it further than the “viewpoint” which was a little past where I left mine).

I continued on foot eager to see what was ahead. The first viewpoint was nice to finally see the thing I had made a special trip for but I was eager to get closer to the pillar. As I finally approached it I was filled with so much joy. I don’t know how much of my emotion was because it’s been a long time coming since I first learned about the pillar, and how much was because it’s just that freaking cool. But that lady at the diner was right, so worth it. I’m so happy I went and finally got to witness its majesty. The scene from that pizza SpongeBob episode comes to mind: “it’s not just a boulder, it’s a ROCK!” and a freaking cool one at that.

The return hike was an emotional whirlwind of worry. You see I hadn’t actually taken note of where I had left the bike. Lots of intrusive thoughts were flying into my brain: “didn’t I leave my bike here”, “fuck is it gone? Did it fall down the cliff?!”, “I’m pretty sure I rode my bike on this bit- I remember those two trees”, “surely I left it at the bottom of this hill”. But then I’d comfort myself: “No I wouldn’t have pushed it here, it must still be further” “oh this is the part I remember right AFTER parking my bike”. Upon finally seeing my bike in the distance right where I had left it I was so relieved I exclaimed “bike” out loud.

Riding the last mile of the trail back was pretty quick, although I still walked a fair amount because I wanted to be extra extra cautious since I was alone.  (*I did leave my Garmin going on “bike” mode for the entire hike so mileage includes the hike and hike a bike). I didn’t see anyone else for the entirety of my side quest.

Back at the trailhead I stuck some ramen in an empty Gatorade bottle to cold soak and started making my way back down the hill to the main trail. Austin has been really into learning cold soaking recipes, and the ramen worked surprisingly well so I wanted to give it a try. Granted a sealable bowl would work much better than a Gatorade bottle with a tiny opening but it’s what I had.

Close to the bottom of the hill I actually came across Austin climbing up. I was still within my allotted time but I guess he got bored and a little worried with his own intrusive thoughts.

Back on the main road (Mill Creek Road) there are several nice view points of the pillar. I don’t know what the official Outback route looks like but our chosen route was pretty cool (even if you opt not to climb the hill or do the hike like Austin). But, it was really neat looking up at the pillar and thinking “I was right there!”.

Back at wildcat campground we enjoyed a lovely lunch before tackling another hill. I’m glad I didn’t look too closely at the route or I may have chickened out of the hike!

Austin is much faster at climbing than me so by the time I huffed my way to the top of the hill he was resting under a tree with his jacket on. After a short rest myself we got to enjoy a sweet gravel decent. It at least made the hill feel worth it with that instant gratification. 

We did eventually hit pavement. And to my horror, another hill! How did I miss this? This hill was 6.5 miles long! Ugh.  We decided to regroup at the top so Austin wouldn’t have to go at my snails pace but damn I thought the gravel hill was the only one left for the day. I believe we only have two more long climbs like that left on the entire route, but I had also thought that before we got to this paved one.

Slow going means you notice a lot more of the surroundings (unfortunately like all those discarded beer cans). Since moving to Portland I have gotten a lot more into plant identification. It’s been really nice that even though the terrain is vastly different from the Portland area I’ve still recognized several plants like the lupine, balsam root, strawberry, and today for the first time I realized there were even Douglas Firs mixed in with the Ponderosas! It gives a certain comfort to have all the familiar plants mixed in with the unfamiliar.

At the top of the climb we had about 5 miles to go to camp. And it was down another beautiful descent that got us in a good mood. The campground is a dispersed site with no sign, but a large flat area with a small creek nearby and a cool standing table someone had built. I’d say it’s a winning spot. No hot showers or bathrooms, but we can’t have everything.

For dinner I decided to heat up some Tasty Bites. Andrew had pre scooped instant rice into a ziplock that he had given me when he left. I realized I had no idea what the water to rice ratio is supposed to be or how long it cooks so I kind of eyeballed it and guessed. What I did sort of worked but my meal could have been warmer. At least it was still tasty, but maybe that’s just because I was so hungry from all those hill climbs. I’ll have to pay attention next time Andrew cooks it.

By the Numbers:

Ice Creams consumed: 0 (3 total)
Reptiles spotted: 0 (29 total)
Discarded Beer Cans: 14 – I notice more while climbing hills, the worst offender is probably PBR (67)
Other Bike Tourers: 1 – one went past the campground we were staying at in the opposite direction as us, although I’m not sure where they could have been going at that hour (7 total)
Bike Mechanical: 1 – another chain drop for Austin (at least that I witnessed) (8 total)