A Real Overland Route in Oregon Day 1 of the Bend to Alvord Desert 

Here’s an idea for you instead of guiding each person through their build which could quickly become all consuming time wise. Maybe you could make a series of videos on the basics that for a fee people could download onto their laptops or tablets and that way you only have to do it once. Of course you have to copy right them so some yay hoo doesn’t just upload your videos to RU-vid and waste all your hard work. Or maybe make them available only to your patrons of a certain donation level. You get the idea. I’m just saying that Travis Lucas is on to something that you should consider. Having another revenue stream never hurts lol

I totally agree. Sometimes you cant see the forest through the trees. I prefer the wide open spaces much more.

Makes perfect sense lol. I happen to live in the area known as southern Oregon and/or central Oregon. I’m kind of sandwiched in between the two lol. I roam the same general areas that Jason typically does just a bit south of his “home base” if you will. Casey of coyote works also roams these areas. I spend a lot of time outdoors even though I have a house and whatnot. Sometimes I’m deep in the forest for weeks at a time and other times I’m in the wide open spaces of places like Christmas valley which is almost completely devoid of trees or Silver-lake which has no water at all lol. I’ve come to love and appreciate both terrains for equal yet different reasons. There’s also quite a bit of difference just within the forests depending on the type of trees and availability of water. You’ll find giant Ponderosa pines, perfectly straight lodgepole pines, Douglas fir, Junipers, and several others. I have a favourite ridge that I like to get up top of and look out over a “carpet” made of trees for as far as the eye can see, sometimes for 60-70 miles in one direction nothing but green. Yet here and there you will see a patch of the unmistakable shimmer of Aspens where a natural spring brings water to the surface. I even know of a couple of those spots where beaver have set up home and flooded part of the forest. And for the life of me I have absolutely no idea how beaver have found there way deep into a forest where the nearest running water in the form of a stream or river is 50+ miles away. It’s almost as if they parachuted in and landed right where a spring is bubbling up out of the ground lol. It’s the equivalent of finding a seal in the middle of a desert lol. This entire area is bordered on the west by the cascade range and on the east by the desert known as eastern Oregon and is all volcanic. As the snow melts on the tops of the mountain peaks it filters down through the volcanic rocks and then bubbles up here and there in the form of artesian springs and is some of the purest and best tasting water I’ve ever had. I’d be hard pressed to choose one over the other and luckily I don’t have to lol. Almost all of it is public land of one sort or the other, national forest and BLM or Bureu of Land Management being the bulk of it and its full of just about every kind of wildlife there is. Huge elk, mule deer, antelope, bear, badgers, black tailed deer, bald eagles, falcons, hawks, crow and raven, song birds, duck, geese, pelicans, chipmunks and squirrels, and more and in 40 years I’ve never seen nor heard of not one single snake of any kind. I’ve either lived in or traveled through just about everywhere there is to see on this earth and I choose to live right here. We have just about everything you could want within a 4 hour drive in any direction. Sure Yosemite and Yellowstone have a few things we don’t but that’s mainly due to scale. Yellowstone has big geysers boiling hot pools that are pretty to look at but that’s all you can do, just look lol we have hotsprings that you can actually get into lol. Other than that we have everything they do only no hordes of people swarming all over the place. Some of the best fishing in the world is right here in my backyard. Monster salmon and trout in ice cold lakes and rivers the envy world round.

If you have not already, you should really check out Itchy Boots’ three month solo motorcycling, overlanding tour of South Africa on RU-vid. The gal is truly amazing.

@@0HARE I just watched that earlier today 👍

Try going west off 97 to Miller Lake .

Totally agree. Most folks don’t even wear eye protection

Well said.

I think the worst possible tragedy on a trip like this would be a bad chainsaw accident 100 miles from help. The PPE is a must to mitigate this risk. I assume that he is also equipped with multiple tourniquets and a GPS rescue beacon to call a helicopter in case of emergency.

@@RadicalPersonalFinance Great points!

I’ve been guilty as charged for sawing with flip flops and shorts. Safety first is my motto now.

I saw another video and he said he left Daisy with his GF, as he thought the trip might be too much for her.

On my landcruiser, I have to get out to lock the diffs...I just get lazy

I am with Steve I have to get out and lock the hubs, so there is a level of laziness, but once I do get off my butt I will leave in 4 wheel drives as long as I am on dirt. Jason

As a retired forester, with several decades of experience and several thousands of miles on backroads, I say keep it in 2WD until you need 4WD. That keeps you out of trouble. Once you're in 4WD, if you get into trouble, your options are limited.