We're heading to a family reunion, followed by a week at Crater Lake. After that... we gotta get a trip planned and hit this place again. A Jeep jamboree and camp-out would be great.
I'll have to get with Mike and post some of his photos. Most of the time I was keeping the steering wheel from twisting out of my hand. It's an art to ride above 3 feet deep washout ruts without falling in.
Because of the topography, I mentioned before that going north/south is pretty much ridge-top to V-notch to ridge-top. Most canyons have a lot or greenery and a few have streams to ford. We never knew what to expect next, as every corner was a surprise.
There was one big canyon with a huge tree lined meadow. We headed east away from it to go back towards the river, so we never went down there. (Looked down on it from above) On Google Earth, it's obviously a creek, and the road goes past it and around another ridge to the west. There are other places that need checked out too.
Another place was almost too tight to get thru, with a small forest of willows and Russian olive trees scraping the rig. That was at the head of the green stripe in what looks like otherwise dry desert. (One of the posted photos) The road Y'ed there. We went right at first, and took the photos looking down on the visitor center, (After miles of climbing) then back to the Y and went left. That road clings to the side of a cliff, then runs across a bench land, then plunged into a twisting slot of a canyon, and eventually popped out at river level.
One thing's for sure, it isn't all dried up featureless desert like you'd expect. Where we headed back west and out, we were only about 1/3 of the way north into the entire wilderness zone. On Tuesday, we came out on a road that we thought might somehow connect with roads leading to Wenachee, but looking later on Google Earth, we'd have run out of fuel attempting that, since going right would've taken us into another 100 square miles o' nuthin'
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