Thom & Cari's Adventure Blog

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THX for the kudos Bob. And i'll pass it on to Cari...she comes up with some great ideas! (like the back of our TACO with sleep platform).

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This is a trip report for Cari's and my 2013-06 Quartzville/Quartzcreek Oregon adventure...

We departed after working early shifts on Sunday June 23rd...on the road heading south on highway 101 at 12:30pm. We would take the HWY 26 junction in Seaside east to Portland, then south on HWY 5 to HWY 20 near Albany Oregon. We planed on meeting our daughter in the Lebanon Walmart parking lot at 5pm for dinner at a nearby restaurant. We arrived in the parking lot just after 4pm which was record time for us...Rochelle arrived at about 5:30pm driving from Sacramento California.

After dinner we drove the additional 45 minutes north east out of Sweet Home past Foster Lake, Green Peter Lake, and finally driving along the Quartzville National Back Country Byway.

This part of the river is a first-come-first-served 14 day max-stay off-grid camping area set aside by the BLM for public use. The river is open for seasonal fishing and year round prospecting. I'm not sure of the fishing regs as neither of us fish...we spend our time relaxing, prospecting, and rc-rock crawling.

Here we are from the road at ring #34...our "Bed & Breakfast" set up:



I have a detailed rig-report at _this post_ over at my Parkliner build thread here at FGRV forums.

Here is a shot of the camp looking up from river:



And another looking at the view from camp:



As mentioned in the rig-report we spent most of Monday through Wednesday under cover of tarp/awning/rigs due to steady but pleasant rainfall. Once out and about on Thursday we headed down to river and also hiked some nearby trails as seen in the images below:

The river at ring #34...where Cari spent most of her time looking for all-that-glitters ; )



and downriver:



My daughter and i hiked up a forestry trail and saw some pretty sights:

a small waterfall


a precariously perched tree!


And a spot on the river i visit every trip to the area...just south of a camp spot called "Miner's Medow"...


The camping part of the trip ended on a clear Friday morning. We headed down river and met at a restaurant for lunch. At about noon we said our goodbyes, our daughter heading south on i5 to Sacramento California ~9 hours away, and us north on i5 about ~4 hours back to the Oregon Coast.

Our next adventure is another 5 day trip in July...this time to the Mt. Rainier area in Washington state : )

Thank you for visiting our blog(s) and we hope you have a happy and safe camping season!

Thom ( & Cari )

[Brian M. in NY]

Thom,
Looks like a great trip. The scenery is gorgeous. How far apart are the campsites? Are they pretty much distributed along the entire 11 miles stretch of the BLM area or clustered together? Glad you had a fun and relaxing time.

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Originally Posted by Brian M. in NY

Thom,
...How far apart are the campsites?..

Hi Brian, yes the area is "Gorgeous"!

The ring placement varies. Most are individual sites about 1/8 mile or so apart. Some, like rings 34 & 33 are about 30 yards apart on a straight stretch of road (rare). There are also a handful of areas that have ~3 to ~6 or so rings in little loop areas, and also a main camp area as i mentioned called "Miner's Medow" that also has a large field for groups (i think this area can even be reserved).

Also in the same area is a BLM campground that is one of the most well manicured & natural-landscaped camps i've come across...
Yellowbottom Campground. For those who might enjoy being in a pretty park setting rather than pulling off the road and setting up camp on the river the $12 a nite is worth it! It is a dry camp and only has a nice-pit toilet and potable water next to the park's little cabin-greeting-reading room. They also sell fire wood.

funny...i did a google search for YB camp photos...an old post/picture i took of our TACO and A-Liner in the campground came up in the listing! Below is our 2007 Tacoma TRD 4x4 and 2009 A-Liner:



and a picture of the river that i have just sat, and sat for nearly entire afternoons looking at!

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Just a quick teaser post with a couple of pics i took during our recent trip to Mt.Rainier National Park in Washington State. We spent five nights at the North Fork Campground off grid and loved the solitude as usual (we were the only ones in the campground except for the park host Sunday through Wednesday nite, and had two pull in late Thursday afternoon at the other end of camp).

Here is one on the Mt.Rainier Highway:


And another in camp:


More to come this week...
Cheers,
Thom

[Gilda]

We stopped in Mt. Rainier Park on our way back from Vancouver Island and vowed to go back for an extended stay soon. The distant mountain views are magnificent from modest hiking trails and the campground felt like "real camping".

[Donna D.]

I love camping pics... I live vicariously through others and that's okay! We missed you at the Oregon Gathering thou...

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i'm being a really...really bad boy.

I never realized how difficult it would be to keep up a blog...when i'm having so much fun taking the pictures and going on the adventures to _fill_ the blog. One thing is certain...winters in the Pacific Northwest present plenty of opportunities to catch up on unfinished business like travel blog posting ; )

Here are a couple shots of our recent trip back to Quartzville Creek near Sweet Home Oregon during August of 2013. I have about 400 or so photos to sort through!

Our camp set up from behind the PL:


Out the PL window down to river:


From river up to camp:


and for something really cool... a link to one 360 degree panorama shot from camp. This is one really beautiful place to camp!

Link to 360 panorama of ring #10 at Quartzville Creek you can scroll left/right to view the entire image if you click to make it full size.

Happy Trails!
Thom

[David B.]

It really is a beautiful camp site. It was great meeting you two and getting to view your Parkliner. Thanks again
Dave & Paula

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You are most welcome Dave! & it was great meeting you and Paula.

[Ken C]

Thought you may like this accrete
Woodworker mods Ford Transit into camper van - YouTube

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Hi Ken, thx for that video link, He did a beautiful job on the interior build quality!

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Here are a few shots of our mini-adventure (4.29. > 5.1.2014) at Sunset Falls Campground. (Link shared is to the website you can make online reservations at if you choose). This is an area we visit several times a year as Cari likes to record the water level to plan her gold hunts.

I've included a shot of camp #9 (there were only two other camps occupied, typical during mid week even in summer) and an adjoining site to give you an idea of what to expect.

There are also shots of the River and falls. There were a handful of kayakers getting nerves ready to shoot the falls as I shot the image.

P.S. This is my first post with images from the iPad so it is not quite as organized as prior posts where I've utilized linking images from my domain...bit this will do

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Sunset Falls Campground - Battleground WA - 4.30.2014

Camp #9

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Sunset Falls Campground - Battleground WA - 4.30.2014

Camp 8... Just as an example of what to expect...

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Sunset Falls Campground - Battleground WA - 4.30.2014

A shot of the Lewis River as it flows through the camp...

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Sunset Falls Campground - Battleground WA - 4.30.2014

And one last shot of the actual falls...

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Sunset Falls Campground - Battleground WA - 4.30.2014

Something to keep in mind if you visit...this is a primitive camp. While it does have vault toilets, there is no water available. Battleground is about 35 minutes drive on a slow speed limit road in need of repaving. We usually camp there from Monday afternoon to Friday noon and often, as mentioned, have the park basically to ourselves.

Fee is $12 per night and $5 extra if you have a second car.

Happy trails.
Thom

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5-13-2014 Nehalem Bay State Park visit

We had a fun little mini adventure at Nehalem Bay State Park. We drove the ~45 minutes down the coast on our mid-week "weekend". We were practically the only ones there as you can see in our photos.

Here is a close up of camp with the awning set up on the parkliner (i have a write up on this particular canopy at _this post_)


The first shot in attachments shows the camp from both directions...not a camper in sight! Beautiful cloudless skys, ocean just over the dune behind camp and mid 70 degree weather all three days we were there.

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One of the things we like to do in the areas we visit is research and (hopefully) find areas we can take the AWD Van off pavement. The Oregon Coast is full of places to explore off road. Most roads are also utilized by logging companies but with a bit of pre planning your trip can include some enjoyable driving. Things to bring along are a CB radio as most entrances to these roads will have info posted on a tree as to what channel the truckers are utilizing and suggesting any motorist to monitor. We've learned that calling out our vehicle's description over the radio at the posted mile markers is proper travel-Etiquette.

OK, so if you want to have some fun exploring off pavement...
Travel from the campground south on 101 about 5 miles to HWY 53 and go inland and put into your GPS "Cook Creek Road". You will travel about 2 miles on HWY 53 and then take a couple roads (~1 to 2 miles on each road Miami Rd and Foss Rd) and come to Cook Creek Road. You should see a placard that has a map of the road you are on stating there are (free) dispersed camp sites. There are 17 of these sites located on Cook Creek Road and most of them are located next to the river. We visited each site and most were doable with TV + small trailers.

If planning a trip to the area with some dispersed camping in mind you might want to take a day trip to scout out which site you would like and make sure the road is all clear. It's a narrow road and not many places to make a U turn with trailer until you get to the camp sites (again most you can make U turns or are pull through).

The attachment shows an image of the map from road entrance.

The second picture is a shot of the van having fun off pavement on CCR.

Enjoy the area, and be safe always remembering these roads are work-home to BIG RIGS...we had to scoot the van to the very extreme edge of the roadway to let a loaded gravel truck get by. But the driver was polite and slowed down and scooted over also

Happy Trails,
Thom