South Steens Horse Camp, Oregon

As winter comes much earlier than normal to my part of the country this year, forcing me to curb my riding and hiking in the high country much too soon, I am reflecting back on what I was doing at this time last year.
In the first week of Oct. 2012 a friend and I went to South Steens Horse Camp.
We left from Bend and though it didn't seem like too long of a drive in theory, with a stop at the BLM wild horse facility on the way, once we passed Frenchglen and hit the South Steens Mountain Loop Rd. it slowed us WAY down. 18 miles on washboard is a bit of a nightmare! Hence, we got there quite late, but wanted to get in a short ride anyway. There is a 5 mile trail to the old Riddle Ranch so we did that as soon as we arrived.

There is another cabin on site that the caretakers live in, and then the original Riddle Brothers Ranch house which is open to the public so you can go inside and check it out, which we did.
A trail continues past the ranch along the Little Blitzen River and we followed it for awhile but then realized we had better hightail it back to camp as it was getting dark rapidly.

The Riddle Brothers Ranch

The Riddle Brothers Ranch.

South Steens is a BLM campground, with 15 sites, but only some spots have corrals. There are two bathrooms, potable water, and it is $6.00 a night. This campground is separated, one side for horses and then the people is campground right next door.When we arrived I realized that there was just one fairly large corral in our site so luckily my friend was able to find a rope that was just the right length to divide it in half. Otherwise it would not have worked out well for us to stay together with her 17hh horse who eats a bale a day,(ok slight exaggeration, but close) and my little 14hh horse who eats a flake a day. The camp was very dusty and COLD at night, way below freezing. But choosing that time of the year was a way to avoid the apparently non stop mosquitos that normally reside there.
It was hunting season, so it was us, the only horse campers, and a whole bunch of hunters.

After donning as much orange as was possible, (not my color), we rode Big Indian Gorge the following day. This is a beautiful ride, with quite a few streams to cross, aspens, cottonwoods and so many other different types of foliage in these gorges.

Big Indian Gorge

This is about a 16 mile ride, the trail fades away as you get to the end of the gorge but you can keep climbing up a bit higher.

At the end of the gorge, resting time.

The trail heads through the aspen grove.

Wendy and Ritz.

Riding back through Big Indian Gorge.

Little Blitzen Gorge was the adventure for our third day.

Little Blitzen Gorge

This ride has similar scenery to Big Indian, 17 miles round trip if you go to the very end. We decided to not do the whole thing this time, since my friend thought it was a little deja vu. It's a little rough in some sections, very rocky, with big boulders. We also ran into some hunters along this stretch but considering how many were in camp, those were the only guys we saw while riding.

Where we stopped for lunch

Little Blitzen Gorge.

These are the only three trails from camp, we would have liked to have continued driving across the mountains on the loop road and maybe finding another spot to ride on the way back, but we were low on gas.....certainly a good idea to fill up in Burns, even if you are not empty yet. So we drove back the same way. Frenchglen does have a small store with a pump selling some extra expensive gas/diesel, so we were in luck.

We had our binoculars and on the drive both ways we spotted some of the wild horses, although they were quite far away. On a sad note, we saw a lone horse pretty close to the road, I looked through the binoculars and saw he was skin and bones, no longer part of a herd ...just waiting to die.

We tried to find a stretch of the Oregon Desert Trail that was supposed to be near Frenchglen, but we did not find the trail, and in fact we were told it wasn't actually there anymore, so we rode on some BLM land our last day just for a few hours before the long drive back home.
A good end to the camping year.


GPS COORDINATES TO SOUTH STEENS