Holly's Horse Tales and Trails: Riding in the Malheur National Forest, Oregon

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Riding in the Malheur National Forest, Oregon

I have some friends that live outside of Burns OR, very near the Malheur National Forest.
We had planned to meet up and then drive to a dispersed camping spot they had picked out, but due to a lot of rain in the forecast, which would make driving on some of the dirt roads impossible (they had gotten their truck badly stuck the week before) we had to go with Plan B which was for me to camp out at their house and we would do day trips to ride. Our destinations were all off of Rattlesnake Rd. which heads north from Hwy 20 east of Burns, and we parked at different spots each day.
Update: In 2018 I finally checked out the only horse camp in this area, Joaquin Miller

Barb riding Annie.

On our first day we did indeed get rained on for awhile. I had to dig out my duster that hadn't seen any use in many years. We just did a short three hours, and mostly stayed on dirt roads and some cross country. The ground was quite soft and mucky causing the horses to work twice as hard.

Following a cow trail in the Malheurs.

Brian riding Hal and ponying Goldie.

On day two the skies were looking very black in all directions and before we left a massive rain storm hit, coming down like crazy and turning dry dirt into lakes. We almost decided not to ride but once we got into the mountains the sun was out and the day remained nice.

Brian on Solomon, Barb on Sheeba.

There is one designated trail in the general area where we rode called the Craft Cabin Trail but we did not do it. We thought it probably would not have been cleared yet, but I learned upon returning home that it had been. My friends know the area well and like to make their own loops and ride cross country a lot so we just did that the whole time. There was a lot of mud on the second day as well, and a couple places we had to dismount to get through it safely.

Staying on their property had the benefit of me getting to hang out with their numerous animals. And Barb insisting on feeding me dinner most nights so I was pretty spoiled.

Baby!!

Katie Sue.

Day three started off windy and chilly, they took me on a ride where there was apparently a viewpoint, but we saw nothing due to heavy fog. It cleared up and was nice later on and we had a lot of fun, moving out a lot. I rode Rina every day but Barb and Brian switched out horses on different days. That particular day was a combo of three high energy horses being especially competitive, so our ride was a little bouncier than normal!

One of our lunch spots.

Barb on Annie, with assorted dogs,

Brian on Hal aka High Energy Hal.

Day four was probably the prettiest ride and we did a nice 6 hour loop along a creek and then up into the hills.

Me and my pony and assorted dogs. We rode with between 5 and 7 dogs daily.

Rode through this area to get to the hills in the distance.

Heading up into the hills.

We could see the Strawberry Mountains from afar.

I was supposed to drive home that night but we got back too late so I stayed over another night and the next morning Barb took me on a scenic driving tour of some of the local sights. Starting at the Round Barn, which was originally owned by Peter French to train horses in the late 1800's. It has a holding area inside and an enclosed round pen around the outside. We then went another five miles down the road to the Diamond Craters, then to the very small town of Diamond and the Diamond Hotel, and then we took the back road home through some of the land where the Kiger Mustangs roam. There is a Kiger lookout you can drive to from outside Diamond, but it is 11 miles on a 4x4 only road, so we decided to skip that.