The Fremont Winema Trail in SE Oregon is over 150 miles long and has quite a few horse camps along the way. I have camped and /or ridden at a few of them, but I had not checked out Moss Meadow, over by Paisley, until now. It is a lovely camp, that gets very little use, and I ended up having thousands of acres of national forest all to myself. In the four days I was there I actually thought it was a possibility that I would not see any other humans at all, but the spell was eventually broken, when I saw a lone vehicle drive by on the road.
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| On the Fremont Winema Trail. |
Moss Meadow has four spots, three of which are for medium sized rigs, and one that can fit a much larger rig. The spots are all back- in, nicely graveled and have steel corrals. There is a bathroom, (might need to bring your own TP) a loading ramp, and there is stock water just up the trail in a trough, however it is pretty stagnant, a spring is supposed to keep it flowing, but is no longer doing so. Moss Creek is nearby and although it did have a small trickle upstream, it was dried up closer to camp. There is no garbage or manure bin, and no fee, this camp is free! There is a cell tower on a nearby hill, and I had great service the entire time.
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| Spots are not numbered at Moss Meadow. |
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| Moss Meadow Horse Camp. |
My first ride was on the Fremont Winema Trail, heading north. There is a mile or so to ride on an old marked logging road, which leaves camp and leads to the main trail, or you can ride up Rd. 5310 to Moss Pass. I knew some trail clearing and camp maintenance had been done last summer, and sure enough the few trees that needed to be cleared were taken care of. After that I was riding along a ridge with great views. This is a pretty unpopulated part of Oregon, and it is vast. The trail starts on the west side of the ridge but eventually goes over Round Pass, so you get views over to the east side as well.
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| At the junction with the Fremont Winema Trail. |
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| Allium, I think? |
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| On the Fremont Winema Trail, riding north. |
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| Endless views on the Fremont Winema Trail. |
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| On the Fremont Winema Trail. |
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| Zoomed in, from the ridge, way down onto the Chewaucan River. |
This trail is geared towards horseback riders, besides the fact that there are signs at all junctions, there are stock water sources along the way, all of which actually had water, and "scenic vista" signs pointing towards even more great views. Occasional posts are missing signs, but I learned quickly just to look around for whatever it used to indicate, and I would find a side trail going to a pond, or water trough.
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| Found this water source just after going over Round Pass. |
Eventually after riding for several hours I got to the burned part of the forest, a fire had gone through there last summer. Sometimes it is hard to for me not to keep on riding and riding, to see what is around the next bend, but once I hit the burn, this gave me an excuse to turn back.
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| On the east side of Round Pass. |
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| Funky cloud and shadow. |
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| Looking out towards Lakeview. |
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| Turned around once I got to the recent burn. |
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| A seasonal stock water pond. |
I rode for seven hours that day, then the following day I did another seven hours, heading to the south this time. The trail actually drops downhill gradually, so by the time I turned back, I was on the valley floor. This is grazing land and I saw cows here and there, usually near creeks or meadows.
At one point there is a brief section of trail that goes through a privately owned piece of land that the owners have allowed access to, as part of the packstock route.
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| We dropped down off this ridge. |
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| On the Fremont Winema Trail, heading south. |
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| A meadow with cows grazing. |
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| The trail enters private land briefly. |
Originally I was going to head over to another nearby camp on this same trip, but I was loving my time at Moss Meadow, and so I decided to save the other camp for another time and continue exploring.
My last ride was along forest service road 5310, which the camp is on, over Moss Pass, and then downhill all the way to the Chewaucan River. The forest service website is extremely outdated (it says there are no corrals at the camp) and also that riding to the river was "about 5 miles". Just looking at it from the ridge, I could see it was more than five miles! It turned out to be just over 7.5 miles one way, although on the way back I took a shortcut along 113, a very faint old dirt road, which was a nice way to make a loop.
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| On Rd. 5310, almost to the river. |
When I got to the river I noticed some horses grazing nearby, a QH stallion with four mares and three foals. It took them awhile to notice me, but once they did, they were very surprised. Part of the property along the river is privately owned, although there are no visible buildings, so these horses belong to someone, but they acted wild. The stud couldn't seem to believe his eyes, they must not get a lot of visitors, and he spent a lot of time snorting at us. I took my horse down to the water for a drink, and I could still hear him snorting away, even though he couldn't see us anymore.
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| On the bridge over the Chewaucan River. |
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| The mares and foals. |
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| The stud, giving us the eye. |
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| Hanging out at the Chewaucan River. |
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| Views back to the ridge I had already ridden on. |
On the way back I followed another dirt road alongside Ben Young Creek, and it took me to an old homestead. At first I just saw a dilapidated barn, but then tucked back in the trees was a newer cabin structure. It may be newer, but very rustic, and I realized nobody was living in it. After that I cut cross country to road 113 and looped back to camp. This is fairly open land, so it is easy to bush whack and make your own way around.
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| The old dilapidated barn. |
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| A very rustic cabin. |
I thought about staying one more night, but I was close enough to home to do the drive back that evening, after my ride. For anyone else who likes solitude and lots of mileage, this might be a camp to check out, I really enjoyed my time there!
