Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge and Chewaucan Crossing Campground, Oregon

Well that was a long winter, and then suddenly....it is finally warm enough to camp. This was also my maiden voyage with my "new to me" trailer that I bought last fall. Love it, and everything works!

Chewaucan Crossing.

I decided to head over to Chewaucan Crossing which makes it the sixth camp that I have ridden the Fremont National Recreation Trail from. I have camped at Silver Creek Marsh and ridden to Antler Trailhead, camped at Farmwell, Currier Spring and Moss Meadow. I enjoy the wide open spaces, remoteness and solitude of this area. There might be a few other people in some of the campgrounds, but I've never encountered another human being while on this particular trail, that runs for nearly 150 miles.

But first, on the way there, I stopped at the Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge. This is ODFW land so you need to go online first and get a parking pass/permit which costs $10.00. Once on the refuge there are several areas for parking and four primitive campgrounds. The gravel road is in good shape but there are sections that are narrow, with water on either side, so if you meet someone coming the other way, one of you will have to back up. 

There is an 8.3 mile driving loop for wildlife viewing so a few people might be doing that, but generally it's a pretty quiet place, and you can see someone coming for miles. The camping areas are large, with bathrooms and picnic tables and all of the side roads and dikes are closed to motor vehicles, so you can ride or hike on them in order to explore all of the different areas.

The second of four large camping areas.

I started out riding south right from the campground on Bullgate Dike, which eventually dead ended, so then I followed an offshoot dike, which took me out into more of an alkali area. There was a wooden tower that I was headed straight towards, and when I looked up I spotted an owl observing me from above. Not surprisingly, since Summer Lake is known for bird watching, there were a plethora of different kinds of birds, including a lot of white pelicans and some type of swan. It wasn't just birds that were flying around though. When I first started the ride I passed by some bushes and dislodged a giant swarm of some sort of fly. The flies proceeded to stick with me en masse for nearly the entire first half of the ride. This wasn't as unpleasant as it may sound, they swarmed directly behind and above my head in a huge cloud, like I was Pigpen, but they weren't landing on, or biting me or my horse.

Riding on Bullgate Dike.

Views of Winter Rim.

Quite a few white pelicans.

Looking over to a tower.

Lots of alkali in certain areas.

Found this guy up in the tower.

After I hit another dead end, I turned around, went back to the truck, had some snacks, and then did a second ride, heading towards some old buildings I could see in the distance. This turned out to be remnants of an old ranch and another parking area, but I was on the wrong side of a cable gate, that I couldn't get my horse through or around, so I followed another two track along the Ana River until I got to camping area number one, and I was able to do a loop back to my truck from there.

The fourth camping area has some old ranch buildings.

Nice old barn.

Inside the old barn.

These two had collars on them.

After my ride I drove about an hour over to Chewaucan Crossing Campground/ Trailhead which is about 8 miles outside of Paisley on a paved road. There were a couple of big RV's parked in the spots closest to the water and after looking at the remaining spots I just decided to park slightly outside of the actual camp loop, where I had a grassy area to put up my corral. 

Chewaucan Crossing has easy access on a paved road.

Chewaucan Crossing Campground.

 Chewaucan Crossing is a free camp and has five sites, all are back-in except for one that is pull through. Some of them can accommodate larger rigs, but the RV people stayed the entire time I was there so I was never able to examine the two that they were using. There is one bathroom, and of course stock water from the river, but no other amenities. If you look online the description of this camp says that there are corrals, but that is no longer true. I had no cell service there because this camp is situated in a bit of a ravine. There are a few other official campgrounds along this river and lots of nice dispersed spots as well, but the reason I went to this specific one is because it has a bridge. The Fremont National Recreation Trail runs right through camp and you can cross the bridge and follow it south from there.

The bridge on the Fremont National Recreation Trail.

The first night, although there were no mosquito's, there were a few bugs bothering my thin skinned horse, so I was spraying some repellent on her, when somehow the nozzle got turned around and I sprayed myself directly in the face. In the eyes to be exact, luckily I use a natural repellent for humans instead of fly spray, so it could have been worse, but I had a film of oil covering my eyeballs for the rest of the night. 

The next day I headed across the bridge and followed the trail for several hours until I reached a fence line with a gate, at a high point where the trail then crosses over to the other side of the mountains. This is where I turned around. Along the way there were short sections of burned forest from the recent fires, consequently there were some downed trees to navigate, but this is open country and you can get around them pretty easily. There are nice views back down to the Chewaucan River and it's a mostly easy ride, although with some elevation gain and one slightly cliffy section.

On the Fremont Trail, heading south.

A little watering hole.

 

Views back down to the river.

The Fremont National Recreation Trail is marked.

When I got back, a lady who had just arrived with her husband, took a couple pictures of me as I was crossing the bridge, we chatted for a bit and she took my number so she could send me the photos, but I guess she forgot, because I never heard from her! The night before a couple of kids had come by to say hi to my horse, so on the second evening as I was spending an hour watching her occasionally chewing on her fetlock, ( a sign that a tick is trying to crawl up her leg, at which point I remove it ) a guy with the same group dropped by to see her as well, and although he was a nice enough guy he wanted to tell me all about his knowledge of horses, which was about 95% extremely wrong! 

There was a fun, thunder, lightning and rain storm as I was crawling into bed that night. I'm always extremely grateful to be warm and cozy in my LQ in those kind of situations, after spending many years tent camping and freezing my ass off.

On the last day I started riding at the crack of dawn. I went north on the Fremont Trail for a short while, but saw there were some more downed trees, and so I changed my mind and decided to follow forest service road 3412 instead, which was going in the same general direction. To get to it I rode down the paved road past another campground called Jones Crossing, which looks like a nice spot, its a little roomier for trailers and putting up corrals etc. BUT you would have to ride on the tarmac for a little while to get to the trail from there.

Starting out on the north side of the Fremont Trail.

The Chewaucan River.

As I was riding along I saw something in the middle of the road up ahead. It stared at me for a bit and then ran away and that's when I identified it as a badger. Once I got to where it had been, I thought I would not see it again, but it was curious and was watching me from it's den. So I started taking pictures and the little guy stuck around and posed for quite awhile. He or she seemed pretty fascinated with my horse. They are nocturnal, and fairly elusive, so this was a treat!

The little cute badger.

I ended up following the road until I was in a pretty meadow with a spring and lots of Aspens, but after that I had to call it a day and head back, so I would had time to drive home. I rode six hours on both days at this camp, and could have ridden a couple more days there.

The spring runs into a pond in a meadow.

Views from the FS road.

Heading back down the FS road.

This was a slightly busier camp than the others I have visited in the Fremont Winema National Forest, and the others all had corrals, but there are plenty to pick from, and you will have some really pretty country to explore. It's a great area to hit up in the early season since snow melt happens faster there. I would recommend May or June, before it gets too hot. 

GPS COORDINATES TO CHEWAUCAN CROSSING