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Oregon East-West

Possible alternate name: Snake-to-Breakers? Snake to Coast?

There are obvious ways cross Oregon from North to South: PCT by foot, OTT and Oregon Outback routes by bike.

Crossing East/West, though, is harder. The ODT is circuitous, but crosses most of the desert part of the state, and extending to the Idaho boarder is pretty obvious (though includes lots of roadwalking I think). And it’s not hard to get from from the eastern terminus of the ODT through Bend and up to the Cascades. But once you come down the west side of the cascades … getting across the Williamette Valley has no great options. It’s a lot of rural roads with fast traffic and no shoulders.

But … add in a packraft and things become interesting.

Here’s a sketch of a route. It flows Idaho to Coast for reasons that will become apparent (water flow):

  1. Start: arbitrarily let’s start at the where the Owyhee flows into the Snake, west of Parma.
  2. Make your way to the Owyhee reservoir. Unfortunately this is upstream, so no boating yet.
  3. Pick up the ODT at its Eastern terminus – or paddle the length of the reservoir and pick up the ODT near WP162, at the south end of the reservoir.
  4. Follow the ODT almost all the way to Bend
  5. Around WP20, near Horse Ridge, deviate and make your way into Bend. There’s an official ODT alternate along Spencer Wells Road (paved), and it also looks like the Horse-to-Horse trail takes you most of the way into Bend.
  6. There are various fine ways to walk through Bend. A fun but unnecessary way might be to aim for Sunriver and then boat (or walk) down the Descuettes into Bend
  7. Make your way from Bend up to the PCT. Many options here, all are great. Roughly, there are two main routes:
    1. South: skirt south of Broken Top and the Sisters by Devil’s Lake and hit the PCT near Le Conte Crater
    2. North: come north of Broken Top over to the Green Lakes trail and hit the PCT at Scott Pass
  8. Hike and then float to Corvallis. There are two options I can see:
    1. McKenzie & Williamette: easier water, less roadwalking
      1. Head down the Obsidian or Scott trail West off the PCT, make your way through trails and forrest roads to the McKenzie River.
      2. The McKenzie is Class II/III from Ollalie Campground to McKenzie Bridge, and II (III) (and then just II) below Finn Rock. Unclear if you can float through McKenzie Bridge and connect these two segments or if you’d need to roadwalk the highway (unplesant)
      3. Float the McKenzie into Eugene, and the Williamette (I) all the way into Corvallis (neat!). THere might be some mandatory portages through the Springfield/Eugene areas.
    2. S. Santiam: spicy water up high, more road walking
      1. Follow the PCT north to Big Lake
      2. Take the Santiam Wagon Road west off the crest. The first place to put in the S. Santiam is at House Rock Campground.
      3. S. Santiam is Class V to Mountain House, then III-V to Foster Reservoir. No clue if this is doable for normal humans in packrafts. Sounds like the lower section might be, perhaps with mandatory portages?
      4. Below Foster Reservoir, the river is Class II
      5. Take out in Lebanon, and roadwalk into Corvallis (20 miles). There are smaller roads so you can stay off 34, but it’s unlikely to be pleasant.
  9. Take the Corvallis-to-Coast trail out of Corvallis to the sea!
    1. Alternatively, at Palmer Mt, follow NF 31 to Mill Creek Road, and put in to Drift Creek (II-III). Follow Drift Creek to the Alsea River and then to the sea. This is nice because you end in Waldport instead of a random beach.
    2. You could also walk from Ona Beach (end of C2C) along the coast to Newport to get back to civilization

More options: