North Fork John Day Wilderness (Granite Creek trailhead)
This is about a 6-hour drive (5 to Baker City, and one more to the trailhead). It's a beautiful area with meadows, Ponderosa pines, roaring rivers (especially this spring) and lots of old gold mines. No snow whatsoever! We hiked in about 3.5 miles. This hike is in Sullivan's Eastern Oregon book, but his description doesn't show any camping sites. We found a beautiful site at the confluence of Granite Creek and the John Day River, near a collapsed mining cabin (complete with serviceable outhouse). We were in the area for two nights and saw two other people, at a distance. The only drawback is ticks (the Rocky Mountain variety, not the kind that carry Lyme disease, but still unpleasant). We all got tick bites. Other than that, and a few short cliffy areas where we had to carry our daughter, it's a beautiful easy hike for kids. I saw a blonde bear about 100 feet away, which was a nice highlight. (We combined this with a Forest Service rental at the nearby Fremont Powerhouse complex, which made for a nice place to recover between backpacking trips.).
Here's the camp:
This one is about 45 minutes outside of Pendleton; so a 4.75-hour drive. (It's also in the Sullivan book). The trail follows the left bank of the N. Fk. Umatilla River. There are several campsites; we picked one about 4.3 miles in. As of late June, the trail had not been maintained, so there were a lot of downed trees to climb over. The trail was somewhat overgrown (the vegetation is LUSH). I recommend wearing long pants! All in all, this trail felt a little claustrophobic, because you're at the bottom of a canyon. On our second day there we hiked up into the grassy hills above the canyon, where the view opened up to vistas of big sky, pine forests and wildflowers. There were no ticks on this hike, and no mosquitoes! We didn't see any wildlife other than a snake and a lizard, but there were plenty of Swainson's thrushes to serenade us.
Jennifer
