What can be better than taking a trip through the woods with your man and your dog. Snow in the mountains of NE Oregon stops a lot of road trips throughout the year, but come late spring the flowers are in bloom and most of the snow in the middle elevations has finally melted away enough that the roads are fairly safe to travel.
It had been a couple of years since we had made the trek up to Point Prominence so we decided it was a great day to grab some sandwiches from the local Subway, load our dog, Boone, into the back of the truck and take off on a Sunday afternoon adventure.
The road we traveled on had much to be desired as we made our way higher and higher into the mountains. Ruts from the spring run-off were, at times, a couple of feet deep and just as wide, but my man managed to traverse them easily, even though they lasted for several hundred yards.
Along the way he was lucky enough to see a large brown bear as it ran across the road in front of us. By the time I turned to look it had disappeared into the brush.
Along the road to the Point Prominence Lookout there are several places to drive right up to the edge of the canyon with beautiful views of the Wallowa Mountains and the Eagle Cap Wilderness. The Minam River is somewhere hundreds and hundreds of feet below us.
We pull out our lawn chairs and take in the beauty that stretches for miles before us. We gobble up our lunch and are glad for the lack of mosquitoes and flies, the cool night air I’m sure has kept them at a lower elevation.
We decided to head to Point Prominence Lookout. Sure that the views there are 360 degrees. We turn off of our main road and head up a spur road which should be just a few miles long. The road is created by rocks that are bigger than baseballs. We soon regret our decision to go to the lookout, however we are on the road already, so we continue on as we are thrown this way and that time and again. I do not recommend this road to anyone with a back ache or anyone that does not want to get a back ache. Geesh it was awful.
We make a turn and see that up ahead a tree has fallen across the road, and even if were able to get past the tree, a sturdy green gate blocks the road completely. There will be no going to Point Prominence Lookout for us today. Yes, we could have gotten out and walked the last mile or two, but it was getting late, so we decided to turn around and head toward home.
We stopped a couple of more times on the way down just to see the view again before heading back home.
