#2: [02-Sep-12]

01-Jan-2000 -- My first project of the new millennium was to photograph the confluence of 44N and 121W.

January in Central Oregon is usually cold and snowy, but today was an exception with temps in the low 30s and the ground free of snow. After checking out the topo maps, I left my house at 8:00 am for the 20-minute drive to the point where I would be leaving the paved road. The topo maps of this area are not great, and because the area is in a wilderness study area I wasn’t sure how close to the destination I could get in my trusty Toyota pickup.

Driving the jeep trails in my 2-wheel drive truck went smoothly for the most part. An occasional rock outcropping called for careful maneuvering to avoid bottoming out. Bypassing a couple of trails that appeared to head the right direction was necessary because of closure inside the wilderness study area. Eventually I was able to drive to within a mile of my destination.

Parking the truck under an old juniper tree, I grabbed my daypack and was off. Walking in this area is easy enough, the terrain being loose volcanic soil, sagebrush, juniper trees, and basaltic lava rock. Along the way I frightened up a coyote and a couple of rabbits. This area is very quiet and secluded.

I often fly over this area in my ultralight aircraft (powered parachute) and regularly observe elk, deer, pronghorn, coyote, and many species of bird. Chances of seeing the large mammals while walking on the ground are quite low. I think about how far I would have to walk if I ever had to make an emergency landing in this area.

The GPS indicates I have arrived at 44N 121W so I remove my daypack and pull out the camera. The camera is a Olympus 450 Zoom (digital) that I bought recently when my trusty 35mm Canon started having problems. A quick photo of the GPS, a photo of me, then a series of hand held shots for a panorama. Not much more to look at here so I start back.

At home I download the route from the GPS and overlay it onto a scanned map using OziExplorer. I’ve been using OziExplorer for several months now to keep track of my flight paths and as a kind of logbook. Amazing and useful program.

I guess that’s about it. When the weather improves this coming spring, I’ll get some aerial shots of this location and upload them to this site.