Down, Across, Up and Back Again

NE Oregon is beautiful country, much of it relatively isolated but still accessible.  Here's a recent trip I took to photograph a branding on a ranch near the Washington border.  First, I drove 80+ miles on highway to start the most "interesting" segment of my trip.  Once I turned off the highway, I soon began descending from an elevation of 4350 feet to 2726 feet in an 8-mile trip on a narrow dirt and gravel road.  Then I drove up the other side through trees to beautiful open "bench" country.

Typical view of the landscape (farm ground below the foreground trees)

When I photographed this, I didn't realize that I would soon be driving that road on the other side of the canyon

The road down

View of the ranches and homes across the canyon

Another "hold-your-breath" view photographed through the windshield

The river is in sight, wending its way northeast toward Washington/Idaho

Yes, that's a ranch...part of the large one I was visiting

Crossing the Grande Ronde River in the bottom of the canyon

Starting up the "other side"

I photographed this from my pickup, although I didn't really want to look!

On top of the "other side"

The way back...the terrain requires lots of curves in a road

Looking back at where I had been