Winter Camping on the Deschutes

Had a great weekend with some buddies camping over on the other side of the Cascades. We got out of town right after work on Friday and beat most of the bad Portland weather. At the top of 197 there was some gnarly snow and I was a bit concerned that we’d get stuck, but it let up surprisingly soon, and we saw no more precipitation for over 24 hours.

We found a nice campground on the Deschutes about Shearer’s Falls near Maupin, and pitched our tents. It was freakin cold, so we kept the beer in coolers to help prevent them from freezing overnight. Good thing we were well-armed with a substantial amount of whiskey.

We hiked (a little), fished, and had a generally good’ole time battling the elements and being ridiculous. We had a ton of wood, and kept a fire raging.

It started hailing around 10pm on the second night, followed shortly by snow, but it never got too deep. On the other hand, it got really cold that night.