Back in February I decided to plan ahead. I had some vacation time on the books that expires as of June 30th (and no idea when I was going to be able to use it between January & early June). Toss those vacation days in with a new federal holiday and I decided to make it a five-day weekend for Juneteenth weekend. Mia, unfortunately, didn’t have the 19th off. She also doesn’t have a ton of vacation time on the books since she started a new job. This was going to be a solo Rhodes Trip.
With the parameters of five days off of work set, my next steps were figuring out where I wanted to go. Mia and I have long talked about hitting up eastern Oregon (Hells Canyon, Eagle Cap Wilderness, Anthony Lakes, Umatilla National Forest, etc) However those are not trips that are worthwhile if we only have Friday after work until Sunday night. These locations are a solid 5+ hours of driving. For sanity’s sake a number greater than two consecutive days off makes these locations doable. Also since I was going solo I wanted to save something like Hells Canyon for when we can both go.
Remember, I am booking these dates in February. June weather in Oregon can be awesomely fabulous or awesomely wet. I wanted to hedge my bets for dry weather, so my searches all focused on eastern Oregon (AKA the dry side). I focused on recreation.gov for campsites and was surprised to find that Mud Lake has electric hookups for RVs. In my experience this is very rare for a federal campground to have electric hookups outside of the big national parks. Needless to say, since Mud Lake was in one of the desired “to go” locations, I jumped on booking a site here and would worry about the details (what to do. Where to hike, bike, etc) later.
Mud Lake Campground – The Details
Mud Lake campground is directly across the street from the Anthony Lakes Resort and sits at an elevation of 7,100′. The resort includes a ski mountain with hiking, biking and water activities all centrally located. There is also the much larger Anthony Lakes Campground, (not open until July 1st, 2023) or the Anthony Lakes Guard Station (for just me? no way).
We’ve already established that Mud Lake has electric hookups and we’ve already stated how iffy the weather in Oregon can be in June. There are only seven sites at Mud Lake and only six of them have electric hookups. Site 1 is first come, first serve and has no hookups.
Clifford the Big Red Van fit perfectly into site 2. After being there in person I can attest to sites 2 and 3 as the best options. Sites 4 and 5 are literally right in front of the pit toilet with your fire ring and picnic table behind the toilet. Site 6 was soupy wet for my visit but could have potential and site 7 looked wonky and not ideal for a van/RV. Sites 6 & 7 also sit the closest to the paved road.
Getting There
One of the largest lessons from Rhodes Trip 2022 was to break up the driving time. I wanted to avoid driving for five plus hours in one shot. I also wanted to leave immediately after work on Wednesday. This meant hitting the road at rush hour. I went with the known Deschutes State Park, about halfway between The Dalles and Biggs Junction. I knew I’d get there between 7:30-8pm after working all day and dealing with the joy of PDX traffic. I also knew I could ride my bike on the river trail on Thursday morning.
After a 30 mile ride on the river trail I loaded up Clifford and marched along to Emigrant Springs Campground up in the Blue Mountains between Pendleton and La Grande. I mostly chose this campground because it seemed interesting and sat right on a portion of the Oregon Trail.
As for the campground itself…..well it sits WAY TO CLOSE to the highway. The sites are nice, the showers and bathroom are clean, but man all you can hear is cars zooming by, especially the big rigs.
It was fine staying here for one night. Inside the van with all the windows closed, and fan closed also, the highway traffic was muted enough for sleeping. I don’t think I would want to stay here for multiple days but as a stopover it is fine.
Mount Emily Recreation Area (MERA)
The other reason I choose Emigrant Springs was that it allowed me quick access to the Mount Emily Recreation Area (MERA) trails just outside of La Grande for Friday morning. 50 miles of mountain biking trails all within 10 minutes of downtown La Grande. Sign me up!
I had downloaded a gps loop that I ended up deviating from at one point. I would love to get back here for more exploration. There is a ridiculous number of trails to ride.
When I got to the Owsley Trailhead parking lot there were maybe 5-6 cars already there. I didn’t end up seeing another soul my entire ride though. I felt like I had the whole place to myself.
On to the main attraction
After a quick grocery store run and a gas station pit stop it was on to Mud Lake. It is only 45 miles from downtown to the campground. I had timed it just right to arrive slightly before official check-in time (not that anyone would have cared if I got there earlier).
A note on the weather: All week I had been keeping tabs on the forecast for Anthony Lakes. True to form, June in Oregon was headed from the low 90’s late last week to a chance of snow and overnight temps bottoming out around 25F on Monday the 19th up at the resort. This is why I got a site with electric hookups. I got to use our small, but powerful, space heater on Saturday & Sunday nights to keep the van nice and cozy warm.
I now had a boat load of free time to do anything I wanted. It was barely 4pm on Friday and checkout isn’t until noon on Monday.
My first steps were to level the van, hookup the electric and then get to exploring.
I ended up walking across the street to the resort proper and strolling around the lake and then up to Lilypad Lake before following the Elkhorn Crest Trail back to Mud Lake.
Saturday
As part of the details of “what to do” while at Anthony Lake I came across this gravel bike loop on the Dirty Freehub website called Tony. I had the added benefit of Mud Lake being at the top of the paved descent back to the official start. So on Saturday morning I got to start my bike ride off with a 12 mile paved descent. Believe me when I say that doesn’t ever happen.
Other than a few RV/5th wheelers parked along the side of the forest roads early on I didn’t see a single other person the entire 40 miles. I saw plenty of signs that other people had been out here somewhat recently but nobody at all during my actual ride.
For the remainder of Saturday, I read my book, maybe napped a little bit and sat in front of a fire for a very long time.
Sunday
All day Saturday the temps dropped, the rain showers really cooled things off around 4-5pm. Then Sunday morning I woke up to not rain, but snow!
With pockets of deep snow still on the ground on the trails I opted to skip the two mountain bike routes I had downloaded. Instead went for a hike up to Hoffer Lake and then to the top of the ski lift.
I was back at my campsite before noon and spent another day reading, napping and chilling out. I tried halfheartedly to get another fire going but everything was damp from the previous day’s rain and now melting snow.
Monday
I had to turn off the heater a few times during the night because it got too warm in the van. The temps outside on Monday morning were a balmy 25F, and we got more snow showers.
After breakfast I cleaned up, packed up and hit the road for a meandering drive home. I was in no rush so opted to follow the Anthony Lakes Highway to the Blue Mountain Scenic Byway and into Ukiah, OR where I was compelled to stop at this country store.
From Ukiah it was on to Heppner and then into Condon, OR where I stopped for lunch at the Condon Local.
I worked my way over to I-84 and home. It was nice to see Mia and Codi after six days away. It was super nice to not have cell service for almost 3 whole days. I got to chill out, bike, hike, read and unwind. Nothing to complain about and I feel fairly calm and relaxed for the first time in a while.
Thanks for reading,
-Pete
ON & OFF RHODES 
Nice! I passed by Anthony Lakes during the Eastern Oregon tour in 2015–a brief flyby, as we were staying in Baker City that night. The initial plan was to camp at Anthony Lake the day before, but it was a cold pissing rain day, and the idea of camping at 7,100 feet with that weather (which could have turned to snow, even in September) did not appeal, so we stayed at the lodge in Granite, which was…interesting.
I need to get back out to that part of the state. Timing is hard, as snow can happen at high elevations into summer, yet the valleys can be baking in the sun. Emee and I want to hit up Walla Walla in fall. Not exactly the same area, but close!
There is a ridiculous amount of “stuff” to explore out there. I’d like to get back for a week or more at some point.