Fort Rock: Buzz's Adventure in The Oregon Outback

Fort Rock, a magnificent geological feature and one of my favorite places in Oregon – I visit there at least once a year - is a volcanic crater, shaped sort of like a fort, half a mile across and 300 feet high. It’s fascinating for its geological qualities and its history, as well as the many birds that nest and hunt there.

On my recent adventure there in June, I circumnavigated the outside of the formation and then hiked around the inside, including a climb up to a vantage point on the west edge.

In the 1930's, University of Oregon archeologists discovered a cache of ancient sandals, dated to over 9000 years old, in a nearby cave, For more on this archeological discovery and what it tells us about the first people to live in this area:    • Little Did I Know: FORT ROCK sandals  

A not-to-be-missed nearby stop is the village of Fort Rock itself plus the Fort Rock Homestead Village Museum. It’s open 11 to 4 Thursday through Sunday during the summer season only and closes sometime in September. (Double-check current hours before visiting.) It’s an outdoor living history museum featuring structures and buildings used by homesteaders back in the early 1900s. Many were lured out West to farm "beautiful, fertile" land, which turned out to be not-so-fertile. They suffered droughts, and 90% of them failed. This sort of thing happened throughout the West where the US government wanted to attract people to farm the land with the incentive of 160 free acres so that the Bureau of Land Management would not have to manage this land. When not enough folks responded or the ones who did failed in their farming efforts, the government bumped the incentive up to 320 free acres. It’s a fascinating and sometimes tragic story in this outdoor museum which depicts the early community as well as the hardships that these folks endured.

Fort Rock is part of the Oregon Outback, a beautiful, rugged, and remote region of Central Oregon. It features vast expanses of high desert, as well as farms, ranches, and small towns.

Fort Rock Trailhead approximate coordinates: 43.37308124201171, -121.06613077660896 inside Fort Rock State Park, about 7 miles off of Hwy 31.
Fort Rock Homestead Village Museum location: 64696 Fort Rock Rd (Hwy 31), Fort Rock, OR 97735

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Buzz Blumm, passionate hiker & adventurer, coffee aficionado, Viet Nam vet, and now, octogenarian, started his YouTube channel at age 79, to share his never-ending thirst for new horizons and a great cup of coffee.

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