Day 14 – 9/7/19

35 miles / 272.7 total

I don’t have a whole lot to say about the hiking today. It was nearly all dirt road walking and not particularly exciting.

Sometime in the late morning we decided it sounded like a good idea to hike all the way to Denio to have dinner at the Diamond Inn. Denio is 1 mile south of the ODT, just over the OR-NV state line, and we got to this point, 33 miles from our camp about 7:00pm. We had our thumbs ready to hitch on that mile of paved road into town, but not a single car drove by.

When we finally reached the “Diamond Inn”, it was dark. It felt like a movie scene when we walked in, as if the music suddenly stopped and all heads turned to look at the strangers who had just walked in. All the men at the bar, all the ladies sitting around a big round table. We awkwardly dropped our packs in a corner of the room as the ladies eagerly pounced on us to find out what the hell we were doing in Denio.

Everyone was friendly and happy to talk to us. A few folks had even heard of the ODT (there was a poster of it on the wall), and one woman, who owned property directly adjacent to the trail, was very interested to see our maps (so adjacent that the route actually skirts away from the natural drainage to avoid trespassing).

One man asked me, “so where is your Subaru Outback parked?” and was clearly happy that I got the joke.

The beers were bottles of Coors Light and Miller High Life, but the pizza was surprisingly good. We finally left a little after 9pm as the barkeep was starting to shoo people out.

We walked the dark highway back to the BLM “your public lands” sign and pitched our tent.