New ONDA online tool offers E. Oregon trail, travel tips

Exploring Oregon’s high desert and the roughly 800-mile Oregon Desert Trail just became easier, as the Oregon Natural Desert Association (ONDA) has unveiled a new area of its website devoted to trip reports.

Thanks to support by KEEN’s KEEN Effect program, the High Desert Trip Reports area of the site (ONDA.org/TripReports) is now online. It’s centered on users’ experiences in Oregon’s high desert.

People who hike, backpack, horseback ride, bike or paddle in the eastern part of the state are now able to offer a trip report and share their stories.

The reports are searchable by region, type of outing, degree of difficulty and outing highlights. They include the capacity to upload photos, to write detailed comments about outing highlights and challenges, and to share on email or social media. People are also able to comment on individual reports.

The High Desert Trip Reports features information on key regions in the high desert and on the Oregon Desert Trail. The regions are the Central Oregon Backcountry, Greater Hart-Sheldon Region, John Day River Basin, Owyhee Canyonlands, Steens Mountain, Malheur River and Lower Deschutes River.

Created by ONDA, the Oregon Desert Trail showcases the most scenic and ecologically critical areas of Oregon’s high desert. Years of work by volunteers and staff culminated in ONDA making the maps, guidebook materials and GPS data available to the public in February 2014. The information is online at ONDA.org/OregonDesertTrail.