They would call it a Backcountry Discovery Route (BDR), a play on the original Oregon BDR, an older route of the same name, now managed by the Oregon Off-Highway Vehicle Association. Two of those modern cowpokes, adventure motorcyclists Bryce Stevens, founder of, and Andrew Cull, CEO of Remote Medical Inc., were inspired to bring new life to the concept as they sat over a beer discussing how they might create an off-pavement route from Oregon through their home state of Washington to Canada.
Weather gps tracks for oregon backcountry discovery route series#
But a new series of Chisholm-like trails has emerged out west, linking states by repurposing old roads and attracting modern cowboys on iron horses laden with state-of-the-art navigation technology and enough freeze-dried food to keep an astronaut in orbit for a week. Only the memories remain of cowboys driving their herds northbound through canyons, across creeks, rivers and prairie. Most of the route is buried and barricaded by farmland, fences and fields of wind generators. The once popular cattle route is all but gone now, with a few remaining traces and signs marking its passing. Originally a Plains Indian war and hunting route, the song’s subject, the Chisholm Trail, crossed Oklahoma from the southern border to the north and evolved into the main cattle route for driving herds to Kansas railheads, where they would bring top dollar.
I think of the adventure riders of old as I wrangle the bars on my BMW R1200GS, taking in the timeless scenes along the New Mexico Backcountry Discovery Route, one of ten BDRs now in existence. Slogging through Chloride Canyon, crossing dozens of creeks and scrambling over slippery river-rock bottoms, the old cowboy song slips into my head. …Oh, a ten-dollar hoss and a forty-dollar saddle Backcountry Discovery Routes are a series of off-highway routes for adventure motorcycle and overland travel
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