Community

Renee Patrick

Oregon Desert Trail

Get Involved in Desert Conservation

The Oregon Natural Desert Association’s mission is to protect, restore, and defend Oregon’s desert areas, and Oregon Desert Trail explorers are integral in these efforts. 

To help us reach our conservation goals, ONDA conducts extensive wilderness inventories and science-based monitoring. Oregon Desert Trail explorers have first-hand experience of sensitive desert places that can be invaluable in our work to defend and protect these areas. 

You can support ONDA’s conservation goals by:

Connect with Fellow ODT Explorers

As our network of supporters and hikers grows, we would love to involve you as much as possible.

Want to hear about current conditions? Do you have a service you would like to offer hikers along the route? Are you looking to find a hiking partner for a section of the route? You can connect with past, current, and future ODT hikers and share your trip reports through the ODT Facebook page and Instagram profile and user forums like Reddit. 

Read all about the trip through blogs, videos and more from past ODT adventurers here.

listen

Great Basin Spadefoot Toads – a sleepy chorus

Great Basin Spadefoot Toads – a sleepy chorus

voices

John Cunningham, ONDA member and volunteer

John Cunningham, ONDA member and volunteer

Restoration is hard slow work. It takes hold, or it doesn’t, in fits and starts. The immensity of the need can be discouraging, but we must carry on. I am so thankful ONDA carries on.

voices

Ryan “Dirtmonger” Sylva, ODT thru-hiker 2017

Ryan “Dirtmonger” Sylva, ODT thru-hiker 2017

“To me, it’s a thru-hike in an isolated place that promotes a conversation in land management, ethics and usage. Hiking across a vast and remote landscape and having a random and chance encounter with cowboys and hunters to discuss how ‘all of us’ should treat the land, how we all have a responsibility, no matter our political leanings, really showed me the pulse of the people in rural areas, especially here out west.”

Sign the Trail Register

We encourage you to sign the ODT’s online trail register to help build momentum within the trail community. Even if your trail plans are vague, tentative dreams, it’s okay to sign in.

Then, once you are out on the trail, you can look for physical notebooks located in Paisley, Lakeview, Plush, Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge, Frenchglen and Fields.

Sign the Register

Want to see who else has signed the register? If you looking for a trail partner, want to be a trail angel or have other announcements that you want to get out, you can consult the ODT trail register.

See the Register

Oregon Desert Trail Finishers

Most people approach the ODT bite-by-bite, experiencing these desert sights and wonders as day trips and overnight excursions. It also appeals to experienced thru-hikers who are looking for solitude and challenge and want to embrace the entire ODT experience end-to-end.

Here’s who has completed all 750 miles of the route between its western terminus outside Bend, Oregon and its eastern terminus in Lake Owyhee State Park.

2013

Sage Clegg

2014

Travis “D=rt” Anderson
Brian “Tomato” Boshart
Shane “The Rev” Von Schlemp

2015

Bob “Huck Finn” Jessee

2016

Christof Teuscher
Mary “Fireweed” Kwart
Nikki “Willow” Long
Adrian MacDonald
Renee “She-ra” Patrick

2017

Alex “Dayhiker” Bosh
Kat Hampton
Heather “Anish” Anderson
Adam “Pistachio” Lint
Miguel “VirGo” Aguilar
Ryan “Dirtmonger” Sylva

2018

Vernon Winters & dog Ari
Logan “Cargo” Boyles
Danny “Caribou” Aarchibald
Rory Gravelle
Brian Tripp
Ras & Kathy Vaughan
Whitney “Allgood” LaRuffa
Katie “Salty” Gerber
Katlyn “Swept Away” Pickett

2019

Arno Schuster
Joe Alonso
Kate “Drop N Roll” Hoch
Lindsay “Outro” Brisko
Dan “Breakaway” Solmon
Jeremy “Qball” Marble
Michael LaMay

2020

Tyler Owen
Nick Rogers

2021

Naomi “The Punisher” Hudetz
Mike “Iron Mike” Unger
Carly “Quill” Swisher
Sadie “Sketchy” Curry
Vimal “Veg” Golding
Rachel “Racheopod” Renne
Patrick “Dosu” French
Nicole “ShotGun” Kulovitz
Cooper Bars
Matthew Phelan

Did you just complete the entire Oregon Desert Trail? Whoa!

Congratulations, your blood, sweat and tears have earned you the ODT patch. Send us an email with your start and finish dates, and photos from the termini if you have them, and we’ll send you a patch!

Questions about the Oregon Desert Trail?  Send us an email.
ODT Home Page

About the ODT

Oregon Natural Desert Association developed the Oregon Desert Trail to showcase the most spectacular natural areas of the state’s dry side, including Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge, Steens Mountain, and the Owyhee Canyonlands and engage desert explorers in public lands conservation.

Get Involved

Plan a Trip

A successful ODT outing begins with with research and planning. We've created numerous resources to help you have a safe and enjoyable experience along this desert route, including maps, waypoints and a complete guidebook.

Get Started