Back before the road between Prineville, Bowman Dam and Prineville Reservoir was known as a National Back Country Byway, before the campsites were improved and before fly fishers from the other side of the mountain discovered the treasures of the Crooked River, you could expect a wave from just about every rig you passed.

You know. You’re driving up the road with one eye looking for rising trout and the other attending to business and a car approaches going the other way. You wave. The other guy throws you a shooter from the steering wheel. And all is right in your world.

I believe in waving on the back roads. It’s a neighborly thing to do. I’ve almost always exchanged a salute or two out on the Lower Crooked River National Back Country Byway.

Not this time. I was marking the early emergence of springlike weather in early April with a jaunt from Prineville south through the hills. Wave. Wave. Wave. Nothing.

At the end of the drive, I’d been shut out; I stopped counting at 34-zip.

Of course, the waving thing can be taken to extremes.

I visited Southeast Alaska several years ago and came back with a cooler full of silver salmon and a bumper sticker that read ”Outsiders Never Wave, Yakutat Alaska.” It was widely distributed and, of course, the result was that everybody waved in Yakutat, Alaska. Outsiders. Insiders. Everybody. There were lots of anglers up there. You couldn’t wait to get out of the truck and start casting to give your arm a rest.

But it’s a good memory.

Crook County’s not a fishing village on the edge of the Alaska frontier. And the Crooked River isn’t a coastal salmon stream (although the fish once were bigger). Central Oregon is growing and changing, and stories like this don’t exactly impede that progress. But if you see me out there, I’ll wave to you. Will you wave back?

Either way, the 45-mile motor from Prineville to U.S. Highway 20 along State Route 27 is a scenic one. It takes you through a rugged, basalt-rimrock canyon and over Oregon’s only unpaved state highway, a roughly 20-mile stretch from just south of the reservoir to Highway 20. From there, it’s just a hop, skip and a jump back through Millican to Bend. If it’s a hike you’re craving, the walk to Chimney Rock is a good way to break up the drive. The trailhead is 16 miles south of Prineville (turn right on Main Street in Prineville off U.S. Highway 26. The trailhead parking lot is across the road from the Chimney Rock Recreation Area on the Crooked River.

The two-mile hike to Chimney Rock involves a moderate climb, some switchbacks and payoff views of the Crooked River Canyon and the distant Cascades.

Late winter or early spring – before the weather turns hot and the trail dusty – is a great time to make this trip.

– Jim Witty