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A Blustery Fall Day

Lake Aspen is nestled among eight-acres of pine forest, wetland, and meadow habitat

It took less than a week to wash a summer’s worth of smoke and dust out of the Central Oregon air. It’s  been cloudy and wet, which means road trips were shorter and closer to home.

It got cold enough to breakout beanies and gloves, layer up and dig out the rain coats. With stormfronts there are always gusty winds that add to the bite of Fall temps.

Trumpeter swan

We went to a favorite spot, Sunriver Nature Center, to check on our favorite river otters, swans, and water fowl.

The beauty of this place is there are literally miles of walking paths, most of them paved. We did venture a bit away from the pond  and out along the airfield and horse pasture.

 

Paved areas for biking and walking lead to forested trails
This tunnel leads to even more paths

We were working out kinks in a new iPhone camera rig and trying to give Tip a chance to stretch his legs as well. The migration season is in full swing, but there were just a few flights of geese and ducks. I suspect most of them are year round inhabitants of the pond.

This week the house got a seasonal cleaning, the idea is next week’s road trips will be a bit farther afield. We’ve made the shift to cold weather gear and restocked cocoa and a flask of whiskey in the picnic bag. Now is the time to get in those last fall excursions before the winter snows set in.

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Deschutes River Trip

Lower Deschutes River at Maupin, OR

Road trip this week takes us south to Maupin and the Lower Deschutes River. The summer drought caused Oregon Fisheries people to cancel steelhead fishing. This means there are fewer people on the river, with plenty of fish to be caught, and a beautiful canyon to enjoy.

Fall colors paint the canyon walls

Fall weather has muted any remaining green and added yellow and orange hues to the hillsides.

The river level is down, but at this point the Deschutes is still a big river. Our strategy is to drive, park, and fish. However, the first order of business is to find a starting point downstream.

We break open the lunch, brew fresh coffee, and enjoy the rush of river. A month ago this spot would have been baking in summer sun, today we are dressed in flannel and clouds flash intermittent bursts of sunlight.

We rig fly rods to the car rack and start the journey back upriver, stopping at select spots. The October caddis fly hatch offers dry fly fishing and nice big Redband rainbows.

Confluence of White River and the Deschutes

As we are breaking down rods, a bank of rain clouds crests the canyon. We wind our way out of Maupin and the Deschutes River canyon as the rains hit.

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Falling into fall

A gnarled western juniper thrives in the arid climate of the high desert

This week we continue to embrace the fall season with short road trips. We are taking advantage of the cool mornings and warm afternoons without smoke laden air.

Wild sage along the riverbank
At winter levels the Crooked River has exposed rock and weed beds.

One downside of the shift to winter is the river draw downs.

To get reservoirs back to capacity for the next irrigation season, dams on the upper Deschutes and Crooked river restrict flows, basically lowering river levels. The Crooked River is down to what seemed like a trickle and it’s water was too turbid to fish. However, that didn’t deter Tip from exploring.

The other activity was pizza baking … from scratch.

This Ooni is heated by gas but cooks more like a wood fired oven.

We’d picked up a gas pizza oven at the end of summer and have been playing with recipes. There is a bit more involved in making pizza, rather than heating up frozen or just carry out. There’s a learning curve and failed attempts, but we are starting to dial in the best cooking method and the last few pies have turned out great.

Scratch-made gives you a delicious pie with total control over the ingredients.

The Ooni oven will be great for other “wood fired” baking jobs. Flat bread is on the list to try.

For now, we’re working on tweeking dough recipes to fine tune our pizza crust, very important, as there are a surprising number of variations possible.

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Fall Color

Detail of a maple leaf

The days are getting shorter, mornings colder and thin streaks of yellow and red are starting to line the hillsides.

Central Oregon is mostly pine forests and high desert sage, but river banks offer great places to find fall colors.

Aspen grove

This week we headed to Camp Sherman on the Metolius River.

The National Wild and Scenic Metolius River is home to trout and kokanee salmon.

From the point it bubbles out of the earth on the northern edge of Black Butte until it drops into Lake Billy Chinook it’s banks are lined with willow, maple and aspen.

Fall frosts have just started but the foliage is already putting on a show.

In addition to the fall show, we’re scouting fishing spots. The Metolius offers great fly-fishing only water, though it’s fish are very finicky. We’ve been to camp sites further downriver, but today we’ll explore closer to the headwaters.

A narrow road parallels the river from just below the springs to a couple miles up from the tiny village of Camp Sherman.

Ponderosa pine

There are half a dozen camp grounds and many more pull offs that allow access to the river. A well maintained foot path also runs the entire length of the stream.

It was a perfect fall day. Warm sunshine mixed with the smell of pine and fallen leaves.

Pine trees filter the warm fall sun creating photo op patches of light. Today the camp sites are tagged with reserved signage, however, in a few weeks the crowds will thin and the fishing will be good as will the views.

 

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More Rocks

Highway 20 ,,, clean air as far as the eye can see

Two things have happened . . . the air has cleared and daytime temps have dropped. So it is perfect weather to do some rockhounding.

There is no shortage of places to find fossils, minerals and rocks in Central Oregon, but all are nearly void of shade. Any roads near these sites will quickly become impassable with a day or two of rain. That in mind fall is an ideal season.

We’re headed east on US 20 to a dirt road just west of highway marker 77. Glass Butte and Little Glass Butte are six thousand acres open to public collection of a ‘reasonable’ daily amount of obsidian. The state defines reasonable as less than 250 pounds . . . no problem there.

The two low hills look like most of the hight desert landscape between Bend and Burns. A few patches of scrub pine and juniper amid large swaths of sage and rabbit bush.

Drive up the gravel road a few miles and quickly you start to see the glint of black rock scattered between the sage brush. Obsidian is typically black but at the Glass Buttes area you can find red, snowflake, green, and a number of other color combinations. This makes this a popular rockhounding site.

Shards of obsidian … this volcanic glass is hard, brittle and fractures with sharp edges.

We found a spot away from the crowds in the Little Butte area. It didn’t take too long to fill our bucket with marble sized pieces, perfect for the tumbler, and a few larger chunks as well. The material we picked up was mostly black but there are some with red and mahogany streaks. All were picked up off the surface with only minimal digging.

Once back home we rinsed the desert dust, inspected our finds and separated a load to polish in the tumbler. In addition to obsidian, we found some samples of petrified wood.

We’re thumbing through the Oregon Rockhounding book and plan more fall expeditions in the future.