Nature – Page 23

June 20, 2021June 17, 2021

A Car Trip to Wilderness

A lone tree marks the trailhead into the Spring Basin Wilderness. Numerous side canyons provide opportunities for solitude. On this particular day we had the place to ourselves.

This week’s adventure focused on the Spring Basin Wilderness Study Area and our continued search for desert blooms. Cacti generally, more specifically Hedgehog Cactus, hopefully in bloom. Oregon’s high desert doesn’t support cactus like the southwest desert, however, there are prickly pear and hedgehog cacti and Spring Basin is known to have both.

The adventure starts with a drive north out of Madras and in a few miles we turn east toward Fossil. The route winds through high desert pine forests presenting an abundance of spring blossoms right along the highway. Spring Basin’s trailhead is reached by gravel road off Shaniko-Fossil Hwy just after you cross the John Day River.

A weathered sign board in a dusty parking area with a single flat metal post designates the trailhead. There is only a bit of shade offered by a single pine tree. A gentle incline, covered in sage and native grasses, sits below basalt cliffs marking the wilderness areas outer edges. The cacti we’re looking for may be scattered along this hillside and we assume, after the trail crests the cliff, though we’ve not hiked that far up.

JQ hoped to get a shot of a hedghog cactus in bloom, a rare find, but was just as pleased to discover a prickly pear cactus blossom.

After Spring Basin we continue the drive east to Fossil, then turn south eventually crossing back over the John Day River and connecting with Twickenham Road. At this junction we are on the eastern edge of Sutton Mountain Wilderness study area.

Sutton Mountain’s West border runs up against the Painted Hills Unit. That side of the wilderness study area looks somewhat innocuous, just a series of sage and grass covered hills that aren’t all that mountainous.

We’ve driven the gravel road from Painted Hills to the John Day River and Burnt River Ranch. The journey on this side of Sutton Mountain offers a totally different geology.

Emerald-green lichen covers the rock walls of Girds Creek Canyon

A gravel road cuts through a canyon lined with amazing cliffs of basalt. It then drops into the John Day river valley where the deep green of irrigated fields contrasts with hillsides colored in shades of brown.

A narrow single track gravel road hugs the boundary’s now more mountain-like slopes twisting around ridges and into ravines. Eventually it flattens back out onto grazing land and connects with the Burnt Ranch Road.

Here we turn south, pass the Painted Hills unit onto Highway 26 and home.

June 13, 2021June 13, 2021

Rock Hounds

Many years ago we took a weeklong camping trip to explore rockhounding sites in Oregon. This trip involved lots of dirt roads, a few flat tires and hours of digging holes in the ground.

It also turned us into full on rockhounds. Which means we’re not just picking up the occasional colored stone, we do that too … however, we also drive down remote dirt tracks specifically just to pick up rocks.

Oregon has an abundance of unique rocky sites many of which are just hours from our front door. This week’s adventure was a scouting trip of sorts to checkout some sites with Limb Casts, Petrified Wood, and Agates. BLM’s “Central Oregon Rockhounding Map” and Rockhounding Oregon by Lars Johnson are our guides through this mostly gravel and dirt road journey.

First stop is Fischer Canyon, a few miles south of our frequented Crooked River. You’re supposed to be able to find calcite, agate, quartz, jasper and petrified wood, with calcite being the most common. We found the place and a few small pieces of calcite like rock. Did not do a lot of heavy digging as this was only the first stop.

Next we headed to Bear Creek and here you are able to find petrified wood. It’s interesting to note that the rockhounding book often warns of road conditions with passages like “Road is impassable when wet. Don’t even try.” Often these roads are little more than a couple of ruts in the desert sand. JQ did locate a nice piece of petrfied wood in our short wander around Bear Creek … right next to the spot where we parked the car.

The final destination was Hampton Butte with limb casts of Jasper and Agate, as well as petrified wood. This is also a more productive site with lots of active “digs”. Here we broke out the shovel and managed to scrape up some small greenish rocks that we hope are Jasper. They will eventually make it into the tumbler and either polish or disolve. Hampton Butte’s road was much better than the guide book lead us to believe and there are plenty of shaded parking sites. Though on this day there were also a couple of RV rigs already set up.

There are more rock hunting adventures planned. We have only just begun to explore all the sites on BLM’s map. Plus, I acquired a gold pan for my birthday and there are some Umqua and Mckenzie River sites with promise of fine gold. As always we’ll keep you updated on our journeys.

June 6, 2021June 5, 2021

An Ancient Lake Bed

A recent post described our trip to Abert Lake. This week we explore a bit farther East to another ancient lake bed and the fault-block mountain beside it.

Warner Valley is covered by a chain of lakes with marsh land between.

At the end of the last ice age the Warner Valley was filled with water and it’s slopes lined with tropical forests. Today this is desert marsh land among a string of small lakes at the foot of Hart Mountain and it’s National Antelope Refuge.

Like Summer and Abert Lakes to the west and Malheur to the north this 60 mile stretch of shallow lakes and wetlands is a lure for migrating birds. On this mid-June day there is still some winter runoff filling lake beds that will mostly be dry in just a few months.

We love the wide open spaces of Oregon’s High Desert. You can see forever and weather continually changes the landscape.

We head south on Hwy 31 toward Lakeview and the Nevada Border. About 30 miles north of Lakeview we turn East and head for Plush, OR, which sits on the Southern end of Warner Valley. From here you can look across the valley to Hart Mountain and the 420 square mile antelope refuge that sits atop it

The remote Warner Valley is bound by high escarpment walls.

Spring brings a burst of wildflowers to the rocky landscape and new growth to the sage. From Plush you go along the northern edge of Hart Lake and then skirt the eastern side of marsh lands around Anderson and Swamp Lakes.

We climb 3,600 feet above the valley floor.

At the edge of Upper Campbell Lake we turn East and start up Hart Mountain to the refuge headquarters. It’s a pretty steep climb from the valley floor to the headquarters site.

At the first switch back there’s a short hike loop that runs along the canyon edge and offers spectacular views up and down the valley.

Amid the scatter of rock and sage is a variety of paintbrush and other small desert blooms.

Out here you don’t want to be without a hard copy of the route.

There is a standing rule in our adventure plans that we don’t return by the same route. So, from the headquarter station we turn north again and across the flat plateau atop Hart Mountain. Eventually this gravel track puts us on the western edge of the Steens Range at Frenchglen and the southern part of the Malheur Refuge. From here the loop is completed via Burns and Highway 20 west to Bend.

May 30, 2021May 29, 2021

Desert color

A field of arrow-leaf balsamroot in the John Day Basin

As the winter snows recede our weekly explorations take us to more distant places. The high desert, typically painted in dusty tones, is a deep green hue. Sage and desert grasses are taking advantage of the available water with a spring growth spurt. Mixed in this lush carpet are spots of color.

Spring Basin Wilderness home to rare desert wildflowers

Desert blooms are often tiny little flowers that show themselves for a few weeks in the spring. The week’s adventures allowed for the capture of a wide variety of desert fauna.

Yellow daisies line the road as we climb the east face of the Sutton Mountains.

We found desert paintbrush while hiking the Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge

Looking at the Warner Valley below you can see the transition from lakes and wetlands, to grasslands and sage steppe. Spring is a great time to explore the greening of Oregon’s high desert.

May 23, 2021May 21, 2021

A Fishing Story

Casting a dry fly near Trout Creek Campground

The Deschutes River collects runoff from the cascade range and carries it through high desert plains, irrigated farm lands, and basalt canyons. Fifty miles from its mouth at the Columbia River, the city of Maupin sits on its bank. Just downriver from there are numerous BLM campsites that offer a fisher wade access, though it is prime driftboat water. Since moving to Central Oregon we spend less time fishing this section of the river, or more to the point, we’re more selective in the times we go there.

In the spring we make a trip to catch the Stonefly hatch. This aquatic insect spends most of it’s life as a nymph burrowed in the river rock, but as water temperatures warm these exceptionally large bugs (three inches) start moving. They are headed toward the river’s edge and masses of the nymphs tumble along the streams bottom.

At this stage weighted stonefly imitations are very effective at attracting large rainbow trout.

It’s the transformation of nymph to insect that also changes the fishing from a wet fly swing to dry fly presentations. The stonefly crawls out of the water and up a stalk of grass and shucks the exoskeleton. It will go through a dozen or more of these ‘instars’ but it’s the last metamorphosis, on dry land, that produces a double winged insect with a distinctive orange body.

The stonefly lives only a couple of days and in that short period it mates, flies over the river, and deposits eggs back into the river. It is at this point where the cycle is reset and fish gorge themselves on spent stoneflies.

A dry fly presentation rarely misses and often nets big fish.

The presence of stoneflies in a river is usually an indicator of good water quality.

The stonefly hatch lasts just weeks but makes for memorable days on the river. While there are always a lot of anglers along the Deschutes, especially now, we’ve found that Trout Creek and South Junction are excellent places to gain access to the stream.

We’re a few miles upstream from Maupin, river levels are lower and wading is easier. By next week the hatch will have slowed or stopped and we’ll be looking for some other bug to imitate as we mark calendars for next year’s outing.