NW Nevada & SE Oregon -- 4 Days in Early December 2011

I'd planned to revisit my favorite area in Oregon -- the Alvord Desert country...and I did on this trip...but mostly I visited other areas. It was a very good trip, including an exciting/dramatic "incident"!

When I left my house at about 1pm Tuesday, December 6, I still wasn't sure where I going...but I had at least another 10 minutes to decide as I got the truck fueled.
Do I do the standard Alvord trip and head east on US20 to Burns and then SE on OR78 to the north end of the East Steens road?
Or do I head south on US97 to LaPine then SE on OR31 and US395 and then head east on 140, across the northern edge of Nevada, and then approach the Alvord region from the south? Hmmm....maybe spend the first night at Big Spring Reservoir C.G., just off 140 -- where I tried to camp in my car the night after Thanksgiving...tried and failed.
Yep, that's the ticket! Go back to Big Spring Reservoir -- this time properly equipped with camper. It's a cool area 'cause it's the biggest source of water for a big area, and that attracts wildlife. And I'll have an opportunity to re-establish my "camperhood" after surrendering/retreating like a wimp from that spot 2 weeks previous!
So, this map shows where I went on this 4-day trip:

Red route is paved, blue route is unpaved.

I refueled the truck (and a few groceries) in Lakeview, just a small detour south of the junction of 140 with 395.

I arrived at Big Spring Reservoir Campground and was pleased to find it all mine...pleased, but not surprised, on a Tuesday night in early December.

It was 12° when went outside to take some photos. I'm not all that experienced with night photography...but shooting digital has two benefits: 1) Using the screen on the back of the camera I can get some idea if the photo came out too dark or too light, 2) It cost$ nothing to take hundreds of wasted photos.


This was just a couple days before full moon (and that eclipse!) so moonlight was a major player in the kind of photos I got. To the naked eye it wasn't as lit-up as this time-exposure makes it look.

The part of the reservoir near my camp was relatively shallow and far from the spring that fed it, and it was and had been quite cold for days, so it was well-frozen. I walked out on the edge of the ice, was happy to not hear any creaking, cracking, or even groaning, so I ventured out into the photogenic zone!


The drowned plants frozen under and into the ice made cool visual effects...at least, I thought they were cool.









I was pleased to discover that my Black Diamond fleece gloves allowed me to retain enough dexterity to work my camera while allowing me to retain my fingertips.

Damn it was a cool scene! Not only did it look other-worldly, and it felt other-worldly to walk across the slick ice, but the ice made all kinds of other-worldly sounds. Not sounds caused by my walking on it (there weren't any), but sounds caused by expanding/contracting (I guess), rubbing on the gravel on the bottom and sides (I guess)...kind of like whale-song, but lower and gravelier.
If I'd spent a second night there I would have had time to review the photos I took and learn from that for a second night of better photos...but it was a lot of fun, anyway.

Eventually, I decided that my fingertips were getting too cold, and I was running out of photographic inspiration anyway, so I retired to my cozy camper, where I'd left the Wave 6 running on Medium (4500 BTU).
That night, for only the second time ever, I think, I left my Wave 6 on its Medium setting overnight (rather than Low, 3000 BTU). I used Reflectix as the soft-side insulation. When my alarm went off in the morning, pre-dawn, it was 42° in the camper and 2° outside .

(to be continued)

cool pics. 2 degrees? whats it like there when its really cold?

Overnight those weird ice noises continued now and then. At one point I heard coyotes howling/crying quite close. I also heard ducks/geese/other-waterfowl sounding off. A few hundred yards from where I was camped the reservoir was ice-free, and I saw the birds there the next morning.
I set my alarm for 6:30am (about 40 minutes before sunrise) and I actually got up just a few minutes later...even though I could see by my indoor/outdoor thermometer that it was 2° outdoors.
I had my warm-gear and camera stuff all set out, ready to go. It helps a non-morning-person like me get going if I don't have to do much thinking/decision-making first thing.

I got up so that I could see what cool features would show up for daylight photography...so, back out on the ice I went.

This one shows previous fracturing and re-freezing:

That long crack wasn't open -- it was filled with re-frozen water...no worries!

The long winding feature in this one looks like frozen froth/foam, but I think it's some kind of pressure ridge:


More interesting-but-not-scary cracks:


I found one area where there were lots of features on the ice that looked like shapes/figures of animals...kinda like "recognizing" shapes in clouds:


Flowers?


A bird in flight...perhaps a quail/partridge?


A mountain scene from one of those ancient Chinese paintings?


When the sun got a little above the horizon and it got lighter -- shorter exposures -- I could leave the tripod:


With the camera in my hands, I was able to lay down on the ice and got a couple of close-ups of frosty plants:



The ice/snow were cold enough that I didn't get wet...and it was slick-enough to permit sliding around for perfect position!

Another variation on cool ice features:


Damn this was a cool time and place!


I was glad I had the warm camper with radiant heater for warming up my hands...and my camera lens -- to avoid condensation on the cold glass when I brought it inside.


I had a quick breakfast -- coffee, cold cereal (Kashi GoLean!), and an apple, then I packed up and headed on east.
I decided that I would not head north to the Alvord, not today anyway. I'd considered going down the east side of the east arm of the Black Rock, to the mouth of McGill Canyon of the Jackson Mts...but I've been there many times.
I decided that my destination would be Pinto Hot Springs, on the west side of the east arm of the Black Rock, which I hadn't visited in probably 15 years...

(to be continued)

Those night and day shots of the ice are great, and I love the description of the sounds of the ice!

So east I went on 140 across northern Nevada. [see the map in my Post #1]

I stopped at one of my favorite view points, next to Thousand Creek Gorge, looking east across the Thousand Creek and Bog Hot Valley, featuring the interesting spur of basalt -- Railroad Point. I think this is an example of "inverted topography" (as is Wright Point south of Burns, OR), in which lava flowed down a valley, then solidified into a long strip. Then the valley walls eroded away, leaving the strip of lava as a raised peninsula.
Railroad point is about 300+ feet above the surrounding flats.



The mountain ranges behind Railroad Point are the south end of the Pueblos and the northern end of the Pine Forest Range. The range in back on the left is the Trout Creek Range.

I turned south on Knott Creek Rd, the same high-quality gravel road I took to get to the October Black Rock Rally.
This basin, both north and south of 140, is one place you're almost guaranteed to see wild (feral) burros, and where you'll hear them at night. I don't know what makes this area special...there are lots of places to see wild/feral horses all over, but I haven't seen burros anywhere (in the northern Great Basin) except here.





This is the point where I turned right -- west -- towards Summit Lake to get to the west arm of the Black Rock Desert for the Rally in October, but this time I turn left -- east -- to Pearl Camp/Canyon and the east arm of the Black Rock.



As I wind my way over this well-maintained but little-traveled road I, once again, cross the path of the Ruby Pipeline, which carries gas from Wyoming (I think).



Why do I take pictures of it...since I'm really not that into civil engineering, in general? I guess because it's a dramatic image, graphically, that extends for hundreds (thousand?) miles across the middle-of-nowhere West...like the fact (I guess) that you can see the Great Wall of China and the California Aqueduct from space. And when I drove up way north in Alaska, hundreds of miles along the Pipeline, I couldn't help being impressed by the size of it even if I might be politically against it. Yes, not rational...but aesthetics aren't rational, are they?

Following the Pearl Camp Rd I crossed over a pass between the south end of the Pine Forest Range and the north end of the Black Rock Range and dropped down to the Leonard Creek Rd which (at this point) runs along the west side of the east arm of the Black Rock.
Next stop: Pinto Hot Springs...or so was my plan...

(to be continued)

Many may have already read about the next 4 hours of my trip, the Incident at Battle Creek!...but I'll cover it again here, in a slightly modified version.
See the map I put in my first post.

I was trying to get to Pinto Hot Springs, and a primitive road that leads there heads east off the Leonard Creek Rd just south of Battle Creek Ranch. I've been there before, so I knew that the tiny-but-deep-silty-muddy Battle Creek might make it difficult. One time we built a bridge with a couple of huge planks and another time it was dry enough.
I was almost all the way across that stretch of flat ground (playa vegetated with greasewood) which comes before the geothermal area, and had only encountered one little dry creek bed. I thought "That's it? Sure was a lot easier than the other times..". Then I came to one small and muddy-icy creek-let, which I blew through easily, then I came to what I realized was the real creek...still pretty small, but not trivial. But it looked shallow and it looked like it was frozen solid.
It wasn't...and consequences resulted.

I tried for an hour to get unstuck -- wallowing in the mixture of mud, ice, and freezing-cold water with my jack, shovel, lumber, and crowbar (for breaking up the ice-frozen ground) -- but wasn't making much progress. Note the thick slabs of ice that my truck broke through. The driver-rear tire looks like it would just drive out, but it was spinning on ice. I gave up and decided to walk back to the nearest ranch -- Battle Creek Ranch. It was within sight, but still was a 6-mile walk by road. The ranch was busy with shipping out hay, and the rancher/owner was a little peaved that yet another stupid tourist got himself stuck and is asking for help. Apparently, this isn't a rare occurence. But he mellowed and agreed to help me. He even went in the house and came out with a big bottle of water "if you're thirsty from your walk". I was thirsty and grateful and we drove in his pickup to the scene of carnage.

It was an easy extraction, connecting his rear receiver hitch to my receiver hitch with a snatch/recovery strap. After thanking him several times, I told him "Don't worry -- you won't see me again", and he said, "I don't mind seeing you, just don't get stuck again."
It's a deal!

After I told The Rancher that I'm gonna skip Pinto Hot Springs after he pulls me out, he mentioned, "If you're looking for another hot springs there's one up Woodward Back Rd, which takes off the Leonard Creek Rd past Windy Corner." I really didn't care much about finding another hot spring at that time, so I didn't ask him for details about exactly how to get there.

At this point I didn't know what I wanted to do...where to spend the night. I was kinda drained -- physically and otherwise -- and deeply muddy. I considered driving to Winnemucca and spending the night in a nice, warm, clean motel room. But I eventually got it together, changed into clean clothes, and decided to check out that "other hot springs" that The Rancher had mentioned...if nothing else, it would probably be a flat place to camp.

Looking back, south-west, at a nice sunset, as I headed north to that hot springs:


I turned down Woodward Back Rd (so named because it's the "back" way to Woodward Ranch) and, since I didn't know how far to the springs, and the only topo map I had of this area was in my laptop and I didn't want to turn it on...I drove slowly, just looking for tell-tale signs of hot springs -- such as mineral crust or salt grass.
I found such an area and set up camp.
The hot springs "pool" there seemed to be just a stock trough...and it wasn't hot, just a little warm.
Oh well -- it was still a nice, flat place to camp. And nice soft dirt that made easy toilet-hole diggin'

Looking east, a nice view of the north end of the Jackson Mts.

This is not an appealing soaking spot. I wondered if The Rancher had ever actually been here...or maybe his standards are just much lower than mine!

Turns out -- it was my bad.
Later in the day, after I left the area, I looked at the topo on my laptop and saw that a couple miles further north was "Dyke Hot Springs" -- that must have been the place. Oh well...another time.

I drove back the couple miles to Leonard Creek Rd, east across the north end of the Black Rock to a junction with Jackson Creek Rd, which goes down the east side of the east arm of the Black Rock, at the base of the Jackson Mts.
Looking back south, where the two roads diverge:


These thumbnails are photos I took at a BLM sign (at the Leonard/Jackson Jct.) welcoming visitors to the Black Rock area:


Leonard Creek Rd is beautifully paved between this spot and north to where it joins NV 140. A handy rest area is at the jct, too.

From here it was about 30 miles to Denio Junction...where I decided to be smart and buy $20 of gas rather than assume that I had enough gas to make the last 25 miles to Fields (hard to be sure about the gauge, you know). I'd already made one bad decision on this trip...I didn't want to make a second.

I arrived at Fields -- the Alvord country -- I'm home!
Well....not really, but at least they know me by name...and the proprietress, Sandy, gives me a hug.
It is my favorite area in Oregon.


A Thursday in early December looks a little slow in the cafe..


Milkshakes usually out-sell burgers for the year...and this year is no exception

But looking back to a visit here in April it was a different story:



I had a cheeseburger and fries (no shake this meal) and fueled the truck, too.
I continued north and took the East Steens Rd, which goes along the foot of the east side of Steens Mt, for about 10 of those miles along the west "shore" of the Alvord Desert playa.
I planned to camp out on the playa, either out in the middle or maybe over at the far side.

(to be continued)

Mark,

What a thoroughly enjoyable trip report, and the photography is great! I envision you coming out of retirement in a new career: Travel writer/photojournalist/minimalist truck camping scout.

Thanks much for including the topographic feature names and road names in your text. Those of us 2,800 miles away with Benchmarks or other maps can literally follow along and get a completely realistic feel for the country. That pic of the Railroad Point basalt flow is particularly effective as an introduction to the area. On a more localized scale, the first burro picture shows a very cool dike (resulting from magma having intruded along a fracture on a more or less vertical plane). Differential erosion often leaves the dike with an outcrop pattern like seen tracing up the hillside behind the critters in your photo.

Looking forward to the next installment!

Foy

Thanks much for including the topographic feature names and road names in your text. Those of us 2,800 miles away with Benchmarks or other maps can literally follow along and get a completely realistic feel for the country. That pic of the Railroad Point basalt flow is particularly effective as an introduction to the area. On a more localized scale, the first burro picture shows a very cool dike (resulting from magma having intruded along a fracture on a more or less vertical plane). Differential erosion often leaves the dike with an outcrop pattern like seen tracing up the hillside behind the critters in your photo.

Thanks for the kind words, Foy.
The visible large-scale geology is one of the thing I love about NW Nevada, SE Oregon, the Great Basin in general...and all deserts! So much more interesting than wetter areas, where all the interesting stuff is obscured by messy biological infestations!
My introduction to the wonders of southeast Oregon came maybe 25 years ago when I took a class at local Central Oregon Community College: "Geology of Southeast Oregon". It was a regular credit class, and there were a couple of geology students in it, but the vast majority were people like me not taking it for credit...a lot of the students were retired people, though I was decades away from that at the time. We didn't learn much about minerals, we learned about basic rock types -- in our area, mostly igneous: basalt, rhyolite, andesite (we don't have much/any granite), and specific forms like welded tuff and obsidian. And we learned about the forces that shape the surface once the rock is formed -- all those great fault-block mountains/ranges...and the forces that erode them. All the great stuff that's visible out there and the understanding of which enhances my enjoyment of all that stuff.
We took a 4-day field trip -- camping at the North-Warners/Abert Rim, Hart Mt, Steens/Pueblo Mt.
I'd never been out there before, didn't know much about it, but it has since become my favorite part of the state.

Thanks again, and my report will continue soon...just have to process and select the next photos...

Keep 'em coming Mark! This is great stuff. I really enjoyed your ice photos, both night and at dawn. Reminds me of when I was kid in Colorado. We would ice skate on anything that froze (ditches, creeks, lakes, broken water line puddles, etc.). The cracks and the shapes we would hear and see where always interesting. You're photos are very interesting and extra credit for shooting under adverse conditions. Brrrrrrrrr.

We've got some of that inverted volcanic deposits here in No. Cal. too, near Oroville and Chico. When I imagine the amount of erosion necessary to leave the igneous rock proud of the surrounding landscape, I realize I'm only going to be here for a blink of an eye.

Looking forward to the next installment!

We've got some of that inverted volcanic deposits here in No. Cal. too, near Oroville and Chico. When I imagine the amount of erosion necessary to leave the igneous rock proud of the surrounding landscape, I realize I'm only going to be here for a blink of an eye.

Thanks, Lighthawk.
Yeah, I've thought the same thing about "inverted topography". When my "Geology of Southeast Oregon" professor explained to us how Wrights Point was formed, I thought: "Huh?...are you sure? There were mountains here -- in the now dead-flat Harney Basin? Totally gone now except for this tongue of rock molded by some super-prehistoric valley?? "
Man...the Earth is old! Deep time... See James Hutton on this -- pretty-much the Isaac Newton of Geology (except he was Scottish!, not English )

OK...back to photo-editing work!

I just read a little more of the Wikipedia article on Hutton. He also clearly stated the principles of natural selection in biological organisms long before Darwin was even born! (though, apparently he didn't believe that natural selection was the origin of species -- preferring the god explanation)

About those basalts.............

Lunchtime reading (is this "inter-web" thing cool, or what?) mentions both the Columbia River flood basalts and the Steens basalt flows, so the proximity of the Railroad Point flow to Steens probably indicates it's a mid-Miocene (around 10 million years old) Steens flow. Basalt flows filling in older topographic lows (valleys) is commonplace and is particularly dramatic in the Jarbidge, Mahogany, and Independence range area over in Elko County, from what I've read.

What would at first appear to be a dramatic erosional development leaving a former valley-filling flow as a topographic high may be less dramatic than initially thought when one considers the relative strength of the surface the flows were laid down upon. In many areas of the West, extensive beds of ash, reworked ash, sand, silt, and clay were at the surface when the flows came along. Those only slightly older deposits were in many areas had not been buried deep enough after deposition to become well-indurated rock. Erosion subsequent to the deposition of the basalt flows therefore stripped away fairly soft material, leaving the harder basalt, formerly in the valley, as a topographic high.

How well I remember my first lengthy exposure to Western US field geology. My undergraduate degree was earned at Appalachian State University in the Blue Ridge Mountains of NC. On average, the Piedmont areas of NC might have 2-3% outcrop, the Valley and Ridge province perhaps 10-15% outcrop, and the crystalline Blue Ridge not greater than 20% outcrop, with all of the non-outcrop areas covered by deep clay soils and/or a thick layer of forest, brush, kudzu, ticks, and copperheads. I took my field methods course following the completion of the balance of my degree requirements at the University of Montana's field station in Dillon, MT, and we generally had 50-60% or more outcrop and little vegetation obscuring the bedrock from airphotos (but there were lots of mean little rattlesnakes!). As a result of the great deal of exposure, the airphotos handed out in class at the beginning of the first day in a new area could be taken by we students and we'd be sketching the folds and faults while riding out to the area in the trucks. We were more or less just field-checking what we'd drawn on the airphotos and topos. It was a great, great experience.

Looking forward to more, Mark.

Foy

You know that was one really good trip you had, even with the cold and getting stuck and all. I don't know what the weather is like out there today-we had an 80% chance of snow here and instead its bright-almost warm-sunny, and not snowy or cold like its been or supposed to have been, and very unlike December here in Susanville. I think that lack of weather here seems to be calling for a trip out there-despite the time of the year and knowing better. I had planned to maybe leave here on Monday and head up to Kennewick for xmas via 97 or maybe the coast, but they keep saying the weather will be like this for a while to come-sort of getting the wander lust again for the desert; knowing the weather could change and i could find my self stuck for the winter out there and i end up digging away, spreading the kitty litter under my tires as i jack up the old handy man in the mud. In case I do a stupid thing like taking 395/140 or maybe being really stupid and going up the west side of Smoke Creek Desert to Gerlach and up toward the Steens-Burns etc, or perchance do something like that on the return trip on the 28th-- is anyone going to be out and about in that area--or has heard what the weather really is supposed to be like from this Monday until the end of the month? I should know better than maybe doing this, but hell I'm retired, and was maybe planning to take the easy way up or if the weather was bad staying home-just throwing out the shat(?) or what ever. Any thoughts as I watch some clouds roll in-hmmmmmm, let me think about this some more? 2 degrees you say!

Smoke

You know that was one really good trip you had, even with the cold and getting stuck and all. I don't know what the weather is like out there today-we had an 80% chance of snow here and instead its bright-almost warm-sunny, and not snowy or cold like its been or supposed to have been, and very unlike December here in Susanville. I think that lack of weather here seems to be calling for a trip out there-despite the time of the year and knowing better. I had planned to maybe leave here on Monday and head up to Kennewick for xmas via 97 or maybe the coast, but they keep saying the weather will be like this for a while to come-sort of getting the wander lust again for the desert; knowing the weather could change and i could find my self stuck for the winter out there and i end up digging away, spreading the kitty litter under my tires as i jack up the old handy man in the mud. In case I do a stupid thing like taking 395/140 or maybe being really stupid and going up the west side of Smoke Creek Desert to Gerlach and up toward the Steens-Burns etc, or perchance do something like that on the return trip on the 28th-- is anyone going to be out and about in that area--or has heard what the weather really is supposed to be like from this Monday until the end of the month? I should know better than maybe doing this, but hell I'm retired, and was maybe planning to take the easy way up or if the weather was bad staying home-just throwing out the shat(?) or what ever. Any thoughts as I watch some clouds roll in-hmmmmmm, let me think about this some more? 2 degrees you say!

Smoke

2 degrees you say!

Yeah, but it's a dry cold!

Come on...go for it!
What could go wrong? What's the worst that could happen?

So, as I said, I'd planned (hoped?) to camp out on the Alvord Desert playa, assuming it would be dry...or at worse, frozen-damp.
But as I rounded the here's Alvord! corner I saw that it was mostly very wet.

I could get to the dry edge at either of the two main west-side access points...maybe scoot along the edge to the larger dry area at the south... but that wasn't really what I was looking for.

So, I decided to stop at the Alvord Hot Springs, have a soak if it's not busy, and think about where to camp.
I was pleased to find nobody around, and the water was very hot -- hot enough that you can't get in too fast -- just the way I like it!

Much more about the Alvord Hot Springs later.

Hmmm...where to camp? I decided to take advantage of the lack of other visitors to the area and camp at one of the flat areas next to the road that climbs the hill above the hot springs, up towards Indian Creek, on the eastern slope of Steens Mt.

It's hard to tell from the photo, but this is a hundred feet or so above the playa.

I don't know who "Chris O'Neil" was, but he's got a nice-view campsite in his name.


As I was setting up my camper a couple of hunters (I think) drove down the road from higher up the hillside...maybe they'd been chukar hunting.
That night the temperature was not dropping rapidly, so I set the Wave 6 on Low for overnight heat.

Next morning... It was not as cold as the two previous mornings -- a cozy 15° . I got up before sunrise to catch what I thought might be visually nice, what with the steamy hot springs and all...


It helps that there was no wind, so that the steam stayed as plumes...and nice that it was cold enough to have visible vapor.



This one is almost the same...but a little different. After editing about 25 similar photos down to two, I can't decide beyond this choice.


I made a panorama of one point in the sunrise:


A nice place to camp, Chris O'Neil, whoever you are!


After catching the sunrise it was relaxing time...leisurely breakfast.

(to be continued -- very soon!)

From my hillside camp perch I could see that the hot springs were still vacant, so after breaking camp I decided to go in for another "heat treatment".


About the Alvord Hot Springs
I've been here many many times over maybe 25 years. It's right next to a well-known (gravel) road, and is well-known to hunters, hikers, and hot-spring-hippies. So I'm not giving away any "secret spot" here.
The hot springs are on Alvord Ranch private land, but they don't mind or regulate anyone going in there. Amazingly, no drunken fools have drowned here, or if they have they've had the decency to not sue the Alvord Ranch!

This is the source pool or pools -- a line of springs that come up from far down below.

Yes, it's slimy-icky, but this isn't where you get in -- you'd die if you did.

Water is introduced to the concrete pool (originally built in the 1940s or '50s, I think...but not sure) by an irrigation pipe that ducts water out of the hot stream up a ways. There's a reason for taking the water upstream, nearer the source: On windy days the water in the stream cools significantly, so if you can shield the hot water from the wind by taking it in the pipe it's hotter when it enters the pool.

The water temperature is controlled (roughly) by regulating the rate at which the hot water enters the pool, either plugging the end of the pipe (but not by the brick which is in the pipe now), or by raising up the end of the pipe -- like onto the brick -- so that the end is higher than the start, so water doesn't run out of it.

You can just see the snow-speckled summit of Steens Mt to the NW (well, almost...the absolute summit is back behind the apparent summit and isn't quite visible).

A total view of the Alvord is available if you look the other direction:


See the seats sitting on the bottom of the pool? Know what they are/were before they became seats?
(if you're an Alvord Hot Springs veteran, you're disqualified from guessing)


Relaxing in the very-hot water!

I prefer very hot hot springs. The kind that you can't get into quickly...the kind that you can't stay in for more than 10 minutes at a time without taking a core-cooling break on the deck . You only get the therapeutic muscle-melting effect -- which is what I seek -- if the water is that hot. I'm not interested in just hanging out for long periods being wet. But, yes, that's just my preference and I know others who like sitting in here for an hour or more when the temperature is just warm bath water.
There's an adjacent semi-walled pool which is almost always significantly cooler...but of course the pool with the big view is preferred.

For many years Carl Thomas, who lived in a little place on the playa side of the road a couple of miles south, was the unofficial/official caretaker of the pool. He rode his little old motorcycle up from his house. He cleaned it out...drained it occasionally. (He told me once that he eradicated a colony of hot springs mites by pouring gasoline on the surface of the water and lighting it! )
Carl died a few years ago, and he is missed:

This is on the back wall of the "dressing room".

There's another message (among all kinds of mostly-not-raunchy graffiti) near the Carl Memorial photo that expresses some nice thoughts:


(I'm working on a 360° panorama of/from this spot, but I'm having some technical difficulties....will post later if I can get it right.)

(to be continued)

I wasn't sure where to head for the night...but I wanted to see the lunar eclipse in the morning, and where I was on the east side of Steens Mt., at the base of the high scarp, was the worst possible position to see the eclipse which would be occurring when the moon was low in the west. I guess I'd have to be over to the west ...somewhere....maybe Hart Mt...?
So, I headed south again the 23 miles to Fields. There I got fuel for the truck and a milkshake for me, to go.
"Can I get chocolate and coffee together [for the milkshake]?", I asked. "You bet", the lady said. "Would you like a little caramel in there, too?", she asked. "Sure, thanks!" I said, "and can you make it extra-chocolaty?" "Of course!", she assured me. It's feels like home there for me. The Fields Cafe milkshakes are very heavy on ice cream...it takes quite a while of melting before you can suck it through a straw.



Now, onward and northwestward on OR 205, over the Long Hollow Summit (I briefly considered camping there) and down to the Catlow Valley (where I again considered camping)...and on north along the western base of Steens Mt. On a New Years visit a couple of years ago, one morning, I spotted a herd of bighorn sheep grazing at the base of a cliff -- within easy telephoto range, and I got some nice photos...but didn't see any this time.

Much of the land in that area is owned (and even more grazed) by the Roaring Springs Ranch...and it's open range.
Buckaroos and beeves:






North of The Ranch is the turnoff to the south end of the Steens Mt. Loop road. That's quite a sign!

Native juniper trunks, looks like.

And here's the turnoff to the road that cuts across the Catlow Valley to Hart Mt. Antelope Refuge and beyond.


My tentative plan, at this point, was to camp somewhere not on The Refuge, as camping is restricted to only designated campgrounds there, and there's only one open this time of year, and it has no view to the west. I planned to either stop on BLM land before the Refuge...or maybe go clear through the Refuge, drop down to the Warner Valley, and camp on BLM land down there.

Now, golden eagles are not rare at all in southeast Oregon, in fact they're common -- I see at least one every time I'm out there. Once, on that very early Geology field trip, I even saw one perched on a power tower with a writhing snake in its talons! (isn't that how Mexico City's site was picked?)
But I've only seen them solitary, so seeing 4 at once -- perched on sagebrush -- next to the road was unusual, for me, anyway. I wish I'd had time to put my longer lens on the camera, but I figured quicker would be better than nothing. By the time I got out of the truck there were only 3 in view.



Maybe there was some unseen carrion there...not sure.

I remembered there being some reservoir somewhere along this road, outside the Refuge, and so there was -- Rock Creek Reservoir. Rock Creek is the main stream that runs through the Refuge, though this was outside.

I found a spot up above the lake that had a clear, flat view to the west in order to have an unobstructed view of the eclipse. Actually the view was an unobstructed view of everything! On the left edge of the horizon the silhouette is Beaty's Butte.


The ridge center-right in the photo below is the west-facing scarp of Hart Mt.




This frozen lake was making the same groaning, grinding, singing noises that Big Spring Reservoir had made, though these were louder and lasted pretty-much all night. Not too loud to keep me awake, though.
I set my alarm to wake me at 5am for the eclipse. I am not a morning person -- even when I get enough sleep -- so I had my camera all set with the telephoto and everything...so I didn't have to do any wondering in the morning about "where did I put the...?".

(to be continued...probably just one more installment )

It was 9°F when the alarm went off at 5am on Total Lunar Eclipse morning. I got up, put on my warm clothes, turned the Wave6 up to Medium, and went outside to catch the eclipse. Not quite as quick as this...it was about 5:30 when I took the first photo.

This was about 30 minutes before the start of totality, the total part of the eclipse:


This was about 15 minutes before the start of totality:


This was about 5 minutes before the start of totality:


This was 30 minutes after the start of totality, in the middle of that period:


Getting the exposure right was tricky...trying to meter off that small bright spot while everything else was dark. But with the magic of digital and instant review I could use good, old, trial-and-error!

I stopped shooting when it started to become significantly light. I considered going back to bed for an early-morning nap, but I decided to hit the road...for one thing, any more photos that I took would be better in the morning light than at midday.
So I had breakfast, packed up, and continued along the Rock Creek Rd, soon coming to the eastern border of the Refuge:


Coming up on the Refuge HQ...with the main Hart Mt. ridge, a west-facing fault block, in the background. The high point of that ridge is Warner Peak (~8000 ft).


At the edge of the HQ compound is the junction to everything to the south on the Refuge, including the main C.G., the Hot Springs Campground (hot springs are nice...but not as hot as I like...though the "source pool" is hotter).

(I've driven out the south end of the Refuge years ago...but in places it's extremely slow. Not technical, but very bumpy on what's not much more than a broken-up lava flow. After a while I got tired of looking at the same view going by at 5mph. )

At the near end of this great rock building, built from local basalt I assume, is the "Visitor Center" (unstaffed), "Open 24/7".

I've been here many times over the years, and it's always been a comfort to know that I can go inside no matter when I arrive...it's welcoming, somehow. There are maps and brochures and backcountry registration, and animal skull displays, etc., inside. Funky and comforting.

There are people who live and work here in this very cool rock buildings -- there're even satellite-TV dishes...but in all the times, all the years I've been here I don't think I've ever seen a soul! I'm not saying it's staffed by phantoms, or that it's haunted, but it makes you wonder. Once I heard someone (something?) moving around behind the employees-only door in the Visitor Center, but that's it.


After signing the register in the Visitor Center I continued west, to the brink of the scarp overlooking the Warner Valley.

(I'll post a link to this panorama (and others) in a larger -- better-viewable -- resolution at the end of my report)

You switchback down the steep scarp face, and then the main road heads south along the base of the scarp.
Here's looking back the way I came (looking north):

This is one of the periodic wet years, when most/all of these shallow lakes are full. In drought years only the deepest, southern (left-edge) of the lakes, Hart Lake, has water in it.

At this point, still looking north, you can see the main road that ascends the scarp to the plateau as well as a much-less traveled road that travels north along the base of the scarp -- known as Poker Jim Ridge in its northern extension.

I've never traveled that way...but should. In a big-water year the road is water-covered in spots.

I had considered heading due west along the edge of Flagstaff Lake and joining the Hogsback Rd (graded gravel) which would take me NW to US 395. But I decided to head south then west a few miles to the tiny community of Plush: It would allow me to fuel the truck (which seemed wise) and it was a nice route that took me past areas where I've seen pelicans and other waterfowl.

Here's an "official" visitor info spot (with 2 outhouses!):




I'm not a birder, but during the migratory seasons the Warner Lakes/Valley is a good place to see both waterfowl and other birds...kinda like Malheur to the northeast, but not as big a deal.

There are trails and blinds out into the wetlands from here.




I walked across the road to frozen Hart Lake. All the ice-noises that I'd been hearing at those other two reservoirs were audible here, too, but much more so...I guess because it's a much bigger lake.
Years ago in a really severe drought year that was concern that even Hart Lake might dry up, so authorities captured some of the endemic species for their preservation and transported them somewhere else for safe keeping until the lake came back. Hart Lake didn't dry up that year, but better safe than sorry.


I drove on the last couple miles to Plush, and was pleased to find that the store was still in business and selling gasoline (they were out of diesel...another reason I'm glad I drive a gasser ). The Plush store inside looks/feels like another cool community place -- like the Fields Station, except that I'm not a regular here. Years ago I stopped in here (probably for beer back then) and there were guys sitting around a round table playing cards, just like in an olde West saloon...and who's to say it's not. Pretty cool.

I headed back north, taking the Hogsback Road NW up to US 395 (joining that highway just north of Abert Lake), and then on north to join US 20 at Riley, then west back to Bend and home.

It was a very nice trip...even with that "incident" (since that had no permanent costs).

THE END.

(I'll post links to full-size versions of some of the panoramas in a following post this afternoon).

Wow. How many miles was that, Mark? Maybe that's not the best metric . . .
Ummm. How many days and nights?
How many exposures? How many keepers?
How few people?
Or . . . how much terrain (sq. miles or hectares or whatever) did you see?

By any measure, this is a very cool trip. Your story and documentation are very well done. I hope WTW will archive these A+ reports in a way they are preserved. {This is an aside, but years ago I had a part-time writing gig with the local paper. Some of the articles are still up there and I've downloaded pdf's for posterity and reuse. Other writings I've done are gone, baby gone}.