Unfinished Business in Oregon

[turbodb]

#1 - Hiking Steens Mountain

I was stir crazy.

I'd been back from our didn't-go-quite-as-planned trip to Colorado for two weeks and it was time to get out again. And this time I wanted it to be with @mrs.turbodb. Knowing that she'd be unable to resist a trip back to the Alvord Desert - and for our first time, Steens Mountain - I knew that would be our destination.

It'd be a relatively short trip - four days total - but I figured that even at that, we could do a couple things we'd wanted to do for quite some time:

1. We could get to the top of Steens Mountain, which on every previous trip has been covered in snow. The highest road in Oregon, this is something we've wanted to do for years, since we first saw it while visiting the Malheur Refuge. In fact, @mrs.turbodb mentions Steens so often that it's become a running joke.
2. We could make another run at Big Sand Gap on the east side of the Alvord Playa. Because we had a score to settle from our last attempt. Not that we're hard-headed or anything.

So, it was in the very early morning hours of October 10, 2019 that we piled into the Tacoma and headed south. It was so early in fact that we were in Portland before the sun even crested the horizon, it's orange glow illuminating Mt. Hood in the distance.

The miles continued to tick away as the sun rose into the blue sky and after a couple more hours we reached Mt. Hood itself, climbing up over the pass with it towering above.

Then - something we'd never seen before. As we drove through the area of Oregon near Madras, it became clear just how cold it was outside. To prevent freezing of their equipment, many ranchers had left their irrigation systems running. And the results were spectacular - the bright green grass encased in thick ice!

I don't know about @mrs.turbodb, but it was about now that I started wondering if we were crazy. Though the weather was forecast to be dry while we were in the Alvord, temps were projected to be in the high-teens to low-twenties at night.

I didn't mention it, and just continued driving.

After a stop for lunch and a couple more for fuel, we eventually arrived in the Alvord Desert a little before 4:00pm in the afternoon. Perfect timing for our first unfinished business - we wanted to hike Pike Creek. We'd attempted this on our last trip, but the water level in the creek had been high enough that we were unable to cross...and being too lazy to wade across bare foot, that had been the end of that.

We hoped as we headed up the short road to the trailhead that the same wouldn't be true today.

As we reached the trailhead and parked, we also had the chance to take a closer look at a tree I'd noticed the last time we were here, but also didn't investigate since there was already a camper parked in the spot. This tree is growing out of a crack in the middle of a small-house-sized granite boulder, and has been for decades. Nature truly is amazing.

Clearly, I was already amazed before we even started the hike - I'm easily entertained, I guess. At any rate, we made our way across the now-very-low-creek, and started up the trail - the views in front of us starting to get a bit shady; the playa behind us a brilliant gold.

An astute viewer may have noticed that we also had a cool view through a small tunnel in the ridge opposite us in the photo above. That small tunnel that turned into two(!) as we made our way a bit further up the trail. And you guessed it, I was once again entertained. Definitely a set of tunnels I'd love to go climb through in the future.

We continued up the trail, now excited for the next bit of entertainment, which @mrs.turbodb had related to me from her trusty book, 100 Hikes / Travel Guide: Eastern Oregon - a wilderness boundary sign, a dynamite shed by a cliff, and the entrance to a uranium mine. And who doesn't want to get up close and personal with some uranium? I for one couldn't wait to walk into an old mine shaft surrounded by the stuff.

At a little over 1 mile, we found the first two landmarks easily. I mean, they were right next to each other.

Finding the mine was a bit more tricky. First, we stumbled upon some old rail lines - likely from the ore cars that were used to move material off the mountain. Buried in 2 feet of dirt, I initially thought we might be able to follow them to the source, but decades of erosion meant that the rest of the lines were hidden for good.

Eventually though we found ourselves scrambling a good way up the side of the mountain and towards what appeared to be the opening of the mine shaft - we'd found it!

It was a small opening - no more than 4 feet tall - but to our surprise, it was in reasonably good shape. See, we'd expected that it would have collapsed after all these years, but in fact, it was just the contrary - even as I took flash photos into the shaft, I couldn't see the back wall.

Throwing all caution - and perhaps any future @mini.turbodb's - to the wind, I ventured in. The shaft continued south for 50 feet or so, with a easterly branch splitting off near the end and heading another 30 feet into the mountain. I decided not to explore that branch, instead opting to make my way back out. You know, no reason to push my luck.

Back out in the open air, I'm sure there was a new glow to my presence that hadn't been there just a few minutes before. I asked @mrs.turbodb if she wanted to go take a look, but she's a smarter cookie than me and opted to see the photos instead.

We continued on. From here, the trail crossed the creek again and headed up the other side of the ravine. A few switchbacks made this easier than if we'd gone straight up, and we made quick work of the elevation gain. Nearing the crest of the trail we kept our eyes peeled for thundereggs - fist-sized, red rock nodules on the slope. Rockhounds have cracked many of these open in search of quartz crystals or the colorful jasper and many have been carted off over the years, leaving only the worst of the bunch for us to admire before heading back.

They did look weird though. And it's a good thing I didn't get to name them - I'd have called them volcano poops.



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Unfinished Business in Oregon #1 - Hiking Steens Mountain​

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[turbodb]

Unfinished Business #2 - Highest Truck in Oregon
Hoping to catch the stars as they danced through the sky, you may recall that I'd setup the camera to take as many 30 second exposures as it could, until its battery ran out, through the cold night. As morning rolled around, I grabbed a second camera battery and popped out of the tent into the 21°F weather to take a look.

...Only to discover that my second battery was also dead - I'd forgotten to charge it before the trip! ? So I plugged in the my little 175W inverter and let a battery charge for an hour. As a side note, I should say that I really like this inverter. Plenty of power for charging camera batteries and my laptop, and no cooling fan so it's completely quiet. I won't be running any hair dryers with it, but that's just fine with me.

Battery charged and another hour of warmth for me, I finally had a chance to check out the previous nights display. Not. Too. Shabby. At all.

It was a great start to the day, and with the sun now up and warming the playa to a blistering 26°F, we found ourselves out of the tent attempting to eat a bowl of cereal before it froze. ? Moving quickly so we could climb in the heated truck, we were soon on our way - a quick stop for a photo of our so-close-but-so-far destination before we headed south to start the ascent up to the highest road in Oregon.

Now, as one should always do, I'd done my best to plan an all-dirt route from the Alvord Playa to the top of Steens Mountain. Most of the land around each - since they are essentially next to each other - is a sprinkling of BLM and private land. And usually that's not a problem - ranchers are generally pretty good, at least in these parts, of leaving gates unlocked and relying on responsible use - closing gates that you open, etc.

So, as we headed off the main drag an onto our first road onto the mountain along Carlson Creek, we were glad to see that while there was a gate, it was unlocked and a sign posted by the BLM noted the various allowed uses - driving included. So we drove through, aired down, and were on our way...

Apparently however, that "driving" was only for the first mile - at which point a locked gate across the road and a smaller opening for hikers and hunters. Well shoot.

Now, a mile or two out of our way is nothing to be concerned with - generally. So we took a look at our offline map and planned route - and noted that just a couple miles down the main road there was another entrance to the mountain...which eventually rejoined the road we'd planned to take up Carlson Creek. And so with that, we were off to Bone Creek and attempt #2 at summiting the highest road in the state.

Where we were almost immediately turned around on Carlson Creek, Bone Creek was just the opposite and we continued to climb up into the hills for several miles, marveling at our ability to adapt, patting ourselves on the back. We were - you might say - counting our chickens.

And that seemed to be working just fine. We passed through several gates - some of them open and some not - without incident, none of them locked. We rejoined the original road/route about six miles in and then turned up towards the top of the first ridge we'd climb on our way to Steens. We summited that ridge and took in the views back towards the playa.

And then, our chickens bit back. Not 100 yards down the west side of the ridge - a locked gate for the Roaring Springs Ranch. The bummer was that the sign had a note that hunting (and thus travel) was sometimes allowed via written permission - which may have come with a key - but I'd not contacted them prior to the trip, so we were keyless, and now another hour+ behind schedule.

That's just part of the adventure though, so we turned around and headed back down. This had been our last hope of reaching Steens Mountain Loop on dirt, so it was time to air up, grab some fuel at Fields Station, and use the skinny pedal liberally to try and make up a bit of time.

My liberal use of the skinny pedal is apparently different than most, and so it was a little after 12:30pm when we finally arrived at Steens Mountain Loop and started up in earnest. We were both hungry at this point, and so only a few stops were made over the next 20 miles - for some wild horses and our first view of the snowy summit - just so we could put a few miles behind us before we stopped again!

Now, about 20 miles up the south side of the loop, there's a turn-off. This leads to the Riddle Brothers Ranch, and was something I'd thought we should do when I planned the trip. @mrs.turbodb had come to the same conclusion when reading her book - 100 Hikes / Travel Guide: Eastern Oregon - and we were glad to hear that it was open "from mid-June through October." It was October 12, so that was perfect.

Except that "through October" at the Riddle Brothers Ranch actually means "not through October," because a little more than a mile from the ranch, the gate was closed! We were batting 1.000 on the locked gates, that's for sure.

Luckily in this case there were plenty of signs inviting us to walk around and make the two-mile roundtrip on foot, so we ate a quick lunch and then got underway.

Almost immediately, we saw the first cabin. It belonged to Ben Riddle - the youngest of the bunch - who arrived in 1896 to make the ranch his home. His brothers - Walt and Fred - followed a few years later and worked the land, producing 150 tons of hay each year which was sold along with mules and horses to the U.S. Cavalry for WWI.

Though he was the youngest, Ben also was the first to die - of suicide in 1915 - after several bouts with depression. His brother Fred would continue to ranch the land until he was 82 (in 1952), the livestock changing from mules and horses to cattle after The War.

We continued down the Little Blitzen River towards Fred's house and the main ranch complex, the river a constant gurgle to our north, ice starting to creep further from its banks.

If Ben's cabin had been tiny and isolated, Fred's was anything but. Nicely constructed, he had several outbuildings, including a guest house, tack shop, and large barn - all of them in reasonably good condition now that the BLM has acquired the ranch and preserved much of what was left.

We took our time exploring.

A screened porch and small guest house made for some nice livin'.​

Table's set for the next meal in a reasonably well appointed kitchen.​

Don't miss the rest of the story, and all the remaining photos that don't fit here (due to max post size). Hopefully that can change in the future, but until then...

Keep reading the rest here
Unfinished Business #2 - Highest Truck in Oregon​

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[LocoX]

Rad photos and some crazy temperatures for early fall! We'll be in Northern NV and Eastern OR next month, probably going to freeze our balls off

 

[Superpanga]

Great write up and photos! Following with envy from the Northeast where we are missing, well, all this stuff. Added some of these vistas to my must-do list.

 

[deserteagle56]

The Steens and the Alvord are only a 2 hour drive from where I live and unfortunately, locked gates are getting to be more and more prevalent all around the area. Not only in the case of private landowners, but from government land managers as well. And that's because of the yahoos out there who will steal/destroy anything they can. We have a lot of remote cowboy line camps that at one time were in great shape and stocked with food and had a stove and bunk, etc. All are destroyed now by these human coyotes. Stoves stolen, windows shot out, interiors trashed. I have a good friend who has worked for the BLM for years...he tells me that if they have a remote cabin somewhere they have to gate it off and make people walk in - that's the only way they can keep the places from being destroyed. Hard to pack a stove out on your back! Plus, it seems that people who actually take the time to hike into a site are generally the type who take care of things, not destroy them.

As always, the actions of a few cause problems for all of us.

 

[turbodb]

Unfinished Business #3 - We Find Jessi Combs Last Track

The night wasn't quite as cold as the previous had been, but it was still well below freezing when I looked out the tent door to see an amazing glow on the horizon. Whether I liked it or not, I knew I was going to spend at least a few minutes out there as the light started to spread across the Alvord Playa - before hoping I wouldn't be in too much trouble for climbing back into bed to warm up again.

The cold had gotten to everyone overnight, which meant that they were either driven out of their tent early - like Nate @nateshrum - or remained bundled up as long as possible - ahem, Ben @m3bassman and Will @willhaman21. Regardless, by a little after 8:00am, everyone was up and moving about - the first look of the playa in the daylight, with Steens Mountain rising up behind it, understandably exciting for the newcomers.

Ben at some point decided to drive his truck around a bit - not all that fast though, so I'm not sure what he was really up to. Nor was Venice - his travel partner for the trip - as she took off after him rather than being left behind.

Though the Playa will heal itself over winter, this little display didn't go un-admonished by me. Though, I guess the front brakes are working just fine.​

Breakfast was the next order of business and while @mrs.turbodb and I had cereal and granola bars, Nate fired up his stove and put together what looked like a seriously tasty breakfast burrito for the rest of the crew. The three of them would end up cooking most meals together, which is something the groups I'm out with don't generally do, but seemed to work well - at least for the one day they were there! (And is not all that different than how we often do a group breakfast or two, now that I think about it.)

This was also the point where Nate pulled out his drone. This of course caused much ogling - since drones still seem reasonably rare - and if I'm honest, a bit of concern from my point of view. It's not that I don't like drones - I think they are pretty cool and you can do amazing things with them - but I didn't want a day full of stops to launch the drone, staging of the trucks for the perfect trailing shot, etc. - because we had plenty to keep us busy, and we'd be stopping enough for photos as it was. As it turned out, this wouldn't end up being an issue at all however, because the drone's SD card was MIA.

And with that, we set about the important - and frankly required - task of speeding across the dry lake bed. For anyone who hasn't been, it's hard to describe the surreal experience that racing across the playa provides. You're literally pushing your truck as fast as it'll go - and you can see the ground immediately around you racing by at 80+ mph - but all of the landmarks in the distance appear completely stationary. It is truly a bit disconcerting. And it's also a blast.

We spent a good hour - or more - making our way around and over various parts of the playa; our GPS track looked as though a toddler had been scribbling frantically with a large crayon - no rhyme or reason evident in our movement. But, we were on a mission - one that was ultimately a success. Just a couple months before - August 27th on this very playa - Jessi Combs [wikipedia] [jessicombs.com] had arrived to make an attempt at the women's land speed record. The previous record had been set here in 1976 - some 43 years earlier - by Kitty O'Neil. Driving the North American Eagle, Jessi Combs hoped to break that across the same ground. Unfortunately - in a tragic accident, she was unable to stop the jet car as it reached speeds over 550 mph on the playa, and she was killed in the aftermath.

All of our searching was to pay our respects. Eventually, in the south west corner of the playa, we found what we were looking for. Three distinct impressions of Jessi's final runs.

Making one more pass across the playa, we followed the tracks to their end in the north east corner. She'd used as much of the playa as she was able, on each of several runs. We milled around for a bit here at the end - taking in the views and wondering aloud about what had transpired - before eventually continuing on our way.

Now nearing noon, our next destination was surely easier to find. One of the most prominent land features of the playa, Big Sand Gap was formed when - during the Ice Age - this desert’s basin filled with a 30-mile-long lake. When the water finally spilled out, it did so here - at Big Sand Gap - launching a colossal flood that roared down the Snake and Columbia Rivers to the sea. With three additional trucks in tow this time, @mrs.turbodb and I also hoped it also led to redemption from our last trip.

Don't miss the rest of the story, and all the remaining photos that don't fit here (due to max post size). Hopefully that can change in the future, but until then...

Keep reading the rest here
Unfinished Business #3 - We Find Jessi Combs Last Track​

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[1leglance]

I have said it before and I will say it again...
Working the ICU during COVID the only way I keep my sanity is through your trip report writing and pics....
Please never stop traveling and posting

 

[TripLeader]

Great stuff, as always!

 

[hchdg]

Fantastic photos and write. Thank you!

 

[Regcabguy]

Ditto. Fantastic photos and write up of your adventures. Do it while you're young.

 

[michaeljh1965]

Wooooooooooooow, that's unbelievable!!! Very high quality photos!