June 15, 2025.
I love learning about acronyms that are used on public lands. BLM, USFS, NPS, WSA… I know all of these. But when I noticed ACEC on the map I had to look it up. As it turns out, ACEC stands for Area of Critical Environmental Concern. It’s a term used only by the BLM (Bureau of Land Management), which, according to the website, means: “public lands where special management is needed to protect important resources and unique scenic landscapes, or to protect people and property from hazards.” There’s not much more information on the official website, so I did a little more digging. I found out that it protects some rare plant species and interesting geological formations. That was all I needed to know to plan a visit.
The Black Hills ACEC has no official trails, just a parking area at the end of a dirt road. It’s in the middle of nowhere, the closest town being Christmas Valley. I was headed back to Bend from Crack-in-the-Ground with some friends, so we all took a detour on our way back home.
They were all game for some botanizing and exploration. We had all just gone on my first hike lead for the Native Plant Society of Oregon’s High Desert Chapter, so they were already primed to look for cool plants. It was nice to have several extra pairs of eyes to help me find flowers.
The road in was extra bumpy in the van, so I hopped out early. I already noticed some blooms along the road anyway and I didn’t want to miss anything. Erin joined me while Kevin kept Aaron company in the vehicle. We all met up at the parking lot.
I was glad I got out because I quickly found some plants that were on my radar, including Blue Mountain buckwheat, intermountain bedstraw and granite prickly phlox. We walked up the road to the parking area, where a sign explains why this place is special. It specifically mentions Cusick’s buckwheat and Hayden’s cymopterus (a.k.a. snowline springparsley), so I made it my goal to try and find these on my walk.
We looked around at the rock formations and each came up with a different path we wanted to walk. Aaron went left and the rest of us went right. We rambled around, keeping each other in sight, as we searched for flora. Occasionally one of us would call out and we’d reconvene to look at something . I’d use my Oregon wildflower app to try and identify it, then take a bunch of pictures. I did find plenty of buckwheat, but I couldn’t be certain that any of it was Cusick’s. Buckwheat can be tricky to identify, but I am working really hard to learn!
We did, however, locate a ton of the cymopterus, which is locally common. It had already gone to seed but its distinctive vegetation made it easy to identify.
I kept finding dried up bitterroot buds, so I switched my focus to finding a bitterroot flower. I knew my odds were low due to the location and time of year, but my quest led me on a real wild goose chase. In lieu of bitterroot, we found lots of beautiful blooming paintbrush, which I will never learn to identify.
We’d walked pretty far down a broad, rocky ridge. I occasionally got a text message from Aaron noting his current location, which was way up near the summit. I gave up on looking for bitterroot and turned the group around to meet up with Aaron. We got to scramble around some fun volcanic rock features and find a few new plants.
Once we were all back together, we crowded under a few shady juniper trees to eat lunch. Then, Aaron had something he wanted to show us.
While out on his solo ramble, he found a bird in a large nest. It was the biggest baby I’d ever seen: a golden eagle! Because of the varying elevations of the rock, we were able to get high enough to get a decent view of the raptor. What a beautiful and rare sight! We admired this creature for a few minutes, then made our way down a rocky chute back to the van.
The Black Hills ACEC is not a huge area, so you’d be hard pressed to get too lost. Even without trails, it’s easy to find some places to poke around. Even if all you did was walk along the approach road, you’d see several beautiful desert plants that would make it worth a visit. However, plan accordingly: desert plants have narrow bloom ranges and the weather can be quite harsh. Visiting in mid-June was pushing our luck a bit, but I think the wet spring helped extend the bloom time a bit later than normal.
To see my list of iNaturalist observations in this area, click here. To learn about how to join iNaturalist and start sharing your own observations, click here! This has been such a wonderful tool to help me understand the things I find on all my adventures, learn how to be a better plan (and animal) identifier and connect with other nature enthusiasts who are happy to share their knowledge. In world characterized by turmoil and chaos, this is a friendly and life-affirming place to spend time.