Category Archives: Four state parks tour 2015

Crater Lake: Wallowas edition

May 4, 2015.

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This was the last big stop on our spring roadtrip. We had no plan, except Aaron had never visited the Wallowas and he wanted to check it out. Although most of Oregon had a low snow year, the Wallowas seemed to still be buried in snow. Wanting to learn more about current conditions and access, we stopped into the Pine Field Office near Halfway in the southern part of the forest. This was the least heavily visited part of the much beloved Wallowas. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the rangers but we figured we’d give them a chance.

Much to my delight, there were two women working the desk: one young lady who first greeted us and seemed new to the job, and an older woman hiding in the back. The older woman emerged when she heard our long list of questions and she was incredibly helpful in answering them. She sounded like she was out on the roads and trails frequently (a rarity among rangers I’ve met at the ranger stations) and had decades of knowledge accumulated from working and living in the mountains. When we said we wanted to climb up to see some views, she pointed us to the East Eagle trailhead. After describing the best driving route, she explained that the Little Kettle Creek trail would lead us up a bunch of switchbacks to an amazing view of the mountains. We could stop and turn around at any point, but we surely couldn’t take the trail all the way to Crater Lake due to the snow.

Challenge accepted, ranger.

When we arrived at the trailhead, Aaron got packed up for a 6-mile hike. In my head, I’d already decided that we were going to press on through the snow to find the lake. I hadn’t shared that little tidbit of information yet.

As I packed up for a 12-mile snow adventure, I broke the news to him. I rarely see Aaron put on a grumpy face, but I sure was treated to one today. I said, “well, we’ll see how far we feel like going,” knowing that I was hell-bent on making it to the lake.

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Off we went, up a steep, dirt track that seemed to lead to nowhere. “What the…?” Already we were bushwhacking and confused. After some mucking around, we found the actual start of the trail and began hiking up.

The trail climbed, and climbed, and climbed up a series of steep switchbacks. We huffed and puffed for breath and quickly warmed up. As we ascended, we began to get views of the beautiful mountaintops. I knew it would be worth it. I still don’t think Aaron was convinced. He charged up ahead, I could barely keep up. My lungs were straining, my legs not cooperating. I felt totally off today.

As we silently walked through the forest, we were startled by a pair of equally startled elk. We saw their huge backsides as they bounded out of view. I don’t think either of us had come so close to elk in the forest. I thought maybe that would help win Aaron over.

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Eventually we left the bare ground behind and began to cross larger and larger patches of snow. Aaron was at least prepared with his Yaktrax; mine were buried in the car somewhere. I slipped and slid right behind him as we continued up the snow. All signs of the trail disappeared, and we switched to navigation by geographic features and the map. At the bottom of a basin, it was not entirely clear which way to go, and where exactly we would find the lake. So we took a gamble and committed to climbing up a wide snow ramp to a nice viewpoint.

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From there, we peered down on what looked like a body of water. We both said: is that the lake? Are we done? But we both thought: that’s definitely not the lake. Tired from all our snow slogging, we regrouped and made a plan. According to the book, the lake should have been about a quarter mile past the ponds. We could do that. We kept going.

[pe2-image src=”https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-N6Xs3YIOyQc/VfgzuQRkLpI/AAAAAAAA1tU/aTk6hcjvaJg/w2432-h466-no/pano%2Blake.JPG” href=”https://plus.google.com/photos/+JessBeauchemin/albums/6194755718959291441/6194758157183757970?pid=6194758157183757970&oid=109516212630889763066″]It was the longest quarter mile in history, but we emerged from the trees to gaze upon a large, snow-covered lake. A ring of bright blue snow melt encircled the lake. It was stunning. I dropped my pack to explore, take pictures, and soak in the experience. It was worth every step.

As we turned to retrace our snowy footprints back to the trail, we relaxed a bit and settled into a comfortable pace. Crossing the rocky plateau, we stopped in our tracks when we heard rockfall. I scanned the cliffs above us and saw…goats! There was a herd of mountain goats tooling around on the rocks. We watched them for a bit, wishing we had binoculars. So far it was one of our best animal sighting days!

[pe2-image src=”https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-ppBhywcitY0/VfgyzbAmHtI/AAAAAAAA1oY/5HlA9McVw1c/w1816-h1362-no/goats.JPG” href=”https://plus.google.com/photos/+JessBeauchemin/albums/6194755718959291441/6194757146453090002?pid=6194757146453090002&oid=109516212630889763066″]Walking downhill was a dream. We could really enjoy the scenery around us. We hadn’t seen a human all day. Hiking in solitude, in one of the most picturesque places in Oregon, turned out to be an incredible last chapter in a memorable trip. I am so grateful to have a partner who is always up for a crazy adventure, who is adaptable, willing to walk forever in the woods, and willing to drive long distances just to find our own quiet piece of the world.

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Twin Falls, Idaho and Bruneau Dunes

Perrine Bridge

Our first real stop was the iconic Perrine Bridge, where BASE jumpers from all over the world come to take a leap. It’s one of the only places where it’s legal to do so without a permit. Just upstream from the bridge, the daredevil Evel Knievel tried to jump across the river in his “skycycle.” While he didn’t make the jump, he survived the crash with just a broken nose to show for it. And now, his unbelievable attempt is recorded forever in the Idaho Gazeteer with a spaceship-car hybrid marking the location of his jump. I thought, if I was a map-maker, what might I try to sneak into a map…?

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The bridge itself was beautiful. We walked to a viewpoint of the bridge, then stopped inside the Visitor’s Center, a modern building with big windows and interpretive signs about the area. There was a little gift shop as well as a wall full of pamphlets outlining nearby attractions. Lucky for us, there was also a little cart full of free ice cream cups from the folks at Coldstone Creamery. It was some sort of promotional thing, a delicious, delicious, promotional thing. Even without the ice cream, this would have been a worthwhile stop.

Caldron Linn

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There is one type of map symbol that always grabs my attention: Unique Natural Feature. This symbol looks like a fan with four blades (see above map) and it corresponds to a key in the front of the book that gives a name and a short description of the feature. One feature that I wanted to see on our drive through Twin Falls was called Caldron Linn. Or Cauldron Linn, depending on what you’re reading. It took some sleuthing to find driving directions to this place. Even the fact sheet at the Visitor’s Center said “inquire locally for directions.” It seemed weird that this place was right outside a major city and its whereabouts were sketchy. I really wanted to go there, and really hoped it wouldn’t be another Pillars of Rome situation.

We found the place without much trouble, although we definitely should not have driven down the last section of steep, scary dirt road. We arrived unscathed and tumbled out of the car to see what this was all about.

The description was something like “a raging fury of churning water that cast early explorers to their deaths as they attempted foolishly to travel downriver.” That’s absolutely not a quote but that’s what I was picturing in my mind as we walked towards the river. Funny, we couldn’t even hear any rushing water.

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The river was eerily low, which made for a mediocre waterfall but gave us an interesting look at the rocks that are usually covered by water. The bleached white rock looked like a jumble of dinosaur bones piled up on shore. Water pooled in cavities that were bored down into the rock by a more vigorous flow in times past. Lizards sunned on the rock and birds chattered away in the sagebrush. While I was sad that I didn’t get to see the river in its most dramatic state, I still enjoyed the diversion and adventure off the main road.

Shoshone Falls

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I should not have expected anything different on our next waterfall stop. But, Shoshone Falls was nicknamed the Niagara of the West, so it had a bit more credibility than our little Cauldron. We stopped at the falls around lunch time, eager to get out of the car and have a nice little picnic. During our visit to this oversold attraction, the water levels were pretty low, and so it was a pretty disappointing stop. The falls were pretty, but they didn’t earn their nickname and certainly didn’t need to command the crowds that were swirling around us. We got our obligatory couples photo and ducked out of there.

The nearby park was also overrun with visitors but we found a spot on the grass where we could lay out our picnic spread and stretch our legs a bit. Today felt like a lot of driving. It was nice to just hang out and not feel like we had to get somewhere fast. We wanted to experience the last stop of the day after dark, so we were in no rush to get there.

Bruneau Dunes

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By the time we rolled in to Bruneau Dunes, nearly all the campsites were taken. There were just a handful left in the Equestrian Camp just outside the main park, so we took it. Like Great Basin National Park, Bruneau Dunes boasted of its spectacular night sky program. They even had an observatory with a huge telescope that was open to the public on the weekends. So, we set up camp, made dinner and waited for the sun to go down.

When we finally made it over to the observatory, there were a bunch of people milling around. We got there late. It was dark, we didn’t know what was going on, and it took us a while to figure out how to pay. We dutifully stood in line to wait for our turn to look through the telescopes that were set up outside. Then, we waited in the longest line, the one at the big telescope, just to see a fuzzy cluster of stars half a zillion miles away. Yawn.

What I really wanted to do was hike the dunes under a starlit sky. So we grabbed our backpacks out of the car and set off on what we hoped was the trail we wanted, angling for the dunes.

When I planned this in my head, I imagined it would be like our night hike in Death Valley. But as I am noticing now, my images of reality don’t always match actual reality.

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The Bruneau Dunes are an interesting phenomenon. They sit in the center of a semicircular basin, with winds blowing pretty evenly from all sides so they don’t move very much. At the foot of the 400-foot high dunes is a pair of lakes that formed only a few decades ago, after the water table rose due to changes in irrigation practices nearby. At the edge of the lakes, as one might guess, was a tangle of shrubs, grasses, trees, and other water-loving vegetation. That made finding our way to and from the dunes extra challenging.

Once we broke free of the plant life, we began hiking straight up the steep side of one of the big dunes. Right foot forward, slide back, left foot, slide… and on and on. At one point the dune ridge got so steep we had to crawl and monkey walk sideways just to keep going. It was exhausting work. In daylight, perhaps, we could have found a better route. But, we did the best we could.

Clouds covered large patches of sky for most of the night. Occasionally the moonlight would break through a gap in the clouds.

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After we walked the entire length of the ridge, we happily ran down the side of the dune and headed for the lake. That was the best part. The worst part was trying to navigate a braided mess of user trails leading every which way through the thick, lakeside vegetation. Eventually we stumbled out on the other side of the water and made our way to a road that led back to the car. Mission accomplished.

In the morning we took a quick drive through of the park to see what it looked like in daylight. It was very pretty, and the dunes were scarred with mobs of tourists hauling their children and sand-boards up the hills. Glad we did the park by night.

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Next up: Eastern Oregon. The grand parks tour was coming, sadly, to a close.

Silver Island Mountains

Bonneville Salt Flats

We arrived at the salt flats after a long day of driving. A work crew was setting up a huge tent for some event that was happening the next day (we never found out what it was). But the Wikipedia page mentioned that the Bonneville Salt Flats hosted several races, movie shoots and other events year-round. We parked past the tent-raising and walked out onto the salt. It felt good to stand up after being driven around all day long. Shallow pools of water collected in some parts of the salt flats, which seemed unusual. We carefully walked around on the hard and surprisingly uneven ground, looking for interesting salt formations. We’d been spoiled by the intricate salt statues in Death Valley a few years ago, so this place seemed pretty ho-hum in comparison.

A night under the stars

It was getting to be dinner time and we needed to find a place to camp so we headed to the scenic byway encircling the Silver Island Mountains. It was all BLM land; we just needed to find a nice spot to pitch a tent.

And that we did. We found someone’s old fire ring just a little ways off the main road and decided to stop there for the night. We had an elegant meal of roasted asparagus and Dinty Moore Beef Stew. A camping classic. The dramatic sunset over the mountains behind us made it worth all the day’s driving. Although we could see the traffic buzzing by on highway 80 far off in the distance, it felt as if we were sitting in a remote getaway.

Volcano Peak

The next morning, we awoke to a spectacular sunrise and then headed off to our first destination: Volcano Peak. We did our best to follow the description of the drive to the recommended route, stopping a few yards short due to rough road conditions. The climb was straightforward: follow a gully to a ridge, stay to the left, and then head straight up from there. It took us less than 45 minutes from car to summit. The mountain was made up of interesting rocks with streaks of colorful minerals. We poked around for a few minutes until I stopped in my tracks.

SHEEP!

I yelled over to Aaron. Two bighorn sheep were standing on a ledge just below me. The mother sheep’s eyes locked with mine as her tiny baby bounced around her feet. The baby was adorable; the mother terrifying. We watched them as they held their ground on the ledge, and then they decided to retreat to a safer place elsewhere on the mountain. They remained visible from our summit perch, so we spent the next half hour watching them do their sheep thing.

It was so quiet up there. Never had 45 minutes of work felt so rewarding. But, we had one more peak to go, so eventually we took our parting shots and tromped back to the car.

Rishel Peak

Next in line was Rishel Peak. We could see it clearly from Volcano Peak, but it was less clear where the Summitpost author wanted us to start this next route. We made our best guess, parked the car adjacent to a rough dirt road, and started walking. All we had to do was get close enough, pick a good line, and head up the mountain. Out here, routefinding was easy. You could see the entire lay of the land from nearly every point on the land. There were no silly trees in the way.

There was evidence of human activity along the way. Old, rusty bits of metal, broken glass, and other items lay on the desert floor, cast away decades ago. But we didn’t see any other humans out here. There were plenty of lizards to keep our attention. They were fast, scurrying away quickly when we got anywhere near them.

This route was much more of a gradual climb. We wandered across a flat, brushy plain, then snaked up a broad ridge punctuated with rocky outcrops. Eventually we popped up on the main summit ridge and followed it until we couldn’t go up anymore. Views were killer, just like on top of Volcano. In our poking around we found some old telegraph wire and wondered what the stories this peak held. The clouds seemed to be thickening and turning grayer, so we descended with the intention to move a bit more quickly. They never turned into storm clouds, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

The scenic byway

The Silver Island Mountains Scenic Byway is a 54-mile loop of rough dirt road that loops around the Silver Island Mountain range. Aaron wanted to drive the whole loop, so we loaded up some podcasts and hit the road.

The scenery was stunning, of course. Each section of the drive had a slightly different perspective of the area. We got great views of Pilot Peak, just across the border in Nevada. We also eyeballed all the other mountains in the range we didn’t get to climb: Graham, Tetzlaff, Cobb, Jenkins, and others. Next time we head to Salt Lake…

The road just went on and on. Along the way we passed a couple of road signs indicating that we were crossing the Hastings Cutoff on the California Trail. This was where the Donner Party took a tragically long short-cut that ended up getting them stuck in winter storms in the Sierra. We marveled at just how harsh the life of the pioneers must have been, munched on some chocolate covered almonds and turned up the AC.

That night we headed for the border. We drove through the little casino town of Wendover, NV and started north for Idaho, with the intention of camping somewhere on BLM land. Somehow we got talking about hot tubs and buffets and decided to book a room in the next casino border town. There was only one room left on this Friday night and we grabbed it. We gorged ourselves on crab legs and other buffet goodies, and got one hell of a night’s sleep on an actual bed, the first we’d laid on in weeks.

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