WatershedEvents

WALKING TO MULESHOE

On August 11th I had a "small" stroke and temporarily lost control of most of the muscles on my left side. Luckily, recovery was amazingly fast. Within a matter of hours almost all my fine motor skills had returned, and within 36 hours I was back home, hard at work getting back to pre-stroke condition. Things went well - until August 27th, when I had a second stroke, this one much more serious. Again it was the left side that felt the bulk of the attack. It took almost 72 hours for me to gain enough motor control and balance to head home, and even then I required the use of a walker in order to simply move around the house. 

For a few days it was not clear how many of my pre-stroke abilities might be reoverable. But I was lucky a second time, as no permanent damage apears to have taken place. The difficulties I experienced with speech and fine motor skills in the first couple days are well behind me, and I've made a great deal of physical and mental progress in a surprisingy short period of time - I was discharged from Saint Peters Just under seven weeks ago. I'm up to over a mile walking a day, can operate the riding lawn mower properly (including emptying the bags when they are full), and feel safe eough to drive on back roads with Kitty as copilot. My flute playing is better than ever.

Still, It will be quite some time before I am back to pre-stroke levels of strength, coordination, and stamina. It's the stamina part that may prove to be the most difficult to win back; right now even small efforts can leave me a little winded and wobbly in the knees. Tackling that problem will require a lot of self-discipline and hard work. I'm into my second month of a fairly aggressive physical therapy program supervised by the same specialist who worked with me on my right shoulder a couple years. We were very successful with that therapy, and I expect we'll be equally successful with the task at hand. 

Something I learned the very first time I had physical therapy - in an extremely successful program aimed at sparing me a knee operation - was how much it helps to have a clear objective in mind. That first time around, my goal was to be able to hop from rock to rock along a trail without falling down or breaking an ankle or a leg. That may sound simple enough, but it took over six months and a lot of hard work, a suite of exercises, and buckets of sweat to acheive that goal. 

This time around, I have another simple goal - I want to be able to go tent camping with one or more of my children before I turn 78. That's just a little less than a year from now, and to make that deadline I will need to get my body into a lot better shape. A lot of the work involved will center on walking, and that's where the idea of "Walking to Muleshoe" comes in. 

Muleshoe Campground is a BLM site on the banks of the John Day RIver in Oregon. I've been camping there since the summer of 1996. I like to use it as a sort of home base whenever I visit the Sutton Mountain WIlderness, the Painted Hills, and other attractions in that general area. I'd like to get back there for a few days sometime next summer. It's almost exactl 289 miles from my front door to the tent pad at Space #6 in the park. (I prefer that site above all others, and only three times out of dozens of trips have I ever had to camp in another space.)

I'm fortunate to live in a neighborhood where walking is safe and fun, not to mention very invigorating. There are areas where its possible to walk on soft surfaces - dirt and grass -as well as pavement; and every mile-long walk involves an elevation change of at least 200 feet.There is also a good trail through some beautiful woods that leads into Mclane Creek Natural Area. Beyond that lies a huge network of steep and rugged trails through great stands of conifers. I'll use these resources and others to walk my way back to Muleshoe.

My watch tells me that I put in 3.22 miles today - Only 285.78 miles to go!  

 

Buddy and the Beaver

Evenings at Mule Shoe, after dinner, Buddy and I meander down to the boat launch, his favorite drinking hole. I had a telephoto on this particular evening and hoped to get a shot of a beaver I'd seen working the opposite bank the night before. The shot of Buddy was basically an exposure test, so once I saw that I was on target, I redirected the lens up stream for a longer shot. Almost the instant I turned away, however, I heard a racket at water's edge. As I turned to look I caught a glimpse of buddy scrambling way up the bank; frightened half to death by a beaver that apparently swam up to him while he was drinking, and then slapped his tail on the water right next to his head.

The Beaver seemed oblivious to my presence and swam around for a minute or two, before finally coming to rest in the shallows.

After a few minutes of sitting and grooming, Mr. Beaver slid back into the water and headed off to attend to other business.

 

 

Sutton Mountain Surprises

I was able to get away to the John Day River Basin last week - five days/four nights. I pitched camp at Mule Shoe, my usual preference. Much of my hiking was in that immediate area (more on those hikes in a later post). But I drove over to the Sutton Mountain WSA twice and crawled up a couple creek beds that meander out of the north slopes of the site. Cougar Creek was first on my list. I almost never go over to the Basin without stopping by that creek. This trip in the weather wasn't all that pretty, but I managed to get a shot or two I'm happy with. 

Along toward the end of the hike I came across a strange material occurring in considerable quantity all along the face of one of the lighter colored ash deposits. I'll keep working on the details associated with this post so that someday I may provide more specific information regarding which John Day ash group this particular formation is most closely related to. But, for the time being I'd like some help on figuring out just what the heck this blue stuff is. at 1:1 the diameter of the assemblage on the left is about 20mm. Note the tiny specks of blue all over the surface of the ash.

My best guess is the blue material is a type of lichen that is very common in this area. The white material that appears to be embedded in the surface is most likely specs of the silicates that are so prevalent in the ash itself. But I am not sure of any of that, so input would be deeply appreciated.

SAFE SOLITUDE

Condon Canyon, Oregon. 

Occasionally I battle with a strong urge to wander. When this urge hits I suddenly feel compelled to strike off across a landscape that is full of sharp corners, generally devoid of significant vegetation, and visited regularly by bad weather. A few places come to mind: Owyhee Country; Steens Mountain; the John Day Basin.

Oddly enough the timing of these urges seems to coincide closely with what are otherwise periods of unadulterated bliss. Such was the case coming into the end of September, when the urge suddenly wrapped its tentacles around my brain and began to squeeze the comfort out of my days. I fought back for a time, but one day my wife looked at me and asked, in effect, what was eating me. I’ve always worn my emotions on my sleeve. We talked for a while and then she said, “All I worry about is that you insist on doing this kind of thing alone. Isn’t there someone you could go with?”

The short answer is “Probably not.” Truth is, the only people I’ve ever truly enjoyed hiking with are family members. But too often their schedules don’t mesh well with mine. And as much as I love hiking with them, sometimes even they drive me crazy. “What’s the hurry?” I want to ask. I might go no more than three strides before I see something that brings me to a dead stop and rivets my attention. They, meanwhile, are striding along like one of Patton’s soldiers and before you know it they’ve disappeared around a bend. Left to myself, I average about a mile an hour over reasonably smooth ground; they clock in at 3.0 or better.

On October 7th I headed off for Mule Shoe, a small BLM campground located on the John Day River a few miles west of Spray, Oregon. (Solo, I didn’t even bring the dog.) I like to stay at this campground for three simple reasons: first, it’s almost always possible to park the pop-up in my favorite site; second, it is centrally located between Sutton Mountain and Sheep Rock, areas where I generally prefer to hike; and third, the toilet is invariably well-maintained. (Whatever else the BLM may do, it manages to maintain toilets better than any other governmental agency I’ve ever encountered.)

This reach of the river is a few hundred yards downstream from the camp. It isn’t particularly scenic by John Day standards, but I love it. I’ve caught quite a few small mouth bass here over the years, but never a rainbow or steelhead.

The river was down far enough to expose a fault in the bedrock I had never noticed before. I thought for a moment I had stumbled upon the fossilized backbone of a large critter. But it's simply an artifact of multiple geologic forces meeting in a common area.

That first night a full moon came up just as the last rays of the sun were vanishing.

Finding a safe place to hike turned out to be a bit of a challenge. I had overlooked the fact that it was deer hunting season. Most of the gullies and pull offs along the river had one or more pickup trucks parked in them, indicating that further up the slope a deer hunter was itching to bag a buck. I finally settled on an area that is adjacent to the Sheep Rock Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds. The first mile of the trail follows an old dirt road running south-southeast from where Highway 19 crosses the river.  At one point it splits into two routes. The south fork leads towards Sheep Rock and the Cant Ranch. I took the east fork and headed deeper into the hills just below Windy Point, a 4500 foot peak that along with Middle Mountain, dominates the area. The road faded into the open countryside about a quarter mile further on.

I tend to tread heavy when I’m in the bush, a habit I picked up early in life. Walking hard cuts down on the number of close-up animal sightings, but it also cuts down significantly on the number of rattle snakes encountered. Even so, I was able to jump a herd of elk. I had no time to change lenses but still managed to get a long range shot of some of them once they got far enough away to feel safe.

My route took me past quite a few stand-out, solitary junipers like this berry covered beauty.

It’s funny how perspective changes everything. I’ve visited the Cant ranch and the nearby Paleo Center a dozen times. Sheep Rock rises over both like a monument; but this shot, taken looking south from the bench below Windy Point, makes its sharp point seem like a relatively insignificant bump.

I continued east through the area until I ran into a fence line, then headed north until I ran into another one. These mark the boundary between public land and the Long View Ranch. I’m not big into trespassing, especially when I know the owner is serious about prosecuting interlopers. Accordingly, I headed west along the bottom of what I think is called Deer Gulch. The way in was steep and deep and after a few hundred yards I decided to get out while I still had a chance. Scrambling solo over broken boulders is very risky business. (Scale note: The juniper bush standing at the bottom of the gap is about 8 feet tall.)

I’ll be going back to this gulch at my very first opportunity. And if I can round up someone to go with me, I'll try my luck at going up along the creek bed and back along the rim.

I spent the morning of the next (and last) day of my short outing by exploring Holmes Creek Road, a well maintained gravel road that runs east off of Highway 19. The junction is about 15 miles north of the Cant Ranch. There are numerous sections of public land along both sides of the road, some of them several square miles in overall area. The road rises from the river (1920 ft) and tops out on a broad mesa almost exactly a mile high. By noon I was tired of driving, so I parked near a pair of dried up stock ponds and set off in a southwesterly direction toward the rim of the mesa. Less than a quarter mile into my hike I chanced upon a wild horse. The moment I made a move to my get a longer lens out of my pack, he was off like a shot. Still, this was pretty close quarters where wild horses are concerned and I felt pretty privileged to be able to study him for a few minutes, even at this distance.

I reached my intended destination about three hours out – a small jumble of broken basalt at the tip of a long,narrow ridge that afforded a decent view and little solitude. I hunkered down for a half hour or so, drinking the last of my tepid coffee and crunching away on a pack of Keebler’s peanut butter filled cheese crackers while I studied my surroundings.

Before I left I practiced a little of what I am now calling “Safe Solitude.” My kids gave me a wonderful little device awhile back. “Spot” it’s called and it can send out a variety of information to preselected phone numbers and emails. Including 911, if it ever came to that. I turned it on and a minute or two later it sent off my coordinates and a preset text to let my wife and kids know that all was well and that I was having a great time.

The next day I headed north along the John Day Highway, making my way home using a route I first traveled more than 20 years ago. Just after the highway crosses Thirty Mile Creek it passes through a canyon (Condon Canyon) that has long held my interest.  This trip I finally stopped long enough to grab a shot of the area.

I think next trip out I will try to find out who owns the land along the highway and get permission to take a little walk.  along a nearby feature named The Devil’s Backbone.

My Summer Vacation (Good as it Gets Department)

Daughter Erica stalks a slow moving snag in the uplands near Cougar Creek on Sutton Mountain. Dig the colors.

Earlier this year I set out to spend some special time with as many members of my family as possible. My goal was to have at least four days of uninterrupted "We time" with them sometime between May and September. Given that I have three children and four grandchildren, scheduling, organizing and conducting that many days of quality time turned out to be a major challenge. In the end I managed to get to all of them, except for Aaron, my son, and Jane - my youngest granddaughter. (We will make up for that next summer, date and locale to be determined.) In addition to spending time with the kids/grandkids, I also managed to get in some quality camping time with my wife, Kitty. Here are some photos and captions that will give you a sense of how wonderful it all turned out to be. 

MAY - Erica (my oldest) and I spent a few glorious days at Muleshoe on the John Day River. Maybe the highlight of the trip was our hike up Cougar Creek - an intermittent stream that runs out of Sutton Mountain's northern foothill

The colors and textures in this area are wonderful. 

We also spent some time in the Umatilla National Forest where we encountered this little beauty. I think it might be a variety of penstemon, but I'm not sure. It wasn't 4" tall! If someone could help me with a positive ID it would be deeply appreciated.

JUNE (early) - Mule Shoe again, but this time with my wife, Kitty. We had planned to go to Nehalem, one of our favorite beaches; but the weather there was so poor we decided at the last minute to look in on the John Day Basin.

It was Kitty's first trip, and I wasn't sure how she'd find it. The good news is she loved it and I am sure she will be back. Part of the draw will be the wildflowers.

JUNE (late) - My youngest daughter, Ellen, and I haven't been camping together since she was six or so. Mule Shoe seemed like a good choice because we had only a four day window. It was on this trip that she let me know (officially) that she is pregnant and due in Februrary. This is the greatest news any granddad can hear, of course, and it made my summer even better than I would ever have imagined it could be. Mostly we fished because morning sickness made serious hiking and eating a non-starter. So long as she didn't have to bait a hook or gut a fish, she was OK.

JULY (early) - Quinn, my oldest grandson is 8 years old and already a John Day veteran. He can handle the terrain and heat as well as anyone. But this year we decided to beat that heat, at least a little, and went to Newberry National Monument. What a great decision! Below, a shot of Quinn on the east slope (7900 foot level) on Paulina Peak.

These days we travel in style. Here's Q in his "quarters."

One of the coolest things we encountered on our various hikes was this tree. Look carefully at the crown - that's ice up there in the very top, believe it or not.

 JULY (late) - For the last few years I've been able to have both Chloe and Jake (my son's kids) stay with me for a week during the summer. This year we hit a bad bubble in the weather - check out that hoody on Chloe...must have been in the mid 60s that day. Still, the flying was great!

When the weather improved we spent quality time looking for crawdads in Fanno Creek. They were so in-tune with this place that I wish we could have stayed all day.

AUGUST (early) - My sons-in-law (Craig and Matt) on their way back from a long hike up Little Indian Canyon on Steens Mountain. (For more photos of this trip GO HERE.)

I'm putting together a separate blog on that particular trip because it was such an amazing five days.

AUGUST (late) - Kitty and I finally made it to Nehalem. Just missed some good weather and ended up cutting it short for lack of sun and decent temps. Still, Nehalem on a bad day is generally better than most other places at their best.