Nature – Page 21

June 6, 2021June 5, 2021

An Ancient Lake Bed

A recent post described our trip to Abert Lake. This week we explore a bit farther East to another ancient lake bed and the fault-block mountain beside it.

Warner Valley is covered by a chain of lakes with marsh land between.

At the end of the last ice age the Warner Valley was filled with water and it’s slopes lined with tropical forests. Today this is desert marsh land among a string of small lakes at the foot of Hart Mountain and it’s National Antelope Refuge.

Like Summer and Abert Lakes to the west and Malheur to the north this 60 mile stretch of shallow lakes and wetlands is a lure for migrating birds. On this mid-June day there is still some winter runoff filling lake beds that will mostly be dry in just a few months.

We love the wide open spaces of Oregon’s High Desert. You can see forever and weather continually changes the landscape.

We head south on Hwy 31 toward Lakeview and the Nevada Border. About 30 miles north of Lakeview we turn East and head for Plush, OR, which sits on the Southern end of Warner Valley. From here you can look across the valley to Hart Mountain and the 420 square mile antelope refuge that sits atop it

The remote Warner Valley is bound by high escarpment walls.

Spring brings a burst of wildflowers to the rocky landscape and new growth to the sage. From Plush you go along the northern edge of Hart Lake and then skirt the eastern side of marsh lands around Anderson and Swamp Lakes.

We climb 3,600 feet above the valley floor.

At the edge of Upper Campbell Lake we turn East and start up Hart Mountain to the refuge headquarters. It’s a pretty steep climb from the valley floor to the headquarters site.

At the first switch back there’s a short hike loop that runs along the canyon edge and offers spectacular views up and down the valley.

Amid the scatter of rock and sage is a variety of paintbrush and other small desert blooms.

Out here you don’t want to be without a hard copy of the route.

There is a standing rule in our adventure plans that we don’t return by the same route. So, from the headquarter station we turn north again and across the flat plateau atop Hart Mountain. Eventually this gravel track puts us on the western edge of the Steens Range at Frenchglen and the southern part of the Malheur Refuge. From here the loop is completed via Burns and Highway 20 west to Bend.

May 30, 2021May 29, 2021

Desert color

A field of arrow-leaf balsamroot in the John Day Basin

As the winter snows recede our weekly explorations take us to more distant places. The high desert, typically painted in dusty tones, is a deep green hue. Sage and desert grasses are taking advantage of the available water with a spring growth spurt. Mixed in this lush carpet are spots of color.

Spring Basin Wilderness home to rare desert wildflowers

Desert blooms are often tiny little flowers that show themselves for a few weeks in the spring. The week’s adventures allowed for the capture of a wide variety of desert fauna.

Yellow daisies line the road as we climb the east face of the Sutton Mountains.

We found desert paintbrush while hiking the Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge

Looking at the Warner Valley below you can see the transition from lakes and wetlands, to grasslands and sage steppe. Spring is a great time to explore the greening of Oregon’s high desert.

May 23, 2021May 21, 2021

A Fishing Story

Casting a dry fly near Trout Creek Campground

The Deschutes River collects runoff from the cascade range and carries it through high desert plains, irrigated farm lands, and basalt canyons. Fifty miles from its mouth at the Columbia River, the city of Maupin sits on its bank. Just downriver from there are numerous BLM campsites that offer a fisher wade access, though it is prime driftboat water. Since moving to Central Oregon we spend less time fishing this section of the river, or more to the point, we’re more selective in the times we go there.

In the spring we make a trip to catch the Stonefly hatch. This aquatic insect spends most of it’s life as a nymph burrowed in the river rock, but as water temperatures warm these exceptionally large bugs (three inches) start moving. They are headed toward the river’s edge and masses of the nymphs tumble along the streams bottom.

At this stage weighted stonefly imitations are very effective at attracting large rainbow trout.

It’s the transformation of nymph to insect that also changes the fishing from a wet fly swing to dry fly presentations. The stonefly crawls out of the water and up a stalk of grass and shucks the exoskeleton. It will go through a dozen or more of these ‘instars’ but it’s the last metamorphosis, on dry land, that produces a double winged insect with a distinctive orange body.

The stonefly lives only a couple of days and in that short period it mates, flies over the river, and deposits eggs back into the river. It is at this point where the cycle is reset and fish gorge themselves on spent stoneflies.

A dry fly presentation rarely misses and often nets big fish.

The presence of stoneflies in a river is usually an indicator of good water quality.

The stonefly hatch lasts just weeks but makes for memorable days on the river. While there are always a lot of anglers along the Deschutes, especially now, we’ve found that Trout Creek and South Junction are excellent places to gain access to the stream.

We’re a few miles upstream from Maupin, river levels are lower and wading is easier. By next week the hatch will have slowed or stopped and we’ll be looking for some other bug to imitate as we mark calendars for next year’s outing.

May 16, 2021May 13, 2021

Summer Flights

Maybe you noticed the increase in birds around your house. The spring migration is in full flight and millions of birds (222 million last night) were making their way north. It’s the perfect time to see species that don’t typically nest in your area.

Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge is a a major layover spot on the pacific flyway. As regular readers of this blog know we make frequent visits to the refuge, most of which are timed to take advantage of seasonal migrations.

This week we returned to Summer Lake, a second time, to check on the late spring migrators

We found a summer resident, the Red-winged Blackbirds, were already staking claim to cattail patches and singing mating songs.

A pair of Great Egrets were poking around in the reeds and a huge flock of Pelicans were gathered on a pond.

Some Black-necked Stilts were still around, but not nearly as many as last visit.

The new species, for us, were Caspian Terns who seemed to be hunting as they skimmed over the water heads down.

Two other shore birds we’d not seen in pervious trips but got pix of this time were White-faced Ibis and Long-billed Curlew.

Like Stilts, these are waders with long beaks however, they are much larger. Unlike the stilts they were tucked into the reeds and much more difficult to get a good look at or frame for a photo.

This is likely our last trip to Summer Lake until fall. There are too many other adventures to fit in, plus the refuge’s inhabitants are already started to shift from visitors to the regulars.

May 9, 2021May 6, 2021

Ancient Lake

Crystallized minerals encrust rocks along the lakeshore. This is Lake Abert, a remote saltwater lake in Oregon’s high desert … and it is disappearing.

A recent Oregon Natural Desert Assoc. (ONDA) Zoom lecture made us aware of a spot we’d been near but never by and offered the perfect day trip. This week we headed to Lake Abert.

At the end of the last ice age the melting glaciers created the 460 square mile fresh water Lake Chewaucan. Then over a 2 million year span, the Pleistocene epoch, the water slowly receded and as it dried up alkali and salt deposits were left. Summer lake and Lake Abert, some 20 miles apart are the remnants of that lake. Abert is a relatively shallow endorheic (no outlet) basin that holds a saltwater lake.

We drove the indirect route via the Christmas Valley Highway (County 5-14). Cutting north off OR 31 at Fort Rock and then east to the town of Christmas Valley.

The Christmas Valley Highway takes us across a high desert plain of scrub and sage. There are patches of land with hay crops and cattle herds but without irrigation the land is sage brush on high desert sand.

OR 395 skirts the edge of Lake Abert and the Abert Rim. Numerous pull-outs provide a chance to view wildlife. There is no food, gas or lodging nearby.

We didn’t see bighorn sheep, but did spot several bald eagles.

At OR 395 we turn south and head toward Paisley OR. We are on the western edge of a fault scarp that raises to 2500 feet, topped with 800 feet of basalt.

This is the Abert Rim, home to Big Horn sheep (transplants from Hart Mountain) and a national hang gliding competition.

On the other side of OR 395 is the rocky shore of Lake Abert – Oregon’s only saltwater lake.

We hiked down to take a closer look. Lake Abert is the largest saline lake in the Pacific Northwest and one of the most important shorebird habitats in the intermountain west.

Humans have been living here for at least 11,000 years. Archeological surveys have identified more than thirty prehistoric sites some with round stone house pits, domestic artifacts, petroglyphs, and pictographs. there are no signs or markers to identify the historic district.

While some of the house pits and petroglyphs are close to the highway, there are no signs or markers to identify them as a way to protect the fragile sites.

We saw very few shore birds. By the end of this summer Lake Abert will likely be dry.

Abert was once a major stop on the migration of 3.5 million shore birds.

It’s saline waters offered a perfect ecology for brine shrimp and alkali flys, but no fish.

The high concentrations of sodium and alkali can be seen in the mineral crusts coating rocks and boulders on the lake’s shore line. Climate change, extended droughts and battles over Klamath Basin water rights play equal roles in the draining of Oregon’s only salt water lake.