Travel – Page 5

November 20, 2022November 18, 2022

A Journey Through Time

The upper John Day River Valley, home to The Sheep Rock Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument

We spent the last few weeks of fall exploring the John Day River. With its headwaters near Baker City, the John Day flows unobstructed for 250 plus miles across the state, eventually spilling into the Columbia River, just east of Biggs.

Over the centuries the John Day River has carved open the land to expose ancient history.

Ironically, it’s namesake, an unlucky fur trapper, didn’t travel the river, but rather was robbed at its confluence with the Columbia.

The middle section winds through worldrenowned paleontology sites. The state has branded these routes “The Journey Through Time Scenic Byway”. Perfect for a daytrip.

These blue-grey badlands are an incredibly cool place called The Blue Basin

Trail leading from the Thomas Condon Visitor Center

Our day starts by heading north and east on US-26, about 25 miles past Mitchell, where the road meets up with the John Day River at OR 19.

From here, we follow the river north through the Sheep Rock Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds . . . . with a mandatory stop at the Thomas Condon Paleontology Center.

We are on the John Day Hwy, headed north through the eastern section of the fossil beds. It quickly becomes apparent the Painted Hills aren’t the only uniquely colored earth mounds in Central Oregon. Along the length of this drive cliffwalls shine in hues of blue, green, and red.

We’ll be back to try smallmouth bass and steelhead fishing on the John Day River

At Kimberly, we turn west. For 20 miles the road follows the river, offering numerous public access points along the route.

At Service Creek, the river continues to the west, across mostly private land. We turn south on OR 207, skirting around the eastern edge of Sutton Mountain, to the east of the Painted Hills unit, dropping into the town of Mitchell. At this point we’re back on US-26 and headed home. The day has been spent exploring uniquely colored cliffs and stopping to enjoy rare public access to one of Oregon’s wild rivers.

November 13, 2022November 18, 2022

River Levels

We spend a lot of time on rivers and frequently keep an eye on water levels. An extremely dry summer strained all Central Oregon waterways and in September the BLM drew down the Crooked River . . . dramatically.

Rivers are measured at regularly intervals along their run. It’s all part of water management. The numbers you see are stream stage (gage height in feet), which are water level, but also a measure of flow volume stated as Cubic Feet per Second (CFS). These numbers project potential water available to downstream irrigators, but also allow users to see seasonal changes to a stream.

Late summer flows on the Crooked can drop to 50 CFS from an average of about 130 CFS. September’s BLM draw down was to 10 CFS. This put more water in the irrigation ditches, but caused concern for the fish population.

In fact, they closed the river to fishing for a couple of months. As a result, we began our John Day River excursions and subsequently discovered Small Mouth Bass fishing.

We haven’t been on the Crooked River since the closure, not just because you couldn’t fish, but we dreaded how dramatic the impact might be. This week we braced ourselves and drove to the Crooked to have a look.

Low water exposes the weed beds and sub-surface rocks.

The day we were there, the river was up a bit, at 23 CFS. As expected a lot of river bed was exposed. The Crooked River has never been easy to wade, but now I’ve got a better understanding of why. With so much bottom laid bare, white alkali deposits on rocks mark high water points, and from the remaining water flow to the bank was an exposed jumble of loose shoebox sized stones.

What water was still there snaked between boulders offering only a few deep pools in which fish could hold. A climate disaster observed up close.

This week the levels are coming back up (2.03 ft/48 CFS at this writing), so now we find out how much impact the reduced flow has had.

In a week or two we’ll be back on stream to wet a line and hope the winter snows are deep.

October 30, 2022October 29, 2022

Haunted Byways

Living in Central Oregon there are plenty of remote spaces to offer solitude and we prefer these roads less traveled.

The numerous state routes that take you across the high desert are broken up with small towns, often just a grain elevator and an abandoned storefront. These are ghost towns of sorts, places with more history than residents.

Oregon has the distinction of containing the most ghost towns of any state in the union, more than 200 at last tally. Maybe not so surprising is that many of them are only semi-abandoned … with greatly depleted populations.

This week as we continue to explore the John Day River, we pulled over into some wide spots in the road.

Shaniko, Oregon

Shaniko is a historic city located in north-central Oregon on a high plateau. In 1900 it was known as the “Wool Capital of the World” and features the largest wool warehouse in the state.

What is left?

Shaniko has a historic district featuring a hotel, jailhouse, schoolhouse and collection of over 40 properties. It boasts a population of 30 (2020).

Antelope, Oregon

Antelope was first settled in 1872 as a connection between Columbia River gold mines and Canyon City. Its namesake was a herd of pronghorn antelope that lived in the area.

In the 1980s members of the Rajneesh cult moved to the area planning to turn the town into their own settlement. Cult members took over the city by outnumbering the original residents. Due to criminal behavior, the cult leader fled the country and the commune collapsed.

What is left?

Antelope has a population of 37 (2020) and has a historic preservation society that details these events.

Kent, Oregon

Kent is a small community located amid rolling grainfields. This town was primarily a railroad town. Residents literally picked names out of a hat to come up with the name Kent. The name was suggested because it was short and simple to write.

What is left?

Today there are numerous buildings from Kent’s past, including a cafe, gas station and cemetery. The town has kept its post office, but has lost most of its population, which in 2018 sat at 67.

October 23, 2022October 22, 2022

Desert Oasis

Between the Cascade range and the Wallowas, basically the northwest corner of the great basin, we wound through swaths of grainfields criss-crossed with two lane roads and dotted with wind turbines.

This flat expanse of Oregon is sliced by a canyon cut by the John Day River.

This portion of Central Oregon was once ranchland, a “… continuous expanse of native shrub-steppe habitat.” While the wind and wheat farms have transformed the land, the river continues, free flowing.

A Wild and Scenic Waterway status helped conservation groups give protection to stretches of the river and aided their attempt to re-invigorate a wild Steelhead run.

You can see the lush canyons of the John Day from many vantage points along it’s two hundred mile plus length, but access to the river is difficult without a boat.

Forty miles upriver from the Columbia OR 206 crosses the John Day where the Murtha Ranch used to sit.

In 2013, sixteen miles of that ranch along the north bank became Cottonwood Canyon State Park. A handful of this 16 thousand acre parcel holds camping, cabins and day use sites.

It’s nearly a three hour drive from Bend, almost to the Columbia River.

But the park offers excellent river access and small mouth bass fishing. In the fall there are few visitors, so we took advantage of an empty picnic site.

Then spent the afternoon catching bass and enjoying this beautiful and quiet stretch of the John Day River.

October 16, 2022October 14, 2022

Apple Season

Apples destined for sorbet, chutney, turnovers, fritters, tarts, and pies

To most, this time of year is Fall … to us it is Apple Season.

For a few weeks, on the northern foothills of Mt. Hood, between the end of September and early November, you can find roadside stands offering tree-ripened fruit.

Kiyokawa Family Orchards is in Parkdale, which is twenty minutes from Hood River, or two hours from Bend, depending where you start your journey. For us, the reason to travel to the highest reaches of the Hood River fruit orchards … is Kiyokawa.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a better variety of tree fruit in one spot. There is literally a maze of apples and pears. JQ does her research and builds a list. In years past these excursions ended with bags of un-identified fruit, so now, armed with a list, we are more focused.