FLY-OVER COUNTRY

 Notes from a visit to Eastern Oregon

Oregon east-of-the-Cascades is a mystic, even ethereal place.  Not much there, but so much hidden and so much to explore.  I think this as I drive the Subaru out of Bend and Redmond toward who knows what or where.  My brother from another mother – a chum I met back in college – rides shotgun. 

Our usual mode of exploration transit involves two wheels attached to a righteous amount of horsepower. But this trip, in mid-September, found us nursing ailments – knees, backs, joint-related maladies – ailments we never really considered over the fifty years of our shared adventures.  

The west’s Basin and Range, in the rain shadow of the Sierra and Cascades, is a mosaic of lodgepole, sage and pinion, basalt and dry washes and baking desert sun. It stretches all the way to the base of the Rockies. Seemingly desolate and unforgiving, most of us simply fly over from San Francisco or Seattle en route to Chicago, New York, London or any of a thousand historic destinations. Yet, in that jet-plane rush, we’re flying over history that began before time. 

And during that ‘before time,’ the sea floor lifted and buckled to be shaved and carved by ice and wind. Lava oozed from fissures, flowed until cool, and solidified only to be broken into some semblance of dirt by freezing and thawing and the incessant labors of acidic lichens. Winds and rains pushed and scrubbed topsoil off prehistory’s basaltic base. Grasses, shrubs and, eventually, those pinions grabbed hold in protected crevasses. Luck probably played a hand. Luck plays a hand in a lot of life, doesn’t it?

Early man migrating across the Bering Strait during an ice age or two – or seven – left his subtle mark. Ten of thousands of years later, European settlers crossed, lured by the siren song of California’s fields of gold, groves of redwood and fir and soils rich for tillage. Cities were sure to follow.

Some folks trickled back.  Those with a different dream or, perhaps, a recurring one. Looking for the next Mother Lode? Looking for the next verdant valley? Or simply looking. Remnants include rough-hewn cabins protected from rot by decades of arid drought. Fencelines run straight up hillsides begging the question, What was being fenced in or fenced out?

 

Rutted dirt two-track roads followed emigrant routes. Highways followed those. But off those highways, wading through the sage and yellow pine, traces of the steel tires of Conestoga wagons and primitive ox-drawn carts can still be found scratched into the land. One wonders how many head can graze on one’s 160 acre grant. Did they have the land grant program here? They sure as hell couldn’t depend on row crops or grain. There surely was no sod to bust.

 

We drive past a basalt bluff, one that looks like an 11^th century Scottish Castle. (Note: I had visited a Scottish Castle only three weeks before.) The formation long preceded man and will live long after we’ve departed. 

Etched into the base are the pointillist stories of the Utes or their predecessors. The message is probably simple, but we’re left only with conjecture. These humans were independent relying only upon their skill and wit and the stuff they learned from the prior generations. Let’s call that ‘history’ in its most basic of applications.

The contemporary folks who live out here, likewise, are independent souls.  As my companion and I see signs in support of a presidential candidate he and I both disdain, a realization – or maybe just another conjecture – rises. These people depend first upon themselves and then their neighbors. In this lonesome territory, I suspect the sheriff is an hour or more away, as is the tractor repair guy. A trip to a big box store might consume a whole day.  And you might not make it to the hospital in time. So the signs I may disdain might really be saying, Leave me the hell alone. I’ve got this. I’m good out here on the high lonesome. Followed, perhaps, by: You likely wouldn’t be. (In my case, they’d be right.) Hard working, rugged folks with well-honed views of things different from those of two guys cruising around these parts in some damned Subaru.

 

We pass through a small town, no bigger than a wink. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau may have come this way when relocating from Murderer’s Bar on California’s American River (near my one-time Placer County home) to the Idaho mines.  

Up the road a bit we pause where the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh escaped from India and set up a colony four decades back bringing with him seven Rolls Royces and much consternation.  

Further on we visit a site where their-workday-is-done trucks rest scattered about a field like a graveyard, their once robust bodies dissolving into the sage, destined to be lost to history long before the aforementioned bluff.

Throughout the journey we are moved by the melding of horizon and sky, the vastness of geologic time, the incessant workings of the elements, and realization that there is so much more to explore, so many more stories to conject about and – as we both stare into our mid-70s – so little time left to do it.  

 

Perhaps that is the one great lesson of Oregon’s high desert: never will we see it all or grasp the enormity of its time and space, but never should we stop trying. 

 

o0o

 

This day’s route: US 97 north from Bend; OR 126 east to Prineville; US 26 to Mitchell (Charbonneau?); OR 207 north to Fossil (check out the John Day Fossil beds scattered through here); OR 218 west to Antelope (pop. 39 ~ former locale of the Shree Rajneesh); continue north to Shaniko (field of rusting vehicles, but, sadly, no trace of a Bhagwan’s Rolls); US 97 south to Bend.

Nearby? Oregon’s High Desert Museum about ten miles south of bend on US 97. All kinds of history! Plan on a half a day.  Bring the youngin’s. https://highdesertmuseum.org

 

A bit further east? National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center near Baker City, Oregon. Come see the privations immigrants endured and check out the wagon ruts still visible in solid stone. Allow another half day. https://www.blm.gov/learn/interpretive-centers/national-historic-oregon-trail-interpretive-center

 

© 2024

Church of the Open Road Press

2020: THE CHURCH OF THE OPEN ROAD’S YEAR IN REVIEW

  

…as random and crazy as the year departing was, 

expect little or no order herewith…

 

We’ll start with Edward’s annual first-week-in-January “Polar Bear” swim in Lake Sonoma (with the best stick ever)…

 

 

Our area would again be visited by fire this year…

 

 

…and circumstances curtailed a bit of travel, but I did revisit some favored roads.

 

 

The coast has replaced the Sierra as our go-to place for beauty and reflection…

 

 

…any time of the year…

 

 

…with all manner of creatures…

 

 

…and hidden little Edens.

 

 

 

We bid farewell to Romeo…

 

 

…a classic BMW that deserved better than to be gathering dust in the garage… 

 

 

…and Mom found permanent rest in this favored place.  (Photo circa 1967)

 

 

 

A ‘chase car’ trip to Central Oregon afforded us this view of Shasta…

 

 

                                                   

…a week on the Metolius River…

 

 

…a visit to McKenzie Pass…

 

 

…and a loop down the Oregon Coast.

 

 

 

Random additional images include:  Sunset at Bandon, Oregon…

 

 

…a perfunctory derelict truck…

 

 

…a nice new-to-me section of pavement…

 

 

…and “OH! NO!”

 

 

 

Best book among the many read this year?  Dr. Lepore (Closed circuit to folks at the WSJ: A woman with a PhD is a doctor) offers a readable 400-plus year history of the United States reminding us that we do have ideals, but we don’t always stand up for ‘em the way we say we do. Witness the past few years.  (Allow about a month to finish it, but well worth the effort).

 

 

Shots of the year as judged by our panel of expert (yes: ‘expert’ is singular.)

5^th Runner Up: representing too little time with Grandkids in the real world this year:

 

 

4^th Runner Up: because we want them grandkids never to miss critters like this:

 

3^rd Runner Up: Coastal School (or fire?) Bell.

 

 

2^nd Runner Up: Dusk in Upper Lake, California.

 

 

Shot of the Year: Thomas Kincade-esque Cabin across the Metolius.

 

 

Here’s hoping for a more conducive 2021 – (more conducive for damned-near everything.)

 

© 2020

Church of the Open Road Press

 

 

 

 

SMELLIN’ THE BARN

Day Four and Five of the Bend, Oregon

 October Fogged-Out Ride

(Next time we’ll do this in September!)

Rider magazine contributor Donya Carlson once offered: “The only thing better than a 500-mile day is two 250-mile days.”  To the extent that I’ve matured as a rider, I’ve grown to agree with her.  Except when after a week or so on the road, you start to smell the barn.  Smelling the barn is what the plough horse or the draft team does at the end of a day’s labor.  Release the harness and the animal makes for the stall and the straw and rest waiting therein.

Day four of our visit to Bend and its volcanic environs found us planning an up-n-back route on the vaunted Cascades Lake Highway. If the weather were to be anything like yesterday’s, the ride would be enchanting and the photography – what with razor-sharp peaks reflected in high country lakes – amazing.

But the day dawned with a thick drizzly overcast.  Our Internet friends in charge of predicting all things climatic suggested that by 11:00 AM, the low overcast should burn off.  We marked time and checked maps and salivated.  By the appointed hour, things had not improved, but the angels of our optimism suggested that conditions down the road might be better.  So we suited up, saddled up and proved those angels wrong. 

Years ago, bad timing found us riding the incomparable Selkirk Loop well after dark.  Tough to enjoy those world-class views with only a headlight.  Similarly, traveling the Cascade Lakes Highway in the fog is not only futile, but damned cold.  We were back home in and hour and ten minutes.  Perhaps tomorrow.

“Tomorrow” dawned much like what was now yesterday.  And a Pacific storm – a big one – was predicted for the next day.  So, at about 10:00 AM, I decided it was time to head for the barn.

With two layers under my new Fox Creek leather jacket and my rain suit easily accessible, I left Bend, heading south on US 97.  Perhaps I’ll make it as far south as Klamath Falls, maybe Weed, before my hands cripple up from the chilling windblast. 

Interesting note, here: although the fog was drippy enough that I considered stopping and pulling on the rain slicker, at speed, the windshield on the big Triumph T-bird directs the wind past the ends of the handlebars.  Nice surprise.  Hands functional.

Near Chemult, I stopped for fuel, spending the usual twenty minutes at the pump explaining to a local that, “Yes, Triumph has been reborn and they’ve been making motorcycles now for about twenty years.” 

“My daddy used to race a Triumph.  I think it was called a Bonneville,” replied the nearly my aged woman.

Continuing south on 97, with K Falls getting closer, I thought about how the lack of sunshine and the thick blanket of gray removed a dimension of pleasure from the ride.  Tomorrow was forecast to be worse, I knew.  Perhaps I’ll power through to Weed, or maybe Redding.

Six-point-three miles south of Chemult – I checked – the sun began to glare on the pavement and a mile further, the fog was gone.  Swatches of pine forest reached across the rich volcanic plain to the east and a rugged rim of peaks edged the western view. Soon, it felt like I’d put on too many layers.  A few miles south of Klamath Falls, I stopped for rest and to shed a sweatshirt.  And to have another conversation about the T-Bird: “Hey!  That’s not a Harley!” 

“No it’s not.” 

“Shore looks like a Harley.” 

“No, it doesn’t.”

Butte Valley, between Dorris and Weed is a lovely landscape of ranches and hay fields.  The mountains ringing the area make me wish I liked to backpack as I once did.  The rail line, which I’d traveled once at night, harkens back to the days when that was the most efficient and engaging mode of transport. Remove the pavement and the semis and the huge, red Massey-Fergusons working the fields and it could be a hundred years ago in this fertile high country of yesterdays.

Driving south, Mount Shasta comes into view welcoming me back to my home state.  

Just past the scenic pullout for the Queen of the Cascades, the Siskiyou County veterans have constructed a sculpture garden dedicated to those county residents who served.  Masterfully placed metalworks pay homage to the many roles of our military personnel – each of those roles calling upon the heroism many among us would not know we possessed until thrust into a particular – arguably untenable – circumstance.  Allow an hour.  Bring tissue.

But I didn’t stop.  I’d visited once before and the barn was smelling closer.  Maybe I’ll get to Redding and find a room.  Maybe some place a bit further south.

Travelling I-5 at eighty miles an hour is something built into the DNA of the big Triumph cruiser, I’m discovering.  Not severely impacted by crosswinds or passing big rigs, the Thunderbird is stable and true.  The seat is supremely comfortable.  It’s been five-and-a-half hours and I can’t remember fidgeting until just now.

South of Anderson, I fuel up, choosing a pump furthest from passers-by.  I want to see if I can make it to Williams.

It was five-forty when I made it to that little Colusa County berg and interchange.  Maybe two hours and change on CA 20 and I’m back at the barn… err… home.

Highway 20 is one I am beginning to know too well what with frequent trips through those mountains to visit an aging parent in Chico.  In the past couple of years, I’ve learned of her ins, her outs and her alternatives.

The Hopland Grade between Clear Lake and the Russian River is a bit of a shortcut, mileage wise.  CA route 175 twists and corkscrews. There are few wide spots, no designated turnouts and zero passing lanes.  It is steep and treacherous under the best of circumstances which would include daylight and dry pavement.

Smelling the barn causes compromise in reasonable thought.  An example would be traversing the Hopland Grade on a behemoth of a motorcycle in the dark – think Selkirk Loop – after eight hours in the saddle. Crossing gingerly was my plan, but that plan didn’t fit well with the driver in the aging Civic who, because I was lumbering along, thought flashing his brights in my rear view mirrors might hustle me to wick things up a bit.  It didn’t.  And it didn’t make the bad ride any more enjoyable.  Or safe.  I guessed right about a wide shoulder I thought existed just this side of the summit.   The decrepit Honda rocketed past as I promised to myself that I was never doing this again. 

Rider’s Ms. Carlson is most certainly correct about 250-mile days, but home felt particularly good after having done twice that.  A glass of wine and a hunk of cheese were all that I needed before retiring to the stall.  I was asleep long before I could reflect too much on the day’s adventure.

© 2016

Church of the Open Road Press

THE THREE SISTERS IN OREGON’S CENTRAL CASCADES AND MCKENZIE PASS LAVA FLOE

Day 4 of the Volcanic Legacy Tour

of California and Oregon

A good plan on this tour was to home base in some lovely place engaging in day trips from that central point.  Today’s sojourn would see us again “scratching God’s belly,” this time from a rugged Cascade moonscape called McKenzie Pass.

Oregon’s highway 242 twists from Sisters, the quilting capitol, fifteen miles to the summit.  Continuing on, the route descends to the McKenzie River Highway.  The pavement provides about 40 miles of challenging ride and out-of-this-world scenery.

The eastern face of the Cascades is home to vast reaches of yellow and Ponderosa pine.  The trees are generously spaced and the forest floor nicely groomed.  Little light filters through the canopy so the sage is sparse at best.  A few miles west of Sisters, an inviting sign warns travelers that vehicles longer than 35 feet in combination are prohibited.  Yippie-ky-yo!

We corkscrew up and through the range of climatic zones moving from thick forests to an environment almost completely bare.  But not because of elevation.  The summit is well below any established timberline at this latitude.

What we come upon is what we would image the surface of the moon looks like, had we not, now, possessed second-hand knowledge of that sphere.  Rocky.  Rough.  Rugged.  Inhospitable.  Perhaps impassable?

Most certainly snow falls at this elevation but no streams course down the mountain.  Instead, the mantle of snow, sometimes twenty-feet thick, simply stays in place until the spring thaw when it melts and slips through the random chunks of basalt into pumice and grit and ancient, long-buried-by-volcanic-activity forest litter.  Trickling, drops at a time, the snowmelt descends a few thousand feet into a large underground lake.  The journey takes years.

Back down at Camp Sherman, a mile or so from our rented cabin, spillage from this lake springs from beneath a mossy rock outcrop.  It appears as the fully flowing Metoluis River.  Musically, night and day, it slips past our home base.

Over on the west side of the summit, the McKenzie River is formed the same way.

Back at the summit, the Forest Service maintains and observatory named for one of their pioneering rangers, Dee Wright.

Through its portals one views the ice carved arêtes of Mounts Washington and Jefferson and the Three Sisters.   

Much of the volcanism in this area preceded the last ice age.   

But slightly off to the north-northwest rests Belknap Crater, a rounded cindery dome not yet carved.  Its ice age waits.

A paved trail leads the saddle-sore among us on a twenty-minute interpretive walk.

Well-placed signs tell a story that both amazes and sizes one with his or her place in the world.

I look over the lava jumble and am moved by the expanse of time, the dynamics of an ever-changing earth and the effort those with wagons or pushcarts expended in order to reach the Willamette Valley.  So very near by now, but, ever so far.  How many of today’s citizen would be so motivated, so driven, so tough?  Probably not me…

Shortly after leaving the summit, we find ourselves winging around sweeping bends into a thicker, more moist forestscape.  Frost had kissed some of the broadleafs already making the ride a kaleidoscope of movement and color.

At the junction with the McKenzie River Highway, we route ourselves north and east over Santiam Pass and back home to Camp Sherman.  This proved to be a most pleasant 100-mile full day.

o0o

Today’s Route:  Northwest of Bend Oregon on US 20, find Sisters and nearby Camp Sherman.  Our day started on the banks of the Metolius in Camp Sherman.  Follow Camp Sherman Road south to OR 126/US 20.  East to Sisters.  West on OR 242 over McKenzie Pass to rejoin OR 126.  North on 126 (it connects with US 20 up the road a piece), then east to Camp Sherman Road.

© 2014

Church of the Open Road Press