Seemed like a good idea at the time. My brother, Dwane and I decided to do something involving hiking in our beautiful NW. Being on the verge of 55, 80 lbs overweight and a disabled Veteran, I knew we'd have to stick to something physically doable and so we came up with the plan to do day hikes only on separate weekends. We thought about doing the Pacific Crest Trail through Oregon, but decided that was too common. We wanted something more unique. I suggested and we eventually agreed to take on hiking the southern Oregon border with Nevada and California from east to west. The weekend of the 14th of January we started. We chose to start in the winter because we don't mind the cold, but we're both irrationally afraid of snakes as are millions of Americans and we know we'll not likely get more than one weekend each month. We planned to do the whole route from east to west in segments of 15 to 20 miles each of 2 or 3 days on 3 day weekends when we could get away from our jobs. I've run the topo profile, printed maps, and have the usual available maps to guides us and I've broken the trip down into those neat roughly 15 mile segments where we can be dropped off or picked up depending on starting and stopping point.
FIRST SEGMENT. Well, we grabbed our GPS', cameras, extra socks and headed to McDermitt NV early on a Friday morning from my home in Creswell. Our youngest brother, Dale agreed to ride along for the weekend and drop us off/pick us up each day as we tackled this first 35 miles of high desert and mountains. The plan was to start at the three state corner of Idaho, Nevada and Oregon that exists about 35 miles line of sight east of McDermitt. We arrived early enough on Friday that we had time to drive out of town towards that planned starting point. The roads in the remote parts of the state, largely maintained by the Bureau of Land Management with their limited resources, do not for the most part have much rock on them. We found that to be true as we headed east of McDermitt across the Pauite-Shoshone Indian Reservation and began encountering mud and snow with temperatures about freezing. It soon became apparent that if we were dropped off 35 miles out Dale might not be able to get to us on the muddy afternoon roads and we could face walking another 10-15 miles in the dark to get to where he could reach us. We determined to start from the planned second day point start point and take on the toughest segment of 15 over several hills and dales into McDermitt. We guessed right that at daylight with the temp hovering at about 20 degrees the roads were frozen and fairly easily passable in my 4X4 pickup. We had to change vehicles the Friday morning we left. When we finished preparing to leave at daylight after loading my SUV it promptly failed upon trying to start it. Apparently a major mechanical failure. Better in my driveway than 40 miles from the nearest paved road in the middle of the freezing desert. Anyway - Dale dropped us off about 7AM about 15 miles east of McDermitt on Saturday and we started on the second planned segment with the intention of getting back to town and our motel room about dark and coming back some other weekend when weather permitted to hike the first segment. We spent an extra hour or two the first couple of miles oohing and aahing over the vistas, the rocks and the beautiful country - dawdling time we would later regret. Weather was cool, but dry and little if any wind, so we were quickly warming up and had to strip off a layer or two despite the temps hovering about freezing. We took off oriented on the border headed along the 42d parallel, the original border for the Oregon Territory, and crossed a couple of moderate hills generally following a river canyon west. Our starting point pic is posted. As the day progressed we climbed from the 5200 foot starting point up towards 6000 probably four times before reaching the last ridge before dropping into the McDermitt valley. The problem is after 2-3 miles we started hitting snow here and there. The 6 inches or so made it slow going, particularly up the slopes through sage and other brush. Chased out a brood of about 20 Chukars, saw a host of horses from a distance, heard the shotgun reports of several hunters, and saw a few birds. We made a tactical error upon approaching the summit of the last ridge when we decided to avoid the last couple of hundred feet of rock and snow that we could see on the eastern approach and go around the peak, pick up the state line on the far side and continue down into the valley and on to McDermitt. Problem was we chose to circle the summit to the north - big mistake. We hit about a foot of snow on the north slope and ended up struggling along sidehill for a mile down through the sage brush and snow. We hit the valley floor with 3-4 miles to go at about dark and picked up the pace. Found the fence line demarking the state line and plodded along in the dark for another hour or so. Mud and snow made the footing sloppy here and there. We met a couple of Humbolt County's finest in the middle of a pasture we were crossing after the rancher called in a suspected spotlighter on her property and they showed up to check us out. They had bumped into Dale earlier in the evening as he tried in vane to find a passable route out to pick us up in the dark as my cell phone was dying from the constant use trying to guide him in. The Sheriff was aware of our undertaking and recognized us as he approached. We were greeted warmly, as we were everywhere on this weekend. Anyway, the last few miles in the dark were mostly long and dreary. However, at one point we stood in a pasture of probably a hundred acres listening to a heard of perhaps 20-30 horses probably spooked by my head lamp running in circles around us. Only being able to make out dim figures in the dark, but listening to the thunder of their hooves was a little unnerving. Anyway, made it to town, enjoyed a meal at the small casino and yukked it up with the locals who were genuinely warm and friendly. Had great food the night before at the same place, about the only food in the town of a couple hundred, but the crowd was sparse on Friday. On Saturday it was a packed house of dozens of local natives who obviously knew just about everyone else in the restaurant. We conspired to head west from town in the morning and at least get across the valley floor into the foothills of our next challenge.
SECOND SEGMENT. Sunday morning we rose, hit the casino for some more friendly banter and the Dwane and I donned our gear and headed west across pasture after pasture with occasionally stretches of sage brush or brushy tree lines. We followed, in error it seems, the 42d parallel all day and didn't come across any survey monuments or any of the state line markers laid out originally every mile along the border during the early 60s or before. What I now realize is that the southern border of Oregon was established as the 42d parallel or as surveyed and established subsequently, the later part being, I sware, in fine print. Consequently, the state border is legally about 100 to 500 feet south of the actual 42d parallel and was established by survey back in the early 60s as close as possible given the instruments available. This will determine how we navigate for future segments, but for these first segments we stuck pretty close to the 42d. The day was pleasant enough and as we approached the end of the valley floor and began climbing we decided upon an end point at the base of a rocky ridge that would give us about 10 miles for the day. We reached the ridge, flagged down Dale in the pickup and took off on the road further west to reconnoiter our future routes. Left town that evening headed back NW through Burns, but not before exploring the desert valley around McDermitt and finding a hot spring a few miles off Hwy 95. It was probably a hundred gallons per minute stream coming out of a hillside slope and channeled into an irrigation ditch down the valley to the nearest farm. Too muddy to find a way to get into the water, although I waded around a little in the 100 plus degree water. We did hit White Horse Creek hot spring for a soak later in the dark and another 50 miles up the desert along the east slope of Steens mountain we spent an hour at the Alvord Hot springs before traveling on into Burns to stay overnight.
SUMMARY.
We'll spend more time learning how to actually use our GPS and I'm getting a download of survey markers to use as way points from the BLM that we should encounter across the remainder of the state. Seems that they are very interested in what GPS readings we get on the survey markers as the western half of the state was last surveyed in the early 60s and little digital information exists to confirm the true location of those original markers and state line. We're re-assessing how much we can get done during winter as we've decided it's not worth trudging through the snow, so we'll have to wait for the next 3 day weekend we can plan on and maybe pick off the first segment, or the next 10 miles or so which seemed to have relatively little snow on them. The next segment poses some serious logistics problems as there are few intersecting roads that we can use for a overnight pickup and we're thinking we may have to pack sleeping bags and stay overnight. We expect the rest of the state to be doable as planned in 15 to 20 mile day hikes with the comfort of a hotel or established camp overnight. TTFN
FIRST SEGMENT. Well, we grabbed our GPS', cameras, extra socks and headed to McDermitt NV early on a Friday morning from my home in Creswell. Our youngest brother, Dale agreed to ride along for the weekend and drop us off/pick us up each day as we tackled this first 35 miles of high desert and mountains. The plan was to start at the three state corner of Idaho, Nevada and Oregon that exists about 35 miles line of sight east of McDermitt. We arrived early enough on Friday that we had time to drive out of town towards that planned starting point. The roads in the remote parts of the state, largely maintained by the Bureau of Land Management with their limited resources, do not for the most part have much rock on them. We found that to be true as we headed east of McDermitt across the Pauite-Shoshone Indian Reservation and began encountering mud and snow with temperatures about freezing. It soon became apparent that if we were dropped off 35 miles out Dale might not be able to get to us on the muddy afternoon roads and we could face walking another 10-15 miles in the dark to get to where he could reach us. We determined to start from the planned second day point start point and take on the toughest segment of 15 over several hills and dales into McDermitt. We guessed right that at daylight with the temp hovering at about 20 degrees the roads were frozen and fairly easily passable in my 4X4 pickup. We had to change vehicles the Friday morning we left. When we finished preparing to leave at daylight after loading my SUV it promptly failed upon trying to start it. Apparently a major mechanical failure. Better in my driveway than 40 miles from the nearest paved road in the middle of the freezing desert. Anyway - Dale dropped us off about 7AM about 15 miles east of McDermitt on Saturday and we started on the second planned segment with the intention of getting back to town and our motel room about dark and coming back some other weekend when weather permitted to hike the first segment. We spent an extra hour or two the first couple of miles oohing and aahing over the vistas, the rocks and the beautiful country - dawdling time we would later regret. Weather was cool, but dry and little if any wind, so we were quickly warming up and had to strip off a layer or two despite the temps hovering about freezing. We took off oriented on the border headed along the 42d parallel, the original border for the Oregon Territory, and crossed a couple of moderate hills generally following a river canyon west. Our starting point pic is posted. As the day progressed we climbed from the 5200 foot starting point up towards 6000 probably four times before reaching the last ridge before dropping into the McDermitt valley. The problem is after 2-3 miles we started hitting snow here and there. The 6 inches or so made it slow going, particularly up the slopes through sage and other brush. Chased out a brood of about 20 Chukars, saw a host of horses from a distance, heard the shotgun reports of several hunters, and saw a few birds. We made a tactical error upon approaching the summit of the last ridge when we decided to avoid the last couple of hundred feet of rock and snow that we could see on the eastern approach and go around the peak, pick up the state line on the far side and continue down into the valley and on to McDermitt. Problem was we chose to circle the summit to the north - big mistake. We hit about a foot of snow on the north slope and ended up struggling along sidehill for a mile down through the sage brush and snow. We hit the valley floor with 3-4 miles to go at about dark and picked up the pace. Found the fence line demarking the state line and plodded along in the dark for another hour or so. Mud and snow made the footing sloppy here and there. We met a couple of Humbolt County's finest in the middle of a pasture we were crossing after the rancher called in a suspected spotlighter on her property and they showed up to check us out. They had bumped into Dale earlier in the evening as he tried in vane to find a passable route out to pick us up in the dark as my cell phone was dying from the constant use trying to guide him in. The Sheriff was aware of our undertaking and recognized us as he approached. We were greeted warmly, as we were everywhere on this weekend. Anyway, the last few miles in the dark were mostly long and dreary. However, at one point we stood in a pasture of probably a hundred acres listening to a heard of perhaps 20-30 horses probably spooked by my head lamp running in circles around us. Only being able to make out dim figures in the dark, but listening to the thunder of their hooves was a little unnerving. Anyway, made it to town, enjoyed a meal at the small casino and yukked it up with the locals who were genuinely warm and friendly. Had great food the night before at the same place, about the only food in the town of a couple hundred, but the crowd was sparse on Friday. On Saturday it was a packed house of dozens of local natives who obviously knew just about everyone else in the restaurant. We conspired to head west from town in the morning and at least get across the valley floor into the foothills of our next challenge.
SECOND SEGMENT. Sunday morning we rose, hit the casino for some more friendly banter and the Dwane and I donned our gear and headed west across pasture after pasture with occasionally stretches of sage brush or brushy tree lines. We followed, in error it seems, the 42d parallel all day and didn't come across any survey monuments or any of the state line markers laid out originally every mile along the border during the early 60s or before. What I now realize is that the southern border of Oregon was established as the 42d parallel or as surveyed and established subsequently, the later part being, I sware, in fine print. Consequently, the state border is legally about 100 to 500 feet south of the actual 42d parallel and was established by survey back in the early 60s as close as possible given the instruments available. This will determine how we navigate for future segments, but for these first segments we stuck pretty close to the 42d. The day was pleasant enough and as we approached the end of the valley floor and began climbing we decided upon an end point at the base of a rocky ridge that would give us about 10 miles for the day. We reached the ridge, flagged down Dale in the pickup and took off on the road further west to reconnoiter our future routes. Left town that evening headed back NW through Burns, but not before exploring the desert valley around McDermitt and finding a hot spring a few miles off Hwy 95. It was probably a hundred gallons per minute stream coming out of a hillside slope and channeled into an irrigation ditch down the valley to the nearest farm. Too muddy to find a way to get into the water, although I waded around a little in the 100 plus degree water. We did hit White Horse Creek hot spring for a soak later in the dark and another 50 miles up the desert along the east slope of Steens mountain we spent an hour at the Alvord Hot springs before traveling on into Burns to stay overnight.
SUMMARY.
We'll spend more time learning how to actually use our GPS and I'm getting a download of survey markers to use as way points from the BLM that we should encounter across the remainder of the state. Seems that they are very interested in what GPS readings we get on the survey markers as the western half of the state was last surveyed in the early 60s and little digital information exists to confirm the true location of those original markers and state line. We're re-assessing how much we can get done during winter as we've decided it's not worth trudging through the snow, so we'll have to wait for the next 3 day weekend we can plan on and maybe pick off the first segment, or the next 10 miles or so which seemed to have relatively little snow on them. The next segment poses some serious logistics problems as there are few intersecting roads that we can use for a overnight pickup and we're thinking we may have to pack sleeping bags and stay overnight. We expect the rest of the state to be doable as planned in 15 to 20 mile day hikes with the comfort of a hotel or established camp overnight. TTFN
Excellent! Wish I were a little closer~would love to help out/cover a few segments with you.
ReplyDeleteLooks like I'll only be able to follow along from here, though, and looking forward to the next installment!