Oct in Adel; leg #12.

Leg #12. Dwane came down late Thur night and we finished our planning over a glass of wine. No support vehicle this time around, so I loaded up my tall canopy on the pickup early in the week and checked out our mini-bikes. We thought we’d just continue west from the Coleman Valley as there were several trails and roads that we figured could be used to stage our bikes on. Got away late Friday, so we rolled into the Adel area pretty late in the day. We drove on the gravel County road leading SW out of Adel to the CA border to recon our intersect/end point for the following day. Turned out to be where the road separates a couple of large ranches that lay out east and west along a similarly running canyon with a beautiful stream in it. I intentionally failed to mention the name of the canyon to Dwane as we finalized our plans for the coming day and found a bushy spot along the road to hide our mini-bikes. Got them out, figured out what to leave with them; pants and a jacket for what could be a cold ride back to our camp site/starting point for the next evening. We also should have left some water as it turns out, but that and the reason I neglected to mention the name of the canyon are coming. It was probably 25 miles back towards town and around to the Coleman Valley as darkness fell. We found a nice 4X4 path up to the state line and crawled into our sleeping bags in the camper probably about 10PM. I forgot my ear plugs, but Dwane wasn’t sawing too many logs, so we got a pretty good sleep and rousted early into the cool mountain air.





End of Leg # 10 - Looking across the Coleman Valley at our starting climb for leg #12. Got a really early start.



Looking back west a couple miles into Leg #12 after climbing out of the Coleman Valley up to a mile wide mesa.

Perfect conditions Saturday with high overcast, a light breeze, and about 60 degrees. Got up out of the valley well enough and across the first mesa of nothing but sparse junipers and lots of thin wheat and sage. The BLM plants a variety of hearty wheat for ranging animals to forage on that’s called thin wheat that, unfortunately sheds an unbelievable amount of seeds that like cotton socks. The chaf in our socks becomes pretty uncomfortable as the day wears on. We made pretty good time climbing a couple of juniper covered ridges with several small springs and a couple of small dribbling creeks. Had beautiful views to the north up Warner Valley and Hart Mtn. most of the day.



This is looking north into the Warner Lakes Valley, the notch in center frame, from the top of the first mesa. Hart Mtn is the prominent ridge to the right.


Still haven't got the camera working well. I think this was mile point 297.

A little more sunshine as we continue west through the rolling hills covered with Juniper.

Mile point 298 below.

Looking south into Nevada.


Looking north at the Warner Valley.

Continuing west.

One of our BLM developed springs along the stateline up in the hills. This one probably hasn't been serviced in a few years.

Another shot of Warner Valley to the north.

We were above 6000 feet most of the day and then started loosing altitude as we crossed a 4-5 mile plane intersected by several creeks and canyons running from South to North. We came to a grassy spring area at the eastern edge of this plateau that took a little time to cross. We kept trying to find a narrow point to cross the marshy, grassed area as we, mistakenly, kept skirting downhill to the north. When crossing water features, even muddy streams across a path, it’s generally a good principal to always step, or go around on the uphill side. As we had neared the marshy spring area we had rousted a small coyote that kept in front of us for a mile or two. We caught sight of him/her several times moving west in front of us – no doubt aggravated by our presence. We saw several sage rats lying dead at the grassy spring and theorize the Coyote was catching them until we interrupted him. Continued on for a couple of miles on this westward slope and crossed a couple of small gullies. One was particularly beautiful with a small stream running through it out in the middle of the plateau below. Center frame is oriented due west.

Found a developed spring at the base of the hill we were coming off. You can see a concrete wall sort of left of center below.
Looking back east at the hill and gulley we came down from. The spring above is center frame.
Interesting rock and juniper stumps before we clear the junipers and head out on the plateau.

The small stream we crossed in the middle of the plateau. . Continued on for a couple of miles on this westward slope and crossed a couple of small gullies. One was particularly beautiful with a small stream running through it. We took a late lunch break on the rim rock overlooking the small stream during which I caught Dwane stretching out on the rocks. When we saddled up we had a couple of miles of gentling sloping plateau remaining until hitting a large canyon as planned.

The state line runs through this larger canyon for perhaps 5 miles while it’s oriented east and west. Got to the rim rock overlooking the 600 to 700 foot deep canyon with a beautiful stream, 12 Mile Creek, running through it about 3 miles from our intersect and end point for the day.

The original plan was to drop down into the canyon, and follow the stream up hill to the intersecting road for the last couple of miles. Below is a shot looking south from the overlook as the canyon makes an oxbow swing off the state line.
That plan would soon be changed as well. Did I mention that I had intentionally not told Dwane the name of the canyon? 12 Mile Creek runs through Rattlesnake Canyon. We took a brief break at a point overlooking the canyon where it has an oxbow to the south before aligning with the state line and continuing west. This point had a SW exposure overlooking the creek and we got a few pics as we plotted our descent. Didn’t look too bad as there was plenty of soil, grass and brush after we got below the first few feet of the rim rock and slope was steep, but it looked no worse than others we’d done.

The two state mile points along this segment were high on the canyon wall and we decided not to climb up and down to check them out. It was getting late in the day and we didn’t like the idea of straggling along the stream in the rocky and brushy canyon, so we came up with a plan B. We decided to go down into the canyon at this point to cross the creek and climb up to the north rim and juniper treed plateau. There was a jeep trail along the north rim that we could use to make our way back to near where we left the bikes. The shot below is looking back east into the canyon from the overlook point.

Looking north across the canyon from the same overlook point.

Below is looking straight west from the overlook where we figured we'd go down to the creek at this corner, up the far side and scurt along the hillside along the north rim. The hill to the left will appear later in a rear picture - note it's location at this oxbow in the canyon.

Dwane took the lead as we stepped off the top and down a few feet to a first ledge with brush and dirt on it as we were eye level with the rim. Things happened pretty quickly after he stopped abruptly, yelled “damn there’s a snake down here”, and then immediately said “oh, it’s a little one”, but then “there’s a bunch of them”. He was telling himself at this point, trying to calm his fears, that they were no big deal because they didn’t have rattles until he correctly assessed a second or two later that they were young rattlesnakes which don’t have rattles. It was at this point Dwane also first noticed the 4-5 footer eyeing him from a waste high perch on top of the sage brush about arms length away. He moved back past me pretty quickly while yelling they’re diamond backs and get a picture of the big one as it dropped out of the brush and slithered towards us. As he hopped back up to my level a couple of feet above the ledge the smaller snakes were all scrambling among our feet trying to get out of the way. We backed up to the top of the rim and took a few minutes to collect ourselves while emotionally changing our underwear.

It was apparent at that time that the last couple of hours were going to be interesting.

The picture below is the only one I was composed enough to take once back at the top of the rocks. If you look closely you'll see a foot long rattler center frame at the botom of the crack, at the edge of the rock. That's where we'd stepped down into their den.

Crossing down and up the canyon was no longer something we were going to consider, so we headed off around the oxbow to the south staying along the rim of Rattlesnake Canyon. I’d been assuring Dwane all day that the snakes wouldn’t be out because it was relatively cool. I now know that in the fall it usually takes 40 degree weather for quite a few days to get rattlesnakes to curl up for the winter and they get really aggressive during this time of year while trying to stock up on food for the coming winter. The plateau above the canyon was juniper and thin wheat without any roads/trails we could note as we trudged along. At the south end of the oxbow, perhaps a half mile out of the way to the south, we came to another canyon from the south. It also looked pretty intimidating with its small creek and bushy/rocky sides, so we continued along it for a half mile to the south until forced to “man up” and cross it to avoid another extra mile or two of walking. We had veered a mile to the south of the line by now and my GPS wasn’t of much help as my loaded TOPO maps don’t show much of the Nevada, now California at this point, side. We reached the main canyon wall perhaps still a mile and a half from our exit point, but could not tell what lay ahead of us on the south rim with daylight rapidly fading. Decision point. Rattlesnake Canyon was still 4-500 feet deep at this point, but we made the decision to cross it as there were jeep trails on the north rim that we knew would lead us in the coming dark back to our bikes, but we had no idea what we’d find continuing on the south rim. Our fear was we’d hit another canyon on the south intersect that would take us another couple miles out of the way and we were getting tired and our feet were not in good shape. We decided the terror of crossing the canyon would be less than stumbling along the south rim in the dark. We found a spot with a huge boulder stream running almost to the bottom of the canyon and a similar rocky path up the other side and started down. We figured the snakes would not be in these barren rocks and began hopping and climbing down into the canyon. Worked pretty well except for the terrifying 50 yards or so of getting through the creek side brush and back onto the large boulders. Didn’t see any snakes as we beat the ground with our walking poles, threw rocks ahead of us into the brush and made enough noise to wake the dead up and down the canyon.

Looking across the canyon to the north after we'd clambored down the boulder stream and headed to the boulder hillside above.

Beautiful little stream and valley, if you don't mind being snake bait.

The shot below is from the north hillside looking back at the south slope we'd come down. Beautiful valley with the birch trees turning color and a few firs mixed in, but the light was fading.

The view below is looking due east back to where we'd initially intesected the canyon. You can see the west side of the hill (center-right frame) that was across the canyon from the overlook where we found the snakes and were going to cross.

Looking back across to the south where we eventually crossed as daylight was starting to fade.

We clambored up the north rim and picked up the road bout a quarter mile through the juniper and rocky plateau as dark set in. It was about a mile and ¾ to walk on up the road to the main road and back south to our mini-bikes in the dark. Found the bikes, stumbled around a little in the dark, but got headed back down the road in fairly short order. We road perhaps 8 miles on the gravel road, another 8 on paved county road, and then another 8 or so back up the Coleman Valley to where we’d left the truck in the dark. Saw the remains of at least 3 rattlesnakes on the road in the dark and I almost hit a damn deer despite only going the 21-22 mph we can make on the bikes. Had stew that night as we decided we were done for the weekend. The next leg entails at least 2-3 miles westward up the remainder of Rattlesnake Canyon. I doubt we’ll get interested until there’s snow on the ground and we’ve decided not to do it alone anymore, so we’ll have to get a support vehicle for future trips.

Caught the picture below the next morning after stopping in Adel to have some breakfast and hitting the road back home. We were about to pull out from Adel when we noticed an elderly lady cautiously crossing street right in front of us to get a picture of the wood sign denoting the village of Adel. I suggested to Dwane he offer to take her picture for her with her in the frame in front of the sign. He hopped out and did so and we had a 2 minute conversation with the delightful women in her 70's traveling alone. She'd just come into town with her VW Vanagon after enduring an hour and a half following a flock of sheep being herded down the road. She was treking across America looking at places the struck and interest from the names on the map. I'd ove the freedom of being able to do that when I'm that age if I find myself alone.

This is the beautiful view from within Deep Canyon of the turning leaves maybe 10 miles West of Adel along Hwy 140.

Oct in Denio; Leg #11

Leg #11. Sunday we decided to head west and pick up where we’d left off in the valley. Dave dropped us off and we labored off along the fence line and gently rising terrain. Was pretty warm again, but we had a nice breeze. Saw a couple more single deer and lots of rabbits as we traversed several ridge lines and old growth juniper. The first picture is over our shoulder looking east to where we'd dropped out of Stateline Canyon two days earlier.

The mile points were pretty darn close and most of them came from and 1939 survey. I think I’ve finally figured out my GPS and should be able to get waypoints from here on that should be of interest to our geographic sciences branch in the BLM as we get further west. Was a pretty uneventful day, lots of flat walking with one 2 mile stretch across a broad sagebrush plateau with hunters kicking up dust all around in their 4X4s while scanning for deer. We wore bright colors of course that day. Dave caught us a couple mile before the end of our planned distance and we took a short break before heading off to the brink of the Coleman Valley. Traversed through some more old juniper trees as we came to the edge of the bluff.

Covered a couple of miles of this old growth juniper forests. These things grow to be several hundred years old, yet are rarely more than 20 feet tall.

Heck of a drop with the first hundred feet or more being vertical. We scouted out a path to the south about a 1.4 mile where it looked like we could clamber down the rocks and then slip and slide down the forested, but steep dirt slope to the valley floor. Was so steep it looked like only a few hundred horizontal yards separated us from the valley floor along Coleman road, but it was actually near two miles. We dropped a 1000 feet in that space down through the juniper and as we neared the bottom increasingly boulder strewn sagebrush.

Here we are after 7-8 miles across the juniper and one flat basin standing with our backs to the cliff overlooking the Coleman Valley. Had about 100 foot cliff to deal with so we detoured south along the rim till we could find a way down to the juniper and grass slope.

View to the south into NV along the cliffs.

View from a quarter mile south looking back at the point where we were both standing. This is where we found a fairly safe way down off the rim rock.

Huge dust devil probably 8 miles away on the dry lake bed to the north.

Picture from 300 to 400 feet down the slope thru the junipers. Looking back up at the overlook point on the rim.

View from the same point as above looking at all of the down slope thru junipers still ahead of us.

Picture from the valley floor, looking back up the slope from where we met up with Dave.

Looking west across the Coleman Vly at our next leg up the ridge into a high plateau of Junipers.

Loaded up and headed west towards home as the sun was setting. We got back pretty late, but still caught the Oregon-Stanford game that Dave had recorded earlier before getting home. It’s about 5 hours from the Adel area back over to the Willamette Valley and Eugene area. Long trip.

Oct 1 in Denio; Leg #10

Leg #10: Sat we headed NE of Denio up Cottonwood Creek through some ranches figuring we’d knock out another 5-6 miles that day, watch for buzzards and antlers and who knows, maybe get lucky. We meandered up the creek past a couple of ranches and ended up at a large ranch in the middle of the canyon. The road stopped at a fence into one of their corral. I met a charming middle aged rancher at the door and told her what we were up to. She overcame her immediate puzzlement and came outside to point the way out for us to continue up into the canyon and intersect the state line on their 3600 acre ranch. She asked if we were hunting, I assured her we weren’t, but that turned the conversation to accidents and I conveyed the news Dwane had learned from home the day before while we drove down. Dwane learned from his wife a family known to him had lost their father of three to a negligent hunter. The poacher mistook him for a deer as he was picking brush in the Shelton WA with his family and shot him – twice, and killing him in front of his family. She conveyed how a month earlier she and her family had lost their 4 year old grandson when he fell from the back of a ATV and struck his head. She was obviously fighting back tears as she told me this and I felt my own welling up as I touched her shoulder to express my sorrow for her loss. Of course the emotion of the moment was overwhelming as she told me how 3-4 times a day she just had to stop and cry. I hugged her for a long moment. Life is certainly cruel at times to good people. I enjoy moments like that when you can share a little compassion for a stranger’s trials and perhaps relieve even momentarily a little sorrow. We walked on down to the FJ and I introduced her to Dwane and Dave. She opened the corral and let us ford their creek on the way on up the jeep trail and to the state line about 2 miles south into a beautiful valley that Dave insisted on traversing to the upper end in a box canyon with the birch and aspen trees high above us.


View from the top of the canyon looking back down and North.


We finally made our way back down to the intersect point with the state line. We stood there briefly gauging the 6-700 foot climb were staring at, picture below, before starting up the brushy slope. Took awhile as it was starting to get pretty warm and there wasn’t much of a breeze on this east slope of the hills, but we made it to the high point through the brush and rocks in about a half hour.



View westerly from the top of the first ridge.


View from the top of the first ridge, looking back east at the end of our mountain leg being defferred.

Headed down into the first canyon we came upon one of the older milepoints.

Wish we'd re-scribed so it would legible in the picture. I'll have to confer with the BLM to see if that would be appropriate for the future.

Headed downhill towards Denio.

We walked a lot of sidehill, which I hate, another ridge or two and then down a finger to reach the valley floor where we’d left off months before. Saw a couple of deer and a heard of antelope, but no monster rack with which to claim the $2000 reward. Oh well. That filled in about 6 miles of a 12 mile segment between McDermitt and Denio that hits 8400 ft that we’re trying to work up nerve for. We’ll likely do it next spring as the second to last leg.